The 99 Problems with Jay-Z’s Use of “B----”

The celebrated rapper insists he’ll continue to use the word despite the arrival of his newborn baby girl, Blue Ivy Carter.

Margot Starbuck

When Jay-Z and wife Beyonce welcomed their first child, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, into the world on January 7, Jay-Z joined the ranks of hip-hop dads that include T.I. and Fat Joe. Just two days after Blue Ivy’s arrival, the proud papa released a new single, “Glory, Featuring Blue Ivy Carter,” making the baby—babbling alongside her dad—the youngest person ever credited on the U.S. Billboard charts. Jay-Z sings,

The most amazing feeling I feel
Words can't describe the feeling, for real
Baby I'll paint the sky blue
My most greatest creation was you.

As the final notes of “Glory” fade out, we hear Blue Ivy Carter’s newborn cries and coos. For older listeners, the sounds will recall Stevie Wonder’s 1976 hit “Isn’t She Lovely?” featuring Wonder’s own infant daughter Aisha.

It would all be very heartwarming were it not for the recent brouhaha in response to a January 13 post from WENN, announcing that Jay-Z had written a poem for Ivy Blue in which he denounced the sexism—namely using the word “b----” to refer to women—prevalent in so many of his lyrics. What the mighty Oprah Winfrey had failed to do in 2010, when she challenged Jay-Z on his derogatory sexist language when he appeared on her show, a tiny little baby had, reportedly, done.

WENN claims Jay-Z penned these paternal words for his offspring: "Before I got in the game, made a change, and got rich/I didn’t think hard about using the word bitch/I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it/Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it." It’s the kind of redemptive story that those of us who do not know even one single Jay-Z lyric desperately want to be true.

It’s still not time to cue the violin music, though, because in an interview with the New York Daily News, the rapper says the poem was a fake. His publicist confirmed that Jay-Z had not, in fact, vowed to drop the word “b----” from his lyrics. In other words, Jay-Z had been presented with a ripe opportunity to transform culture but failed to seize it. Katy Waldman, writing for Slate, continues to be doggedly resigned to the fact that rap music won’t lead society into a glorious new world in which women aren’t compared to canines. She wryly notes, “It does take some chutzpah to call the media’s bluff and actually pledge your continued allegiance to a demeaning swear word.” Though seemingly short on character, Jay-Z has got chutzpah in spades.

Admittedly, to relinquish the “b-word” would be more monumental for the rapper than it would be for most. New York magazine tabulated its usage in Jay-Z’s lyrics, reporting that he says “bitch” an average of 1.2 times per song. And while he’s been saying it and singing it and shouting it for years, the ugliness suddenly came into sharp focus when contrasted with the evident, intrinsic value of his newborn daughter. It was MSNBC’s Bob Trott who noted that Jay-Z missed the opportunity to “Dad up.”

If manning-up or womaning-up is to rise to the fullness of one’s office, then to Dad-up is to be the kind of father whom children deserve to have. To Dad-up is to nurture. To Dad-up is to protect. It is to speak the truth about the value and worth of others. Had Jay-Z seized the occasion to Dad-up, he would have communicated, to the world and to his daughter, that all women—including one day Blue Ivy herself—are worthy of respect. Sadly, he did neither.

Of course, Blue Ivy doesn’t have just one parent who’s a world-renowned professional communicator. And though I’d like nothing more than to believe that she’ll hear a different message from her mother, I’m not holding my breath. Several months ago, while preparing to lead a workshop with teenage girls about beauty and body image, I downloaded Beyonce’s recent “Party” video as a vehicle for discussing the images of women the media present to today’s teens. In it, Beyonce portrays a single young woman at a trailer park pool party, who coos, “I may be young, but I’m ready to give you all my love.” (It’s pretty clear from the context that she’s not talking about sending her boyfriend a Valentine.) And though the clip was the perfect illustration of the kinds of pressures girls face today around appearances, I didn’t show it to them. Though they had all seen it already, I simply couldn’t be party to the lie being told about the value of women.

Because they are storytellers with international platforms, it’s just too easy to point fingers at Beyonce and Jay-Z. But maybe it’s one of those three-fingers-pointing-back-at-me situations. For whether or not you or I ever appear on MTV music news, we all tell stories about the inherent value of those created in God’s image. If we never say one degrading word to our nieces or neighbors or daughters, they pick it up the same way Blue Ivy will: from the way we speak about women and men, and the ways we behave toward them.

Lots of folks who aren’t Christians have had their feathers ruffled by Jay-Z’s insistence on continuing to use “b----” in his lyrics. A particularly Christian response, to his evident failure to Dad-up as he begins fatherhood, though, might be to grieve the missed opportunity and to pray, in hope, that Jay-Z will seize the next one.

Christian Catfights: Why Women Leaders Don't Support Each Other

Insecurities can cause women to undermine each other.

Halee Gray Scott, guest blogger

Monica Holmes had the prettiest hair of any girl in the fifth grade. Her chestnut locks flowed effortlessly down her back, while my delicate, thin hair broke off around my shoulders. Even so, I didn’t envy her hair; I begrudged her braggadocio. No matter the context—recess, lunch, or a bathroom break—Monica couldn’t say enough about her hair to anyone who would listen. “I just love my dark-brown, beautiful hair. Don’t you too?”

By Christmas, I’d had enough. In the seat behind Monica during the annual showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, in the darkened multi-purpose room, I stealthily stuck a big wad of pink Bubble-Yum gum in a wide swath of Monica Holmes’s dark-brown, beautiful hair.

It wasn’t one of my finer moments. But lest you think my preadolescent behavior was an anomaly, a recent study from the University of Ottawa suggests otherwise. Intrasexual competition is widely demonstrated among males, so researchers Tracy Vaillancourt and A. Sharma wanted to know whether or not intrasexual competition existed among women, often believed to be nurturing, communicative, and more likely to rule by consensus. “I was convinced,” stated Vaillancourt, “having lived my life as a woman, that we’re not as pleasant as some people make us out to be.”

In the study, 40 women were put in a room in pairs, believing they were taking part in a discussion on female conflict. Then, “Conservative Kari” came in and called the research associate out of the room. Separately, another 46 women were paired together, but this time “Kari” became a bit more provocative in dress and presentation.

Predictably, Provocative Kari drew a number of negative reactions from the women, including gossiping, giving the woman a onceover, negative comments, or mockery. Conservative Kari was barely noticed. “This is not something that sort of happened,” said Vaillancourt, describing the reactions. “Ninety-seven percent of the women were inappropriate.”

Whether the women reacted negatively because they saw Provocative Kari as a rival or because they thought her outfit was inappropriate for an office setting is debatable. But Vaillancourt suggests that women are “intolerant” of “sexy” peers and use indirect aggression to slam potential rivals. Vaillancourt believes her study demonstrates that the bad behavior, i.e. “catfighting,” we see on shows like The Bachelor is not an isolated TV phenomenon—it’s a reality in our schools and workplaces.

But rivalry among females is not limited to sexuality. Sometimes our negative reactions towards other women are much more subtle. Anytime there is scarcity, there is a potential for derogatory attitudes that undermine the potential achievements of women, and nowhere is the principle of scarcity more at play than in Christian ministries and organizations.

According to a report published by the White House Project, a nonprofit promoting women in business and politics: “Although women constitute over a majority of churchgoers (60 percent), men continue to dominate leadership roles in the church,” with women making up only 15 percent of Protestant clergy.” So does the scarcity of leadership roles in Christian ministry and organizations lead to catfighting among Christian women?

Maybe. Given the enormous strides made by women in the past century, the lack of research on Christian women is appalling if not embarrassing. But the study I conducted last year among Christian men and women serving in Christian parachurch organizations points to, at a minimum, some relational tension between Christian women.

In contrast to the majority of studies of this kind, Christian women were perceived to be more “communal” than “successful leaders” or “successful female leaders.” But they were rated as less likely to demonstrate certain relationship-oriented qualities, including compassion, fairness, good listening skills, inclusiveness, intuitiveness, sociability, and understanding.

Further, women differed from successful leaders in every single category, rating lower in characteristics such as ambition, analytical ability, assertiveness, self-confidence, competence, independence, intelligence, considerate, encouraging, inspiring, and trustworthiness.

These results suggest, first, that there seems to be some sort of relational tension among Christian women. Whether women actually demonstrate less relational qualities or they exhibit qualities that undermine relational qualities is unclear. However, in previous studies, women have usually scored higher on relationship-oriented qualities than any other group. But in this case, the data seems to support Vaillancourt’s suspicion that women may not be as “pleasant” to one another as our reputation purports.

Second, Christian women don’t have high opinions of other Christian women. In layman’s terms, we don’t have each other’s back. In the Christian world, most of our attention has been focused on how men, as institutional gatekeepers, have prevented women from assuming leadership positions. But even we don’t see other women as having what it takes to be a successful leader. So how might that make us feel about Christian women leaders who defy that expectation? How would that attitude shape how female Christian leaders feel about other women?

In her book Reinventing Womanhood, Carolyn Heilbrun claimed that the number-one reason women failed to reach leadership positions was not because men kept them out, but rather because of the failure of women to bond. Women don’t support other women on the path to leadership, so when a woman does reach a position of influence, she does not bring other women along with her through mentoring or through encouraging the organization to accept more women leaders. “Women of achievement,” writes Heilbrun, “have become honorary men, having consented to be token women rather than women bonded with other women and supporting them.”

Our implicit views of Christian women are just as destructive as the explicit behavior of the women in Vaillancourt’s study. Our attitudes about other Christian women cause us to feel inadequate when someone defies our standard expectations, makes the road for the aspiring female Christian leader a long, difficult, and lonely road, and in some cases may cause the female leader to denigrate other women.

In this vicious cycle, Christian women—and, by extension, the church—lose every time. Only when we increase our expectations of women and purposefully seek to encourage one another, build up one another, help one another, and seek the good for each other (1 Thess. 5:11-14) can we begin to understand that our vision for the future of ministry by Christian women can be expanded by validating and supporting our sisters in Christ.

Marriage: Creating a Partnership, Not Reeling in a Catch

The old traditions of luring in a spouse still linger today.

Karen Swallow Prior

To all the single ladies:

Last week Groupon offered a ticket to lasting love (at a 76% discount!) by way of your own personal “boudoir photo shoot.” The ad proclaims:

The great Romantic painters had the same goal—to craft an image so beautiful that it would come to life and marry them. Increase your chances of turning images into love using the modern version of painting, photography . . .

The sample photo suggests that the way to transform “images into love” to is throw on some kitschy lingerie, splay yourself in the most awkward position imaginable on a bed, and fork over $95.00 for the picture.

The image might have gone from G-rated to R-rated, but the sentiment in this marketing campaign is strikingly similar to those of the conduct books popular around the eighteenth century. Such literature offered young ladies not only moral and domestic instruction, but also tips on how to attract the best husband. If you’ve read any Jane Austen, then you’ve encountered her satirical treatment of these works: priggish Mr. Collins reads passages from one popular conduct book to the captive Bennet girls, and the heroine of Emma tries to make a love-match by painting an “enhanced” portrait of her friend in hopes a gentleman will fall in love with the woman in the painting.

Since reading (as opposed, perhaps, to seeing) is believing, here are some samples from the original sources:

In his 1765 Sermons to Young Women, Rev. James Fordyce wrote:

Your best emblem, beloved, is the smiling form of peace, robed in white, and bearing a branch of olive … in a female we wish nothing to reign but love and tenderness….
A modest but animated mien, an air at once unaffected and noble, are doubtless circumstances of great attraction and delight.

Dr. John Gregory warns women in A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters of 1774:

The power of a fine woman over the hearts of men, of men of the finest parts, is even beyond what he conceives. They are sensible of the pleasing illusion, but they cannot, nor do they wish to dissolve it. But if she is determined to dispel the charm, it certainly is in her power: she may soon reduce the angel to a very ordinary girl.

Centuries of advancements for women separate Emma and the conduct books from the Groupon boudoir photo offer, yet they all convey the notion that if a woman can project the desired image—angelic in the eighteenth century, erotic in the twenty-first—she will succeed in her quest to catch a man.

When the basis of marriage was economic or political—as it has been for nearly all of human history—it made sense for a woman to direct her wiles toward making “a good catch.” Most times her very livelihood depended on it. But around the time these conduct books were being written, a major shift was taking place in the view of marriage, a shift that occurred through a newly emerging Christian understanding of marriage.

With the rise of Methodism and Evangelicalism in the eighteenth century came an emphasis on individual, rather than institutional, faith. Since the choice of a marriage partner greatly shapes one’s service to God, these eighteenth-century Christians promoted what is called the “companionate marriage” in place of the economically-motivated match. The companionate marriage stressed the importance of a spiritual and personal compatibility, which provides mutual support to each partner pursuing earthly ministry together.

The error of the materially-based marriage was dramatically portrayed in Samuel Richardson’s 1748 masterpiece Clarissa. Attempts by the heroine’s parents to force their daughter into an economically advantageous marriage result in a tragedy that moved readers to tears and significantly helped change attitudes about the basis for a good marriage match. The novel is a rare example in modern times of Christianity truly changing the culture rather than merely reacting to it.

Yet, the old models seem to lurk still, even beyond an inconsequential internet coupon. Consider The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Remember The Rules? And Christians are, sadly, not immune to this mindset. One Christian book on the topic sounds more like my husband’s recent fishing expedition than a biblical view of marriage. Another popular Christian book reveals all in the title: If Men are Like Buses, How Do I Catch One?

When a husband is something to “catch,” then a woman will employ all the traps and snares she can. In the eighteenth century, these were called “accomplishments”—skills in singing, drawing, dancing, painting—activities designed to draw a man’s attention but rarely, if ever, employed after the wedding day. In contrast, if a husband is considered as a companion in one’s lifelong service to God, then such wiles only work against an authentic foundation for marriage. The companionate marriage was the greatest shift in the view of marriage in all of human history and has extended well beyond the Christian context in which it started. Even so, there is no arena more in need now of an infusion of the Christian worldview than marriage. And I’m not talking about marriage roles here, or the irrelevant complementarian/egalitarian debate. I’m talking about something far more essential and transformative: the very foundation of the marriage partnership. The model of the companionate marriage is rooted in permanence, not performance and so sees a potential mate as a partner instead of prey. For the Christian, it’s not about catching a man, but of being yoked together for life and the consequences of that yoking for eternity.

Making the Most out of Mommy Blogging: The Woman Behind Money Saving Mom

How Crystal Paine made a ministry out of coupon clipping.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Crystal Paine is not your average mommy blogger. She doesn’t tell you about her day or post picture-perfect images of her lifestyle for you to envy. The homeschooling mom of three based in Kansas wants to help you make ends meet, to use many pieces of information to make choices about everyday purchases. With 4 million pageviews a month, she operates one of the most well-known coupon-clipping blogs in the country, and her new book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget (Gallery Books), wraps all of her practices up in one place.

Paine told Her.meneutics that her blogging began as any other site back in 2004. “I mentioned that I spent $17 on groceries that week, and people started asking, ‘How on earth did you do that?’ ” she said.

She created an online course that taught some basic strategies, such as how to create a meal plan and how to combine the manufacturers’ and store’s coupons for a double deal. “People were saying, ‘I need more practical information. I need you to break it down: what should I buy at the store this week? The goal was finding practical ways to save on groceries,” she said. So her blog turned into a mix of posts, including daily deals on products, tips for managing money, and ways to live more simply.

Paine, who attends an independent Baptist church with Southern Baptist leanings, sees her blog as a different kind of ministry model, one that helps people get down to the nitty-gritty details about their finances.

“I try not to use ‘Christianese’ so someone who is unchurched can’t catch on,” she said, noting that she points to her faith in various posts. “I see it as though I’m digging a well. I’m providing people help with food and clothing, helping them get out of debt, and then they’re open to hearing the gospel.”

On the surface, most of Paine’s posts show you how to get free samples, save a few bucks, or organize your life. But she says her readers glean bigger principles.

Her mantra is to find deals, stretch your money, live on less, save more, and give more.

“It’s not just about saving money but about having a purpose and a plan for your money,” Paine said. “If you don’t have a budget, you’re not going to know if you’re saving money in the first place.”

I asked her about studies that suggest people may end up spending more if they have a coupon. “It’s not a good deal if you can’t afford it,” she insists. “It’s not a good deal if you don’t need it. If it’s going to take up space in your home, don’t buy it.”

As with any financial site, her blog features several advertisements along the site. She sends money made from six ad spots (about $36,000 a year) to Compassion International and Show Hope, the adoption ministry singer Stephen Curtis Chapman created. All of the proceeds from her book will go to Compassion.

Still, she wrestles with the tension that her blog, while offering tips on where to save, has a string of advertisements that entice people to spend.

“You can’t just be a charity because you can’t afford to run it,” said Paine, who has a group of seven people working for her to keep the blog posting daily. “It’s hard, because I’m constantly helping my readers to remember that less is more, keep it simple.”

She keeps her own life so simple, in fact, that she wears the same six outfits over and over again with two pairs of shoes, a lifestyle carried over from her early years of marriage. She and her husband lived on a beans and rice budget to stay out of debt while he attended law school, keeping the household budget to $35 a week.

At 30 years old, Paine didn’t simply fall into Internet success. She didn’t attend college but spent three years studying how to run an Internet business. She had tried launching two web-based wedding supplies and book-selling businesses that flopped before Money Saving Mom eventually took off.

“When we were living on less than $12,000 a year, the goal was to stay out of debt, tithe 10 percent, and to survive,” she said. “More recently we’ve been in a situation where we can think not just about the best deal but more in terms of stewarding our money.”

With the uptick in income, she supports local businesses, Christian ministries, and encourages generosity whenever possible. A focus on simply saving money can encourage self-centeredness, said Laura Hartman, a religion professor at Augustana College and author of The Christian Consumer.

“Nowhere did Jesus say ‘Pinch your pennies.’ He says ‘Give to everyone who asks,’” Hartman said. “He applauds the widow who didn’t have enough to live on but gave it all away.”

Paine’s book focuses on tips and practices driven by spreadsheets and lists, getting down to the bare bones of priorities and goals. Like Dave Ramsey, who endorses Paine’s book, she shuns credit cards in favor of cash, insisting that cash-only results in less purchasing.

“The point of living frugally is to create a different kind of abundance, a spiritual abundance, an abundance of time, the ability to be festive without the burdens consumptions bring with it,” Hartman said.

In the final section of the book, Paine addresses contentment, a likely challenge for many who struggle with ways to make ends meet. Her book is less focused on an explicit theology of consumption, but it connects different parts of life to show how finances are intertwined with someone's lifestyle. For instance, she says that if your life is cluttered, you will probably leave your finances in a mess. Her philosophy of consumption is multi-faceted, one with many components that need to be addressed before a consumer can find true financial success.

Real Women Don't Text Back: How Women Fuel the Man-Boy Problem

Women will help single men grow up by refusing to play by their frat-boy standards.

Ruthie Dean, guest blogger

“Wanna grab a burrito 2nite?”

The melody of the Atlanta symphony’s instruments flowed through the auditorium. I didn’t have high expectations for dating at 23, but a text containing the word burrito wasn’t exactly what I had in mind (and with 1 hour notice). I liked him, but couldn’t escape the mental picture of showing up in a swanky outfit to an establishment where my entrance would be announced in a jubilee of “Welcome to Moe’s!”

The resounding question I hear from many single women today is: “Where have all the good men gone?”

Recently, several articles and statistics have shown that women are making history with career achievements, while men in increasing numbers are seemingly living in a prolonged state of adolescence, sitting back with their buddies and playing video games. Cultural observers note that men are not finding compelling reasons to grow up and marry. The former cultural standards of marriage for sex and children have changed drastically in the past 50 years as one-night stands are celebrated and single parenthood accepted.

And women are only fueling this behavior by excusing it.

The charged response to my husband’s blog post “Real Men Don’t Text”revealed women’s frustration with text messages, video games, and guys who still act like frat boys. Women posted the link on Facebook and wrote things like “Can I get an a-men?” “Men! Read This!” Others wrote in with stories about men who had asked them out through text, broke up with them through text, and asked them to have sex through text. Men were challenged to “grow a pair, pick up your Bible, turn off the video game, and pursue a woman.” But an interesting perspective arose from the clamor of “Amens!” Several men said that while “real men don’t text,” real women don’t text back. They knew, from experience, that a woman wasn’t worth pursuing if she engaged in a text relationship.

As women, I believe we in part perpetuate the man-boy problem by failing to hold the highest standards for ourselves, standards God desires for us. I recently heard a friend complaining that she couldn’t get Phillip* to call her. Two minutes later, she responded to his text, “Wanna watch a movie at my house?” in the affirmative. I’ve seen it too many times—brilliant, accomplished, God-fearing women making excuses for the players and the deadbeats and the guy who aren’t interested in anything more than sex. A lot of us have been there. We’re strong. We aren’t settling. And then we lose sight of what’s important and start “hanging out with” that guy. If a man can’t call to ask you on a date, he’s certainly not going to man-up and put a ring on your finger.

The arguably most dangerous way women are contributing to the man-boy problem is in regards to sex. Oftentimes, women, including Christians, go further physically than they want to, hoping that their prowess will help them ‘catch a man’ when in fact, the opposite happens. Sex gives men the benefits without the promise of commitment and fidelity. Sure, there won’t be as many guys lining up to date you, but marriage will be a different story. Keeping the highest sexual purity standards will ensure he isn’t dating you just because he likes seeing you naked—and keep his intentions honorable.

Another way women perpetuate the problem comes with the well-at-least-he’s-better-than _____ game. My hairdresser told me yesterday she had a hard time ending a relationship with a non-Christian, because the last Christian she dated had sent her pornographic text messages. Infuriating! However, standards should not be created based on the worst examples but instead on what God deems right.

Many women also fall prey to the lie that dating or hanging out with “that guy” does not hold future implications. I found this especially true in college when friends (and myself, ahem) would date Mr. Text or Mr. I Don’t Believe in Organized Religion believing we could end the relationships as soon as someone better came along. However many of my friends are still entangled with or damaged by these men—especially in cases where sex was involved. By dating or playing around with the wrong men, we are essentially displaying mistrust in God’s plan and harming ourselves when the right man comes along. Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church, challenges singles: “Become the right person the right person is looking for.” A woman who dates placeholder men is most likely not who “Mr. Right” is looking for.

I also must briefly mention the Savior card. “I can change him,” “I can save him,” or “I can help him” used to be my favorite excuse for why I dated the men I dated. However, it took me several failed relationships and many heartbreaks to see how we as humans cannot change people. God is in the business of changing and redeeming men’s hearts. We aren’t. Smothering a man with your prayers and church outings and leading conversations usually needs to stop for God to work. Lowering your standards will never change a man—and almost all of these “I can change him” situations result in him changing you.

The current dating scene is hard—but it is not hopeless. I know many women who waited patiently and are now walking arm in arm with honorable, godly men. In the meantime, keep pursuing your own interests and building God’s kingdom, whether or not a husband is on the horizon. If a man texts you, ask them nicely to call you next time and take you out for dinner.

I told many men I would not go horizontal with them until after the wedding bells. Most couldn’t run away fast enough. But one day, in strength and vulnerability, I explained my standards and asked a man to call me. And he hasn’t stopped since.


Ruthie Dean blogs at RuthieDean.com.

Should You Let Your Baby 'Cry It Out'? A Christian Response

My "attachment parenting" is rooted less in outcome-based goals and more in God's example.

Elrena Evans

When Psychology Today ran an article titled “Dangers of ‘Crying it Out,’” my response was, perhaps predictably, jaded. I read the article, then clicked over to one of my “Birth Clubs” on BabyCenter to watch the ensuing fun while I nursed my seven-month-old. It took a while for the drama to start—when I landed on the page, everyone was up in arms about extended-rear-facing versus forward-facing car seats—but before my daughter had finished nursing, someone had linked to the Psychology Today article. And the insults and name-calling began.

In case anyone is curious, the Mommy Wars are alive and well.

“Dangers of ‘Crying it Out’ ” didn't cover any earth-shattering territory. Written by Notre Dame psychologist Darcia Narvaez, the article described the psychological harm done by leaving an infant to cry to teach “self-soothing.” Mommy War veterans will recognize many of Narvaez's points as reminiscent of Penelope Leach's headline-making arguments of 2010, and William Sears's headline-making arguments that date back a lot longer. Their conclusion: Leaving a baby to “cry it out” increases their stress hormone cortisol, which can be toxic to the developing neurons in baby's brain. “Crying it out” can also undermine trust, impair self-regulation, and threaten lifelong health.

Narvaez credits behaviorist John Watson with launching the “crusade against affection” in his 1928 book Psychological Care of Infant and Child. So far-reaching were Watson's anti-affection endeavors that a government pamphlet from that time instructed new mothers to “stop [holding the baby] immediately if her arms feel tired,” as “the baby is never to inconvenience the adult.”

(As the mother of four, I find the idea of a baby never inconveniencing an adult hilarious.)

Fast-forward to today, Narvaez states, and we have a plethora of parenting theories and manuals that are just as damaging as Watson's. Specifically, “letting babies get distressed is a practice that can damage children and their relational capacities in many ways for the long term.”

Personally, I'm not a fan of “crying it out.” The science behind theories such as Narvaez's seems plausible. I also find it noteworthy that the Creator both designed babies' cries to be highly grating on adult ears, and gave mothers the ability to feed and comfort their children, feeding that renders the baby's crying impossible. On a practical level, our family has six people—four of whom are small children—sleeping in three bedrooms that are feet apart. Letting the baby “cry it out” would mean waking up the toddler, the preschooler, and the second-grader, which would lead to a lot more crying for all of us. None of this seems prudent or even necessary, when I have the means to comfort my baby within constant arm's reach.

But science, suspicion, and setting aside, at a fundamental level I think I am not supposed to leave my baby alone to cry, because God in his infinite mercy does not leave me alone to cry either.

“I cried out to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy mountain.” “In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me.” “Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.” Scripture paints the picture: we cry out to God, and he answers us. He delivers us from distress. He doesn't leave us bawling alone in the dark, reassuring us that this is, in fact, for our good. He doesn't pat our back with less frequency each night, timing his intervals, until we learn that our crying will not bring him back to us. He never leaves us in the first place. When we cry, he's right there.

I hold this picture of God in my mind when I comfort my crying baby. Do I sometimes wish I weren't so convicted, that I could leave her alone to “cry it out”? Absolutely. My daughter woke up every two hours last night, as she did the night before and the night before that. I continue to pick her up and nurse her in the hopes that someday all of this “nighttime parenting” will result in a child who happily sleeps through the night—as is true for my older children. But if someone who could see into the future told me that all this effort was for naught, that I'd be getting up with her every two hours for the rest of her childhood, I wouldn't stop. I'm not “attachment parenting” my children with an outcome in mind. I pick up my child when she cries because I believe it is the right thing to do.

Now, consciously deciding not to let my babies “cry it out” does not guarantee the crying will stop. Narvaez seems to believe that a lovingly-parented child will be blissfully content, all the time. Perhaps in her world this is possible; in mine, it is not. My baby cries, sometimes a lot. She cries when she gets her diaper changed. She cries when she is buckled into her car seat. She cries when I put her down to take a shower. Maybe Narvaez would argue that even that crying is unacceptable, and advise me not to diaper her, but practice elimination communication instead. Or don't put her in her car seat, which would in turn mandate that we homeschool, or don't take a shower.

But I draw a strong line between leaving a baby alone to cry because it “teaches” her something, and the different, one might say necessary, crying that is part of living in a community. My daughter was born into a family—she's the youngest of four—and as such there will be times when I cannot comfort her, because I am picking up Legos or taking someone to the potty. She may not like it, but I pray that all of the other, immediately answered cries will teach her that although I may not always be able to get to her immediately, I will always come for her as soon as I can. In time, I will introduce her to a Heavenly Father who is always there for her, immediately, every time she cries.

The Woman Who Shelters New York City's Trafficking Victims

Faith Huckel, founder and director of Restore NYC, took her social-work skills and a heap of prayer to launch the city's first and only long-term aftercare shelter for foreign-born trafficking victims.

Anna Broadway

When award-winning nonprofit leader Faith Huckel moved to New York City in 2003, she expected her time there to shape her career, but she thought that impact would come more from the social work graduate program she was entering than events at the United Nations headquarters nearby.

Then, just weeks into her studies, President George W. Bush addressed the UN, concluding a speech focused on the Middle East with a discussion of human trafficking, which he called a “modern-day form of slavery.” Four months later, The New York Times Magazine ran an 8,500-word cover story on sex trafficking in America that launched thousands of shocked conversations.

Speaking to me recently, Huckel recalled the typical reaction to the report: “What? This is happening here? No. Come on. That’s crazy.” But, for her, she said, curiosity became an “obsession.”

During previous social work in Philadelphia, Huckel, 33, had already seen the connection between poverty and commercial sex. “No one wakes up as a little girl one day and says, ‘I think I’m going to be a prostitute. That’s a great career for myself,’ ” she said. “Because of poverty, of gender oppression, of life situations and circumstances of being coerced, oftentimes forced, you are then forced into prostitution.”

Yet, like many Americans at the time, Huckel was stunned by what she learned about the scale of sex trafficking. “The more and more that I learned, the more broken I became for wanting to do something about this,” she said.

A few months later, that led to a conversation over dinner with the two women who would become her co-founders in Restore NYC, a 501©(3) that provides “long-term, holistic aftercare services” for “foreign-born survivors of sex trafficking.”

But her new-found knowledge also shaped her master's thesis at Columbia University. “I kept asking the question over and over again from the service provider perspective, ‘If there was one thing that New York City needed, what would be that one thing?’ ” she said. The consistent answer: long-term safe housing and aftercare services.

“It doesn’t matter how great law enforcement is, how great your laws are, how great your rate of rescue is,” Huckel said. “If you don’t have aftercare programs to deal with the women coming out, they’re just going to go right back in. “

In the fall of 2007, she and her co-founders held a small fundraiser that brought in $17,000, enough for Huckel to start part-time as Restore’s executive director. By 2009, they were able to hire a program director and start helping clients. Then in 2010, thanks to a large, anonymous donation, they were able to open New York City’s first safe house of its kind.

Last year, Huckel was chosen from more than 2,000 nominees for the Classy Awards’ Young Nonprofit Leader of the Year, which recognizes those whose work has “raised the bar for all.”

“Restore has been defined in a very quick period of time by other organizations in the city as providing absolutely excellent care of our clients,” she said, but Huckel takes little credit for that.

“Looking back … I know that I didn’t have and certainly still do not have the power to do what we’re doing on a day-to-day basis if it wasn’t for [God] working through me and through his strength,” she said.

As for many start-up entrepreneurs, the launch year was particularly difficult. “I refer to 2008 as the year from hell,” Huckel said. Though she had led the volunteer program at New York nonprofit Hope for New York for three years, she had no executive experience.

“I think my learning curve was off the charts,” she said. One of many things she had to learn by attempting it was grant writing. Huckel took a course, “then went home and wrote my first grant. That was pretty much how everything was really done that year,” she said. “If I didn’t know how to do it, I’d contact somebody. I’d read a book. I’d figure it out and give it a shot.”

A frequent contact was the God she believed had called her to start Restore. “There were some nights where I would go to bed and I would be so exhausted that I couldn’t even pray for myself,” she recalled. “It was like I didn’t even have any words. So what I would do is I would open up Psalms and I would just read the Psalms out loud. And I would say, ‘God, let this prayer of David be my prayer, because … I don’t even have the energy or the ability to even like come up with what I need to ask for.’”

After a while, she also asked seven close friends to pray for her one day a week. “I asked each one, ‘Would you be willing to pray for me on Monday? Would you be willing to pray for me on Tuesday?’ And I knew that every single day this person in my life that I loved and cared about and I knew they loved and cared about me and knew all the deepest and darkest complicated things that were going on in my heart at the time was praying for me.”

Friends also helped Huckel fight for boundaries. “It’s so easy for anyone in ministry, I think, to get so caught up in the work,” she said. “Your identity starts to become work, and then other people start to identify you as that as well, and it’s like you become … ‘the trafficking lady.’” But thanks to her core community (she attends Trinity Grace Church), she’s reminded constantly “that I am not Restore and Restore is not me. I am first and foremost a child of God.”

For an organization focused on restoring women’s sense of their humanity, that’s important. Though Restore’s website emphasizes the services offered, rather than the underlying spiritual motivation, Huckel said, “the foundation of what we’re doing is coming from a place of the love that Christ has shown us.”

That love not only exposes the darkness but gradually overcomes it. “You read the statistics and the books and the newspaper articles [about human trafficking] and you hear these horrifying cases,” Huckel acknowledged. “And these are incredibly dark and evil, horrifying pictures of the world.

“But we get to see the other side of that picture, which is the restoration and the hope that comes through women being empowered and women given the opportunity to be told a different story for their lives: You are loved, you are accepted, you are a child of God. And that is truly empowering. And that is what keeps most of the staff doing what they’re doing.”

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 and a regular contributor to Her.meneutics.

Why Women Leave the Church -- and Come Back Again

Jim Henderson's 'The Resignation of Eve' offers first-hand accounts (and no small amount of editorializing) of women struggling in local congregations.

Sharon Hodde Miller

In 1997, Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule published an important book titled Women’s Ways of Knowing, in which they explored how women understand themselves, their minds, and their relationship to knowledge, and considered whether the cognitive process of knowing is different between the genders.

From their research, the authors discerned five relationships to knowledge, the most basic being “Silence.” “Silent women” were often stranded in an elementary stage of knowing, having no personal voice with which to reflect on knowledge. Without a voice to represent their own perspectives of the world, these women were virtually dependent on the opinions of others.

Studies like this one demonstrate the power of having a voice. Expressing one’s self and feeling heard are uniquely human activities that give us confidence to grow and create. We see this human need even in Scripture, including in the psalmist’s statement, “There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard” (19:3).

The power of voice also composes the premise of Jim Henderson’s new book, The Resignation of Eve: What if Adam’s Rib Is No Longer Willing to be the Church’s Backbone? (BarnaBooks). Picking up on Barna Group’s recent findings about women exiting the church, Henderson (pastor, author of Jim and Casper Go to Church) brings the statistics to life with flesh-and-blood stories of evangelical women.

The book is divided into three major parts. In the first, Henderson presents the problem. The evangelical tradition’s neglect of women, he says, has produced different types of resignation in women: those who are “resigned to,” “resigned from,” or “re-signed to” the current state of the church. In the second and largest part, Henderson interviews women who belong to one of the three categories of resignation, offering his own analysis of their stories. In the third part, Henderson ends by speculating why women suffer ill treatment in their church communities and by challenging evangelical churches to do better.

On a foundational level, the vision of Henderson’s book is important. As Henderson notes, the topic of gender and the church is rarely marked by genuine listening. Opposing parties tend to approach the debate with preformed conclusions and generalizations, which produces little in the way of progress. A book in which women’s stories are allowed to “speak for themselves” (xix) is a welcome change.

It should here be noted that the Barna study, which Henderson cites at the outset, has been contested. After its publication, The Wall Street Journal ran a response from Rodney Stark and Byron Johnson in which both scholars discredited the study’s findings. They concluded that “across 38 years, there have been only small variations in church attendance, and Barna's reported 11 percentage-point decline in women's church attendance (to 44% from 55%) simply didn't happen.”

Whether or not Barna’s findings are legitimate, the church is still called to reach the millions of lost women in this world. It is therefore incumbent upon Christians to listen to the voices of women inside and outside the church if we are to make disciples and retain them.

And on this front, the stories gathered in The Resignation of Eve are invaluable. Readers will hear from complementarian women, egalitarian women, women who have been hurt by the church but continue to serve, and women who have left altogether. By reading these stories at face value, church leaders get a peek into the diverse lives of their female congregants. For leaders who love women and want to reach them, these stories will be a tremendous resource.

The book requires a caveat, however. Those who agree with Henderson’s unabashedly egalitarian views will love this book. Henderson’s belief in the value of women and their place in the church is palpable, so this book is likely to be cathartic for any woman who has ever felt limited by her gender.

Those who do not agree with Henderson will find this a tough read. Henderson’s treatment of complementarians is, in my opinion, the greatest weakness of this book. As mentioned, Henderson sets out to “let the stories speak for themselves, even when the women profiled arrived at different conclusions with which I personally disagreed.” But Henderson is not faithful to this promise. For example, when summarizing the stories of women who share his position, he expresses sentiments such as, “I have the utmost respect and admiration for her” (61), while commending another egalitarian woman as a “hero” (210).

The complementarian women in this book receive different treatment. Following each story, Henderson ends with a “My Take” in which he offers final reflections. Aside from the fact that this is a strange insertion in a book about the experiences of women, this section often psychologizes the stories of complementarians, speculating that they haven’t thought deeply enough about the topic (76) or that their position owes more to broken childhood experiences than honest theological reflection (35). Henderson even titled one complementarian woman’s story “Satisfied with the Status Quo.”

Although Henderson’s tone toward complementarian women carries an air of understanding, it wreaks more of paternalism than a genuine effort at respect. I suspect that Henderson did not intend this tone, but his generalizations about conservative evangelicals do little to carry us beyond the old trappings of this debate.

In this book, Henderson runs into the same problem that is facing feminists today: How does one advocate for women yet respectfully respond to those women who contest your very project? It’s a challenge that tests the mettle of one’s commitment to all women, and this book comes up short in that regard.

The church desperately needs to hear the voices of women. On that point, Henderson and I agree. I also love Henderson’s heart for women and the passion with which he advocates for them. Even so, this is a discussion we must continue to improve upon. The voices of women, all women, deserve an honest hearing.

The Best Christian Marriage Book You’ve Never Heard Of

Dwight and Margaret Kim Peterson's book offers advice for a realistic and positive marriage.

Gina Dalfonzo

On the shelf of your church’s bookstore, Are You Waiting for ‘The One’?  (InterVarsity), by Dwight N. and Margaret Kim Peterson, might look like any other Christian book on dating and marriage. Look a little harder.

The new book, subtitled “Cultivating Realistic, Positive Expectations for Christian Marriage,” is refreshingly different, captured in those two words realistic and positive. Instead of hard-and-fast statements about the One Best Biblical Way to Do Relationships, the Petersons offer a gentle, reasoned approach that allows room for Christian singles and couples to discover, within the context of faith, what works best in their own unique relationships.

The couple says the book was born out of a course they've taught for years at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. And they say the course has been as much of an education for them as for their students.

“Neither of us was really familiar with the large collection of Christian marriage literature out there,” Dwight, a professor of New Testament at Eastern, recently told me. When students started bringing in popular Christian relationship books for the couple to look at, “we were sort of . . .”

“Aghast,” supplies Margaret, an associate professor of theology. “Disappointed,” Dwight adds, “at their lack of depth and wisdom.” Many of the books, written by young Christian leaders who knew firsthand the contours of the current dating scene, tended to apply a “black and white, there must be an answer to everything” mindset that can lead to problems down the road, says Margaret.

The Petersons were inspired to write a book of their own, one that goes beyond the rigid gender roles that don’t always work as well as they are supposed to. “Some of [our students have] never seen two grownups in peaceful relationship,” says Margaret. And many of them have been raised with a “guard your heart” mentality that has prevented them from knowing how to build a friendship. “They have no tools, no clues, no habits of communication,” says Margaret. “All they have are a few clichés, and they don’t work.”

In many ways the Petersons have a traditional marriage (they married after Margaret lost her first husband, Hyung Goo Kim, to HIV/AIDS, an experience she has written about for Christianity Today), but theirs allows for flexibility as far as gender roles are concerned, due in part to sheer necessity: As a paraplegic, Dwight has certain limitations, and the two have had to figure out how to work with them. As Margaret puts it, “We had to cultivate a much more interactive dynamic in our home than we would have otherwise.”

But beyond that, they believe “there are richer . . . ways to live” than having a set of rules about what husband and wife are allowed to do. “Some people,” says Dwight, “fit into those [traditional] roles pretty comfortably. And then there are loads of people who don’t fit really easily into those rigid gender roles, and we don’t think they should have to. Why make them fit into a straitjacket that really ought not to be there?”

But how does the Petersons’ thinking accord with the Bible’s instructions about marriage? They maintain that it fits just fine—if one looks at Ephesians 5 and similar passages as a cooperative model, not simply a conflict-resolution model. Submission, Dwight explains, is often interpreted to mean “that the husband makes all the decisions.”

“Which right there,” Margaret jumps in, “assumes that the most important thing that happens in any family is decisions.”

“It makes it seem,” Dwight explains, “like Ephesians 5 is supposed to be a picture of what a marriage is like . . . when the husband and the wife are at each other’s throats.” He goes on, “Conflict is just scary. It’s scary to be in disagreement, intractable or not, with somebody you really love. What’s attractive about that sort of role-playing thing: It won’t last forever because he gets the last word.” Taken too far, this mentality makes it appear that Christian marriage’s most distinguishing factor is its “a tie-breaking mechanism” for dealing with conflict, and “you end up doing an end run around your conflict,” says Margaret. Instead, she and Dwight “seek consensus as something to aspire to and something to work towards. Let’s think about what it means to have it be win-win . . . to work together.”

While Dwight emphasizes that they don’t present themselves as “the one marriage for everyone to emulate,” they do try to show their students, both through their course and by example, “what peaceful working through challenges could look like.”

“One thing that has concerned us,” says Margaret, “is how little adult conversation many of these young people have ever had. They come so hungry, almost starved, for real conversation with a grownup. That makes us sad and kind of alarmed. . . . They don’t seem to get enough interaction with people who recognize the dangers and the downside to relationship.”

Another similar pitfall the Petersons see is for Christians to pretend that life in the church is perpetually rosy. The result is that problems like abuse and divorce are poorly handled, if at all.

“We talk a lot in our class about abuse,” says Margaret, “[partly because] nobody else is.” She recalls handing out a list of 17 warning signs of abuse in one class. “The next week, we got an eight-page essay.”

The student who wrote the essay had dated a boy in high school who had exhibited 13 of the 17 signs—and yet she didn’t know at the time she was being abused, because she had never heard the term defined. After the boy raped her, she blamed herself for being involved in sexual activity.

“She had no idea,” recalls Margaret, “that if he forces himself on you, it’s rape. Who’s taking care of these people?”

One final message the Petersons want to convey: While marriage is hard work, it isn’t just hard work. They want their students and their readers to know, “You can do it,” Dwight says. “It’s work—and you can do it.”

“You’ve got to work really hard to be an athlete,” Margaret says. “You’ve got to work really hard to be a musician. You do it because even the work is fun, at least some of the time. The process is something to relax into and engage in.”

One of the Petersons’ biggest goals is teaching students to “be more who they are and realize more of their potential in relationship.” Through their teaching and now through Are You Waiting for ‘The One’?, the Petersons are doing just that for a growing number of young Christians hungry for life-giving relationships.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog, and author of ‘Bring Her Down’: How the American Media Tried to Destroy Sarah Palin. She wrote “'Unwanted' Girls Defy Sexism in India,” “What the Herman Cain Case Reveals about Harassment,” "The Good Christian Girl: A Fable,” “The Lost Virtue of Courtesy,” and “Abstinence Is Not Rocket Science” "God Loves a Good Romance" for CT online, and “Guarding Your Marriage without Dissing Women,” “Bill Maher Slurs Sarah Palin, NOW Responds,” “The Social Network’s Women Problem,” "Facebook Envy on Valentine's Day," "What Are Wedding Vows For, Anyway?" "Why Sex Ruins TV Romances," and "Don't Think Pink" for Her.meneutics.

When the State Took Away My Life: North Carolina Grapples with Sterilization Practice

It all began just a mile down the road from my house.

Karen Swallow Prior

The small, rural Virginia county where I live is home to an infamous court case that resulted in “one of the most chilling statements” ever issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. That case, Buck vs. Bell, unleashed decades of forced sterilization on those deemed “unfit” across the United States.

Last week a taskforce appointed by the State of North Carolina recommended reparation payments of $50,000 to each surviving victim of the state’s involuntary sterilization program. The program ended in the 1970s, but incredibly, the laws remained on the books until 2003.

According to the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation website, “Between 1929 and 1974, an estimated 7,600 people were sterilized by choice, force or coercion under the authority of the N.C. Eugenics Board program.” Those targeted for sterilization in hopes of ridding the population of “inferior” genes included people who were sick, epileptic, “feeble-minded,” or otherwise disabled. At least 33 states had involuntary sterilization programs, but North Carolina was the only state that gave social workers the power to petition for the sterilization of members of the public, subject to approval by the state’s Eugenics Board. Over 70 percent of North Carolina’s victims were sterilized after 1945, when most other programs waned, and as of 2010, 2,944 victims were estimated to be living. Surviving victims will receive the reparation payment if the taskforce’s recommendation is approved by the state legislature. The victims include:

· Naomi Schenck, who married at 16 and had a miscarriage at 17. At the hospital, her husband gave permission for a D and C, but doctors sterilized her instead. She never had children.

· Elaine Riddick (pictured above), who was just 13 when she got pregnant after being raped. After giving birth to her only child 43 years ago, Riddick was cut open “like a hog” and sterilized after her illiterate grandmother was “bullied” into approving the procedure.

· Nial Ramirez, who was sterilized after having her daughter at 17 because she was told that if she had more children, her family would no longer receive public assistance. Ramirez says she was told at the time the procedure was reversible, but that was not so.

It all began just a mile down the road from my house, when a local case (designed to be a test case) went all the way to the Supreme Court. From there Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a reputed civil libertarian, wrote the decision containing his notorious (and factually incorrect) declaration about Carrie Buck and her family that “three generations of imbeciles is enough.” The case’s central researcher, Paul A. Lombardo, says the ruling is historical, “not only because of its factual inaccuracy, but because Holmes seems to turn his back on his reputation as a libertarian and champion of human rights.”

“Bad case makes bad law” is an old legal saying. Carrie Buck was forcibly sterilized for allegedly exhibiting the “defective” characteristics of feeble-mindedness (later disproven) and promiscuity (her out-of-wedlock pregnancy was the result of being raped by a member of her foster family, a matter never brought up in the trials). When Buck was freed from institutionalization, she married and remained so for 25 years until her husband died. She regretted not being able to have more children. Those who interviewed her for research later in life reported that she was of normal intelligence. She died in 1983 and was buried near the daughter whose short life had been the unwilling catalyst for so much human drama.

Involuntary sterilization programs were rooted in a eugenics movement based on Charles Darwin’s principles of natural selection. Eugenics is defined as selective breeding of humans and animals in order to “rid the population of characteristics deemed unfit by those administering the practice.” Steven Selden, author of Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America, explains that “the national eugenics movement was about altering the gene pool and eliminating people who spoke, looked, or behaved differently.” This usually meant the disabled (as the National Holocaust Museum shows) and often the poor. In the early 20th century, eugenics was seen by public welfare agencies, nonprofit institutions, and state governments as a “solution” to poverty and illegitimacy. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s eugenicist “Negro Project” is recognized as the model upon which Adolf Hitler built his “Final Solution.” The horrors revealed in Nazi Germany naturally called into question what had seemed before to be a logical, scientific approach to eliminating a good portion of human suffering. After World War II, eugenics programs fell out of favor.

Surely, the desire to prevent suffering is good. But eugenics attempts to eliminate human suffering by eliminating humans who suffer. Yet, the severest human “disabilities” usually aren’t the genetic kind, but are disabilities of character, mindset, and simple sin nature—the sort of things medicine will never be able to sterilize us from.

Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould acknowledges that sterilization programs are evidence that “a popular, quasi-scientific idea can be a powerful tool for injustice.” The irrefutable science of the past is but foolishness in the present. Yesterday’s undisputed mandate is today’s undisputed mistake. Just as the Scripture says, “There is a way that appears right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). The ill-founded eugenics movement demonstrates that “even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.”

We should try to ease human suffering. But good solutions will never come from science that's divorced from compassion, from government agencies separate from real communities, or from an understanding of the human condition apart from the Creator of all life.

The Untapped Potential of the At-Home Mom

With the right schedule, mothers can raise a family and pursue their career, too.

Suanne Camfield, guest blogger

Recently a friend of mine plopped down on the couch next to me and asked the question I get asked more than any other these days: “How’s it been since you’ve been back to work?”

Like always, I answered in two parts. First, from the part of me that spent eight years as an at-home mom, the part that has reemerged from under diapers and Sippy cups and found new life: “Good. It’s been really good.”

And second, from the part of me that has yet to figure out how to successfully manage my job, two elementary-age children, a full-time pastor husband who’s also in graduate school, life-giving friendships, and a sanity-keeping exercise routine without having an emotional breakdown over the fact that we haven’t had milk in two days or that no one has clean socks—the part that’s exhausted and overwhelmed: “But hard. It’s been really hard.”

The balance between “good” and “hard” is difficult for any woman, and downright daunting for women who have chosen to set aside our careers for a season to focus on our children, but who are now reentering the workforce. We long for the “good”—to use our gifts outside the home in a meaningful way (while contributing financially to the household). But we’re terrified of the “hard,” wondering if going back to work means forsaking the same family we gladly gave up work for to begin with.

The Center for Work Life Policy estimates that 31 percent of highly qualified women “off ramp”—voluntarily quit their jobs for a period of time—on average for 2.7 years. The study, which resulted in Sylvia Ann Hewitt’s bestselling book, Off Ramps and On Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success, hasn’t been without controversy. The term “highly qualified” is reserved for women with whom, statistically speaking, I wouldn’t fall in the same academic or professional category, nor would many women I know.

Yet the term on its own (“highly qualified”) characterizes most of the women I know: smart, college educated, capable, competent, gifted women who have chosen to push pause on their career, at least for a time, to meet the demands of raising a family. According to the U.S. Census Bureau Report, those who choose to fully step out of the workforce join the ranks of some 5.6 million at-home moms.

There does come a day, however, when many of these same women either want, or for financial reasons need, to reenter the workforce (usually when their last child enters school). But the obstacles posed by a traditional workplace, in conjunction with an admirable unwillingness among such “highly qualified women” to sacrifice their family’s needs, can seem insurmountable. The traditional workplace—40 hours per week, nine to five, with limited vacation—was designed in the industrial age, when the vast majority of workers focused solely on their jobs while their wives managed the home front. With 71 percent of mothers with children under 18 already in the workforce, that’s no longer the case. The limits of such an environment leave many capable women who want to go back to work afraid to even try.

The predicament is fairly new for women in the 21st century.

In a recent Huffington Post article, columnist Lisa Belkin describes her reaction to learning that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has the highest political office ever held by a woman, didn’t attempt to reenter the workforce until her five children were almost out of the house. Belkin ascribes Pelosi’s trajectory to a moment in history when women could raise their children, then delve into a career. She notes several influential women who, like Pelosi, “spent years on the slow career track or as a stay-at-home-mother, and came roaring back when their children were older.”

Today, the “slow career track,” while often the best decision for the entire family, is not without its disadvantages (however worth it) for the women who choose its path. In 2010, of the 31 percent of women who off-ramped, 73 percent who tried to return to the workforce reported it difficult to find a job. Those who did return lost 16 percent of their earning power, while 22 percent stepped down to a lower job title.

Some good news: Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are becoming increasingly popular, giving women today a few more options than Pelosi’s generation had. Studies show that employers who are willing to provide flexible schedules, including the amount of hours worked, the timeframe in which those hours are worked, as well as the place in which they’re worked, enjoy lower overhead, higher retention rates and have happier and more productive employees.

Less than two years ago, Compassion International, for example, piloted a home-sourcing program for their customer service center. They initially made the decision to lower their overhead (which they did), but in the process found the program increased morale, in large part because of the enormous benefits to families, in particular moms. Call center director Rich Van Eaton said that without the program, “We would have lost some of our very best employees.” The call center has plans to increase their home-based program while enthusiasm for flexibility seeps into other parts of the organization.

More than 2,000 years ago, Jesus broke with social traditions and opened his ministry to the active contribution of women, in ways that both brought them life and advanced the kingdom.

Today, many gifted women—moms—are wrestling with the overwhelming desire to actively contribute, or have dire financial needs in an historic moment deemed the Great Recession, but also see the incalculable value of getting their kids off the bus and making the 3pm soccer game. It’d be nice if the workplace, especially those over which Christians have influence, could be their partner rather than their opposition.

Suanne Camfield is a freelance writer, blog manager for fulfill.org and founding member of the Redbud Writers Guild. She lives in the Chicago area and works 32 flexible hours per week for InterVarsity Press. Read her blog, friend her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @SuanneCamfield.

'Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus’: To Adore or Abhor?

What we can take away from the viral video that elicited such visceral reactions.

Laura Ortberg Turner, guest blogger

I’m guessing at least 15 of your friends have posted Jefferson Bethke’s “Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus,” and maybe yet another 15 of your friends posted response pieces. Don’t worry: the phrase ‘false dichotomy’ will not appear anywhere in this article. And we will not discuss at length the merits of Christian spoken word as a subgenre (perhaps another time).

Bethke risks appearing supremely arrogant by claiming to love Jesus and hate religion—an arrogance of which, I must point out, I am as guilty as anyone. To separate Jesus from religion is to create a false dichotomy an untrue juxtaposition of two non-mutually exclusive concepts. Jesus did not come to abolish religion. He did not come to abolish the law. (Matthew 5:19) He came to do what he is still in the business of doing: to redeem all.

We do not get to separate ourselves from the Church, as Christians. We do not get to claim non-religiosity simply to fit in, or to feel better about ourselves. As a friend of mine put it, to say that you love Jesus but hate religion is akin to saying you love your best friend but hate his wife. That relationship will not last.

Making pronouncements about religion certainly isn’t new. When Anne Rice ‘quit’ Christianity back in 2007, she said, “It's simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.” How else are we to respond, except to carry on in our quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious ways. Buying into this false dichotomy—err, wrong-minded thinking doesn’t do anyone any good. It separates the individual from the group to which they belong in the name of Jesus Christ.

We aren’t required to check our brains at the door, but we are to work together – all of us – to be more loving, more compassionate, more humble in our theology and gracious in our spirits. We do not have to like every Christian to agree with them. But we are called to love one another, and we do so with the power of the one who came to this earth and died for our sins and has redeemed our small and glorious world.

Here’s the $64,000 question: What is religion?

Is it hypocrisy? By ‘religion,’ do we really mean the way of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Westboro Baptist Church? Because if so, we are in trouble.

Is it absurdity? Is it, like Bethke said, “putting perfume on a casket?” Is it legalism – “behavior modification, like a long list of chores?” Because if so, we are in a lot of trouble.

I’m guessing Bethke doesn’t actually hate religion. In fact, I would bet my last dollar that he loves it. As we are told in James, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” In fact, it sounds strikingly similar to where Bethke claims ‘religion’ falls short: “Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor/Tells single moms God doesn’t love them if they’ve ever had a divorce?”

Unfortunately, those things that make for nice rhymes rarely encompass the necessary nuance of a mysterious God, which is probably why most Christian music gets such a bad reputation. (Surely in all of this, Bethke’s most egregious crime was rhyming ‘invention’ and ‘infection,’ or perhaps ‘mention’ and ‘spectrum.’) Our theology is a rich and varied one, and I value that Bethke can freely express his views as much, as I cringe when I hear them reduced to such simplicity.

In all of this, Bethke has remained a picture of grace and humility. He has responded, with class to those of us who have been quick to criticize and condemn. What Bethke was really protesting, it would seem, is faith without works. Empty rhetoric and selfish thinking. Building testaments to our own greatness and abandoning the widow and the orphan. What we need now is not less religion, indeed, but more than ever.

Laura Ortberg Turner, a Westmont College graduate, is an admissions counselor at Fuller Theological Seminary. She blogs at An Ordinary Player in the Key of C.

'Miss Representation': How the Media Harms Both Women and Men

America's mainstream media plays a key role in women's under-representation in power and influence.

Morgan Feddes

It’s generally accepted (though not always acknowledged) that women are poorly portrayed in media. Filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom is particularly aware of this; when she first started pursuing an acting career at 28, an agent told her to lie about her age and keep her Stanford MBA off her resume. And as an adolescent, Newsom struggled with self-esteem issues and an eating disorder. Thus, when she became pregnant with a daughter, she began to wonder what pressures her child would face from the media as she grew up.

The result is Newsom’s first documentary, Miss Representation. The film’s premise is simple enough: How does the media’s presentation of women affect women’s representation (or, in many cases, under-representation) in positions of influence and power in America?

The short answer: Poorly.

Now, Newsom never discounts or denies the many advances American women have made in business and politics over the last century. But there is the underlying sense that women are currently in a degenerative, self-perpetuating cycle. The average teen spends 10 hours a day consuming some kind of media and sees at least 500 advertisements a day – advertisements that are generally Photoshopped, creating even more unrealistic expectations for the human body. The results are disturbing: 53 percent of 13-year-old girls have a negative body image, and by the time they turn 17, that number rises to 78 percent. A whopping 65 percent of women and girls have eating disorder behaviors.

But the most frightening part is the fact that there is no sign of a slowdown. Currently, U.S. women spend more money annually on beauty products than they do on education. Since women who self-objectify themselves are less likely to run for office or even vote, it’s largely this obsession with appearances, the film argues, that the U.S. ranks 90th in terms of women in national legislatures. At the current rate, it will take almost 500 years to reach gender parity in Congress.

And those few women who do make it to public positions of power are degraded by mainstream media. Discussions about high-ranking female journalists nearly always focus on their physicality, not on the content of their reports. Women in political office are far more likely to be described emotionally, generally with negative verbs. The result? Those few teen girls who aspire to political office have to deal with demeaning names and being called “ball busters” in the press. “We are teaching young women that their worth lies in their youth, their beauty, and their sexuality,” Newsom says. “Not in their capacity to lead.”

Throughout the film, Newsom does not ignore men – and she doesn’t just talk about men’s role in perpetuating the cycle, either. Newsom warns that girls are not the only ones vulnerable to falling into stereotyped roles. Teen boys are bombarded by just as many advertisements that depict strong, handsome, wealthy, powerful, and emotionally suppressed men who are generally portrayed as the center of the universe for the women around them.

In short, Newsom argues, it’s up to us – men and women alike – to take a stand. We need to demand better regulation of film and advertising industries’ depictions of women. As women, we need to reject the media’s portrayal of selfish, vindictive women and support each other in our career aspirations and in our self-esteem struggles. We need to find healthy ways for boys and men to express their emotions in ways that aren’t physically or psychologically harmful. We need to help our teens understand their inherent worth as individuals – not as objects to be primped and pressed into perfection, but as human beings with talents, with value, and with dignity.

This is not just a problem for the so-called secular world. These teen girls struggling with body image; these women with eating disorder behaviors; these people who feel their only worth is in their appearance are in our churches, too. Regardless of the debate over a woman’s role in ministry, all Christians should value the worth of the women around them. They are an inherent part of Christ’s church. Like men, they reflect the image of God. Like men, they are precious to him. And like men, they all have something to contribute to the church – something beyond their looks.

Morgan Feddes is Christianity Today's editorial resident.

How We Can Harness the New Domesticity Without Diminishing Women

Keeping house is part of God's work, too.

Rachel Stone

In a recent opinion piece for the Washington Post, Emily Matchar, who writes regularly on the phenomenon frequently called the ‘new domesticity,’ wonders whether the resurgence of interest in canning, knitting, and generally DIY-spirited homekeeping is not, in fact, regressive--a ‘step back’ for women. Homekeeping, and all the domestic arts, are a minefield in our culture, often thought of--and treated as--degrading and menial work. The more creative domestic arts--sewing clothes, preserving food--are enjoying renewed popularity, and while Matchar concedes the pleasure to be found in making for yourself that which you’d otherwise purchase, she’s suspicious: after all, domestic work is unpaid work, and in a culture where women still earn, on average, less than their male counterparts, celebrating the domestic arts as creative, liberating fun is, for her, potentially dangerous:

“If history is any lesson, my just-for-fun jar of jam could turn into my daughter’s chore, and eventually into my granddaughter’s “liberating” lobster strudel.”

For many within evangelicalism, the issue is further complicated by the ongoing debate on gender roles. Recently, this blog hosted a exchange between Owen Strachan and Laura Ortberg Turner on the respective roles of men and women in the home as a follow-up to Strachan’scontroversial blog post in which he declared “Dad Moms” (stay-at-home dads) a “man fail.” Many Christian resources on homemaking assign domestic work virtually exclusively to women; this, proponents of the view insist, is profoundly counter-cultural but is certainly “God’s way.” Proverbs 31 is frequently cited, with the emphasis heavy on the home crafts and light on the real-estate dealings. As Nancy Wilson writes in Praise Her in the Gates:

“Christian wives and mothers must see domesticity as their duty and calling, not as an option. Whether we turn to Proverbs 31 or [to Titus 2] it is clear in Scripture that domesticity is what women are called to and equipped for since creation.”

But what if a Christian perspective on domesticity is counter-cultural in a different way?

First, I don’t think that Scripture comes down clearly on the need for women to be the sole or primary keepers of the home--activities regarded by Strachan, Wilson, and others as essentially “male” or “female” (like laundry) are coded that way culturally--not Biblically. My husband and I canned fruit together as young marrieds, and while I cook most of our evening meals, he regularly makes breakfast crepes to rival any Parisian creperie and does most of the gardening.

Second, as Margaret Kim Peterson points out in her excellent book Keeping House, God is pictured in Scripture as ‘housekeeper’ of the cosmos (see Psalm 104); the repetitive nature of homekeeping is, for Peterson, like God’s work:

“[H]ousework is never ‘done in the same sense that gardening is never done or that God’s providential involvement in the world is never done.”

If God keeps house, then housekeeping is both worthwhile and loosened from gendered stereotypes.

Third, and mostly importantly, I’d venture to say that a truly Christian theology of keeping house has a different focus than either the ‘new’ domesticity or the old ‘Biblical’ housewifery: the whole point is to create a place for people to have “nurturance and security,” a place where people can “flourish in ways in which God desires people to flourish.” That provision and care begins, but doesn’t end, with the people with whom we live--and it’s not a job that belongs exclusively either to men or to women, but to every Christian.

This domesticity will look different in every family. My husband’s mom made her own everything, even mayonnaise; to my mom, home-made cake meant Duncan Hines as opposed to buying ready-made cakes at the bakery. My dad did (and still does) all of the laundry and cooked a fair share of the meals, too; my mom was (and is) more likely to keep on top of car maintenance and to do most of the driving on long trips, whereas in my husband’s family driving was clearly the province of the man. But my husband and I both grew up in homes where we were welcomed, sheltered, nourished, loved and where we experienced the outflowing of that love toward strangers and near-strangers in the form of Christian hospitality.

So is the new domesticity a ‘step back’? I don’t really know, and maybe I don’t really care. I, for one, enjoy knitting, sewing, cooking, and making my own yogurt; I like keeping an orderly house. But while I don’t expect everyone to keep house as I do, I refuse to believe that the work I do is less valuable because it’s unpaid or because it doesn’t command a high level of respect from others. What I do know is this: when we keep house, we do God’s work, and when we offer shelter and nourishment to others, we offer them to Christ.

The Kate Middleton Baby Watch, and Why We Shouldn't Participate

Well-meaning inquiries about pregnancies can cause more harm than good.

Courtney Reissig, guest blogger

If last year was the year of the Royal Wedding, this year is definitely set to be the year of the Royal Baby Watch. Virtually every tabloid is plastered with some variation of the news that the former Kate Middleton is pregnant, soon-to-be-pregnant, or unable to get pregnant. From speculation about her weight to rumors of pressure from the Queen to continue the royal line, everyone is on high alert to find out when Will and Kate will start their family. And with Middleton having just celebrated her 30th birthday, some royal-baby watchers are saying one of the most popular news items of 2012 will be the Duchess of Cambridge’s uterus.

The hype around a royal heir is carryover from the hype about the royal wedding—it just comes with the territory. But I feel for the girl. She can’t step outside without the media wondering if her slightly billowy shirt is disguising a growing belly, when in fact it’s probably comfortable attire perfect for running errands in. But is the obsession over Will and Kate’s hoped-for baby—and the general hype over celebrity babies— something we, as Christians, should be concerned about? Or, is it actually a bigger example of smaller, everyday conversations we have in our own churches?

It’s probably both.

Not long after a Christian couple gets married, questions about baby-making begin pouring in. I had been married a few weeks when I was asked, “So, when are you going to have a baby?” If you have been married for a few years, the questions get more direct: “You’ve been married a few years now. Isn’t it about time you started a family?” Or, “Don’t you just love your little nephew? I bet you can’t wait to have one of your own. . . .” If you already have kids, you might face a different set of statements, such as, “I bet Johnny can’t wait to have another little brother or sister”—before you’ve left the hospital with your newest addition.

Questions like these are well-meaning, and generally the heart behind them is right and biblical. As evangelical Christians, we are pro-life and pro-family, so it’s only normal that people would want a young couple to grow their family. But the problem with questions like these, and the ones the media is asking about Middleton, is they presume to know the couples in question. There is a difference between a dear friend asking you when you think you will be ready to start a family, and a virtual stranger asking the same question. The reality is, in our churches, we tend to be far too comfortable with inquiring about the personal lives of people we don’t really know.

I used to thoughtlessly ask couples I hardly knew when they wanted to have children, if they were trying, or even if they wanted kids. I assumed that if a couple was not pregnant, it was by choice, not necessity or circumstance. I thought that couples got pregnant quickly and with relative ease, so asking questions didn’t seem insensitive.

Then we had a miscarriage and subsequently struggled with infertility. Besides the pain we have faced related to this trial, my eyes have been opened to the fact that the road to pregnancy is not always an easy or a quick one.

It is estimated that 25 percent of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage. It is also estimated that 6.1 million American couples face infertility in some capacity. This doesn’t include the countless couples who have lost children through stillbirth, failed adoptions, in early infancy, or as young children. Many of those couples are in our churches every Sunday grieving silently as other couples bring with them happy, healthy babies.

You never really know where people are. I’ve seen people ask a woman when she was going to add another child to her bunch, only to find out later that she had miscarried a week earlier. She and her husband were trying; it just wasn’t public information. We tend to be really comfortable with asking couples when they might want to have children, but we tend be unaware of the fact that these questions might bring pain rather than encouragement. Unless we are invested in the lives of young couples in our churches, we don’t know about their circumstances any more than we know about Middleton’s.

Of course, the answer is not an end to all pregnancy questions. Children are a gift from the Lord and should be welcomed and celebrated. One of the things we often fail to embrace when we ask such questions is that conception is not a manmade invention. Even the most fertile couple in the world can “plan” their family only to be met with a little “surprise” earlier than they had scheduled. God is the author of life, an oft-forgotten concept in our zeal for new children. But as Christians, our questions should always be laced with sensitivity and, more often than is true, restraint. Thinking through your questions before you ask them can bring a wealth of grace and encouragement to a couple who might be facing infertility or the loss of a child.

Kate Middleton is probably not going to be a member of your local church anytime soon (or ever), but she is a person. And as much as we all want to see a chubby-faced British baby in the next nine months, no amount of speculation will speed up that process. Sure, we can be excited when the day finally does come. But let’s be careful that our excitement doesn’t turn into invasion of privacy, because in all honesty, it’s not really our business anyway.

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

Learning from Tim Tebow about Workplace Evangelism

Why we all could stand to do a bit more Tebowing around the office.

Alicia Cohn

I can’t claim to be a football fan, but this season is the closest I’ve come to being one. This Saturday I’ll be glued to the playoff game between the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots, rooting for Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow.

Last month, three Long Island students were suspended for "Tebowing" — mimicking Tebow's signature one-knee kneel — in the school hallways. According to the school, the sheer number of students who would mimic the move created "a safety hazard." This says a lot about Tebow’s status in pop culture, as does the fact that name-checking Tebow has become a common practice in contexts as diverse as GOP presidential debates to progressive talk radio.

But Tebow’s name is synonymous with more than just football (and stunning fourth-quarter wins). His signature move started as a bow to God. Tebow himself defines “Tebowing” as “to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different.”

As Tebowing and Tebow himself have exploded into a nearly ubiquitous pop culture reference, he has attracted plenty of criticism, ranging from the ignorant to the outrageous, with conclusions about the larger meaning of the phenomenon ranging from bullying to unwise to maddening to sacrilegious.

I had a totally different reaction to the Tebow phenomenon: conviction.

Christians who aren't in the public spotlight might be tempted to dismiss Tebow as an exaggerated witness: maybe he is among the few in the kingdom “called” to start an Internet meme or command the attention of a football stadium.

But it’s not true. In fact, it's every Christian's job to witness to the grace that saves, while gaining attention for that witness is no more our job than bestowing that salvation.

At the end of the day, Tebow is a guy doing his job while also going out of his way to make it clear that he is a Christian. And that is something all Christians can and should emulate.

Tebow is brave. Although he’s not the only Christian in the NFL, it is not a workplace known for incorporating Jesus. Tebow created that space, and made it a place of praise. And he started long before he played for the NFL or the Broncos reached the playoffs.

Often, it takes courage and conviction to demonstrate Christ in the workplace. I can't imagine "Tebowing" every time I score a professional achievement in my office, but I can imagine blessing my food in public, refusing to make a decision without praying first, and talking to coworkers about my faith when the timing is appropriate.

Like Tebow’s, most jobs, whether in a secular or Christian workplace, involve the daily taking or giving of credit. Almost every job provides the chance to graciously interact with fellow human beings.

And if you’re crediting yourself, as I did, for being a fairly conscientious coworker, next ask yourself: Who ultimately gets the credit for that? Do observers see that you are motivated by love of the God who created work in the first place? Or do they just see you?

There are very few jobs that require face paint as a matter of routine, but there are many that offer the chance for pins or jewelry or prints on the desk. (Get creative--God is!) It is so much easier to allow others to attribute goodness where they may, but to direct attention back to Christ — even attention we may not know we receive — might mean making a conscious effort not to “pass” for a non-Christian.

That kind of witness is transformational and expansive. It can mobilize an entire team and inspire someone like me to break out of nearly three decades of happy sports ignorance and turn on the TV. Or it can simply inspire someone to ask a question, pick up a dusty Bible, or reconsider those “religious freaks.”

True, just because everybody's talking about something (or someone like Tebow) doesn't mean it's having an impact. But I believe the very presence of God, in pop culture and elsewhere, brings unplanned benefits. For example, John 3:16 became the top Google search following Sunday night’s surprise overtime win. As Tebow said of the Tebowing phenomenon, "It's not my job to see people's reasons behind it. . . . At least it's being talked about, and that's a cool thing.”

There’s a lot to respect about a Christian unafraid to make everything about him represent Christ, so that whether there is one eye on him or a thousand, not one can fail to notice, whether they react with hatred or adulation or interest.

That's the kind of impact I want to have on my workplace, but probably don't.

Our culture places football in a dangerous place of idolatry, but even if Tebow stumbles in the future (because he is, after all, human), he has done a good thing by using his pedestal to point up toward Jesus. And you know what? Jesus can complete that pass, once someone throws a witness out there. I don’t make any claims--that’s not my job anymore than Tebow’s — but no human could have planned the fact that on Sunday, Tebow threw for 316 yards and set a postseason record averaging 31.6 yards per completion.

There is something that the Bible indicates God is more interested in than helping win a football game: calling his people back to himself.

So welcome to popular culture, Mr. Tebow. I’m glad we both play for God’s team.

When Higher Education Is Neither: Why Should I Earn a Degree?

Thoughts for adults considering returning to college in 2012.

Michelle Van Loon

I recently found myself at a dining table full of accomplished acquaintances, and the conversation wandered to the subject of alma maters.

“Where did you go to college, Michelle?”

I hesitated before answering: “I didn’t finish college.” Among the highly educated crowd round the table, there were a couple of seconds where I felt like I’d showed up at prom wearing sweats and a bandanna.

The conversation drifted to other topics, but a woman sitting next to me noted my momentary discomfort. “Why don’t you go back to school and finish your degree?”

It is a question to which many adults respond in the affirmative each year. Forty-seven percent of new and returning students are 25 or older, according to The Association for Nontraditional Students in Higher Education. Most adults have packed-full lives, and returning to the classroom means reprioritizing family, work, and church or community commitments. In addition, returning students need to figure out how to pay for school. The cost of higher education has risen in recent years at more than twice the average rate of inflation. Though many are questioning whether the price tag of a college education is worth the economic benefit, according to a recent Pew study 86 percent of college graduates surveyed felt that their education was a good investment.

Many adults head back to school including job training, preparation for a new career, or personal enrichment. I have been dancing with the question of returning to college for most of my adult life.

I left a state university at the end of my sophomore year, unsure how to proceed after I was told there was not a space for me in the major area into which I’d hoped to transfer. I came home in search of Plan B. That plan included an unexpected romance, followed by a wedding at age 20. Shortly after I got married, I landed a staff position at a community college, and then eventually another staff job at a private four-year college.

My husband and many coworkers encouraged me to consider finishing college during those years. I could have attended classes at a discounted cost. Instead, I chose to focus on freelance writing, which led to a lot of freelance (and mostly free) learning from the writing books and magazines on the shelves of my local library. These how-to guides supplemented the protein-rich diet of theology, Christian living, and Bible study materials that filled out my regular reading list.

We chose to homeschool our three children, which gave our household a decidedly academic personality. Classics read aloud formed the backbone of our children’s education and enriched me as well; I’d never read Dickens, Hugo, Defoe, or Shakespeare during my own K-12 years.

The churches we’ve attended are typical of many evangelical congregations when it comes to education: They are far better at encouraging members to love God heart, soul, and strength than they are at encouraging discipleship of the mind. My personal lifelong learning habits of reading broadly and writing reflectively have helped remedy this deficiency.

I found myself back on staff at an evangelical college and seminary when my youngest son finished high school. There it was again, a new variation of the Question, being asked of me by various coworkers and a few students: “Why don’t you finish college, and go on for a divinity degree? You’re certainly bright enough, and you’d be in good company,” they told me. “There are lots of women your age enrolled here.”

I eventually left the job, but there is a part of me that still wonders if I should pursue my college education. Many of the people I respect most in my life possess advanced degrees. There are teaching and leadership doors I would love to enter, but many are closed to me without a degree key to open them. Those lingering regrets, along with a nagging sense that I may have shortcircuited the opportunities presented me by God, are the parts of me that squirm when people ask where I attended college.

The question of vocation is embedded in the college decision process for most adults. A high-school senior trying to decide on a major is a gentler version of a mature adult’s restless query: “How am I to best serve God with the gifts, talents, and experience he has given me?”

Educator Parker Palmer said, “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” The classroom lost some of its appeal for me as I sensed God’s pleasure when I mailed my first freelance article attempt to a tiny magazine three decades ago. When I sold the article, I realized that I didn’t need a degree in order to pursue the particular vocation he designed for me. I also quickly discovered that the only way I’d be able to excel in that vocation was to live a learner’s life.

Learning happens in classrooms, labs, or lecture halls, but God never intended these to be the only places where faith-filled intellectual discipleship happens. God calls us to transform knowledge into wisdom throughout our lives. In light of the fact that only half of 2011 college graduates said they needed their degree for their first job, a degree may not be the best use of a learner’s time, talents, and finances.

Still, an education always is.

Grieving a Lost Child

In the aftermath of my miscarriage, I cling to the promise of new life.

Cameron Dezen Hammon, guest blogger

I inherited the herb garden when we bought our townhouse and quickly learned that it’s virtually impossible to kill rosemary. I’ll prune or trim once a year—maybe—but the truth is it grows on its own—except for one patch of earth between the jasmine and the indestructible citrus tree. The patch gets plenty of sun, and the same amount of attention (or lack thereof) as the rest of the garden, and yet it yields nothing.

Our wedding anniversary is November 2. I love cut flowers, and by mid-October I’m dropping hints. My husband almost always comes through, so each year after the store-bought flowers have wilted, I lay them in the garden over that barren patch of ground, and hope something will grow.

This November, the week before our ninth wedding anniversary, I had a miscarriage. For weeks my body held onto the life we had created, refusing to believe, as did my mind, that it wasn’t a life. So on the advice of my doctor I made an appointment for a “D&C,” as it appeared I wasn’t going to “pass” the baby on my own, or what a nurse casually referred to as the “evidence of conception.”

I was at a writer’s retreat in the Texas Hill Country in September when I realized I was late. For two years the months had come and gone and we wondered if we'd ever get pregnant again (our daughter was born in 2006). I didn’t believe it. I checked and rechecked the dates, then waited another week before casually adding a pregnancy test to my grocery list. When I finally took the test, three actually, each one revealed the same pink plus sign, shadowy like an impressionist watercolor.

I made an appointment for an ultrasound; it was early, 5 weeks 6 days. The bubbly ultrasound technician printed a little snapshot with the word "baby!" typed beside what looked like a white pea cozied up to the wall of my uterus. For a second I'd seen the flicker of a heartbeat, the technician had seen it too, but a moment later it was gone. “Nothing to worry about,” she assured me, “it’s so tiny! Come back in two weeks just to be sure.” “June 12,” my doctor announced later in her office, less enthusiastically, “—if everything goes well.” I left the office that day in tears of joy, clutching the little photo. Later, as I handed it to my husband he swelled with pride, gazing out the window at the garden he exclaimed, "We made a person!"

When you miscarry, people around you may gently insist that it wasn't a person at all. Maybe it’ll hurt less if we don't characterize this loss as a death. After all it was only just forming, just beginning. We have no memories together, no favorite restaurants or movies, no school art projects to weep over. Perhaps it's easier if we just shake it off and keep trying. "Don't worry," people say, "You'll get pregnant again. You'll see."

It’s like telling a widow she’ll re-marry; it may be true, we hope it’s true, but right now all she can think about is the love she lost. Right now, I'm thinking about my child. The one whose DNA, even at 6 weeks, already determined the color of her eyes or the way he would hold a baseball bat. It connected us a thousand years into our past and a thousand years into our future, like a blueprint for a person—one who will never be repeated, never recreated. I’m thinking about my son, or daughter, the precious one whose brief life was ordained before the earth’s framework was laid, who passed so quickly and quietly from hope to eternity, but never made the pit stop here, with us, in this rocky and dry world.

I had the D&C in the same hospital, across the hallway, from where I delivered my daughter. In the recovery room I told this to the nurse hovering over me. "Was it a boy?" she asked. Shocked by her question and still drugged, I failed to answer. "It was probably too early to tell," she mumbled while adjusting my pillow, as if comforting herself.

I told a friend about my miscarriage, and that night a bouquet of wildflowers arrived on my doorstep. I set them next to the roses my husband gave me for our anniversary. For days I watched them bloom and open together, the berries mingling with the daisies, wrapped around the red and pink roses. I watched them brown and wilt in equal measure, scattering petals and pollen on the glass table until it was time to lay the flowers in the garden.

As the first jasmine of the season stretches open, and the rosemary releases its antiseptic balm, I scatter my flowers and pray: I pray that these flowers, evidence of our joy and pain, will draw life out of this earth. I squeeze my eyes shut and picture the miracle; life wriggling, writhing, and bursting forth. I believe that out of this loss and grief, new life is being formed. Life that will one day rise again.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Cameron Dezen Hammon is a worship pastor and songwriter and lives in Houston, Texas with her husband, daughter and cat named Steve. She blogs at HipsterChristianHousewife.blogspot.com.

Getting to the Root of Female Masturbation

And the surprising role the church can play in helping women curb addiction to it.

Marlena Graves

Angela* sits down in my office. After a long conversation about love and God and concerns over family and employment after graduation, she falls silent. I sense she is weighing whether or not to continue the conversation. Then, in a burst of bravado, she plows through her reservations and blurts out: “I struggle with masturbation.”

Earlier this semester, Jasmine*, another student, asked me to mentor her. In our first meeting, she revealed that she has struggled with masturbation since junior high but has managed not to masturbate for two years.

Angela has been sexually active and comes from a family that professes to be Christian but is inundated with perversion. Jasmine, on the other hand, appears to be the “perfect” Christian girl, ministering alongside her father (the pastor of her church) and her mother. Her family appears to be relatively healthy. Jasmine has not been sexually active with another person.

These two lovely young women, from distinctly different backgrounds, seek to be faithful followers of Jesus. For them, and I imagine other women, masturbation is about much more than sheer pleasure.

Do we Christians make much ado about nothing when it comes to masturbation? Many of the college students I work with wonder whether it is a categorical sin, a harmless way to relieve sexual tension and stress, or something in between. Opinions vary among Christian leaders. In an e-booklet aimed at men, Mark Driscoll doesn’t mince any words about masturbation. The Mars Hill pastor states:

What I am not counting as masturbation is the manual stimulation between married people whereby a husband and wife enjoy pleasuring one another's genitals, as taught in the Scriptures, either orally (Song 2:3; 4:12) or with their hands (Song 2:6). I am also not classifying as masturbation self-stimulation done with the blessing and in the presence of one's spouse….What I am referring to by masturbation is self-pleasuring done in isolation that is usually also accompanied with unbiblical lust.

If masturbation is done alone and accompanied by lust, then it is a sin, Driscoll maintains. Focus on the Family takes a less direct angle. They state:

The Bible never directly addresses it, and Christian leaders differ widely in their understanding of its spiritual and moral implications. . . . This is an area where we have to be careful about laying down hard and fast rules or making definitive statements about the mind of God. . . it seems to us that there's little to be gained by labeling the act of masturbation itself a ‘sin.’ In fact, in some ways, we think it misses the point.

Focus goes on to say that “sex . . . isn’t intended to be ‘all about me.’ From first to last, it’s designed to function as part of the give-and-take of an interpersonal relationship.”

While they take different tacks, both Driscoll and Focus point to something true about human sexuality and thus about masturbation: Sexuality is designed for relationship. Masturbation, in contrast, most often isolates and drives a person away from real relating. But what about women like Angela and Jasmine who habitually masturbate? What response might the church offer them?

To understand the need that masturbation meets for many Christian women, I talked with Jenny, a counselor at the university where I work. Citing the work of Marnie C. Ferree, a leading sex addiction therapist, Jenny confirmed that female masturbation is often (though not always) about more than pleasure: It’s part of a sex addiction that results from disordered attachment. She says:

Women who masturbate are often using it to self-soothe in response to negative emotions like feeling undesired, unwanted . . . I know women who struggle with masturbation because they fantasize about being wanted. If they were in a sexual relationship in the past (even if it didn't include intercourse), they were awakened to how their bodies can feel, and they masturbate to rekindle the feeling of being wanted by that man or by any man in general. It helps them fight the loneliness of not being in a relationship. For other women, it's about sexual curiosity. They heard or saw something that made them curious, so they experimented with their bodies. They may also have experienced touch during play with friends that made them curious, or they have been abused.

About 13 percent of Jenny’s caseload consists of female students who seek freedom from addiction to masturbation.

Whether or not masturbation is a categorical sin, it is certainly something that produces shame in Angela and Jasmine—shame from which they seek deliverance. And if masturbation is often about more than pleasure—if it’s at root about intimacy and healthy attachment—I believe the Christian community can help women like Angela and Jasmine break free.

Like all of us, these women need places where they can develop intimate nonsexual friendships and also healthy ways of coping with the inevitable stresses of life. They need places where they’re known, loved, and belong—places where there’s no need to put on masks or put up walls. They need safe places to be whether in sickness or in health.

In my experience as a church leader and a staff member at a Christian university, I’ve observed that wherever there is freedom to safely seek help while being honest about pain, temptation and curiosity, and wherever people feel welcomed and wanted, there is receptivity to transforming truth. Herein lies fertile ground for transformation.

As Bonhoeffer notes in Life Together, “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself. . . . He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation.”

When our Christian communities are sanctuaries of hope and hospitality brimming with grace and truth, these burdened women who struggle with masturbation and other disordered attachments have a higher chance of running into Jesus and real flourishing. I’ve seen it happen.

*Stories used with permission; names are changed to protect identities.

Why 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' Is Hurting Women

Lisbeth Salander is less a female role model than a projection of a base male fantasy.

Karen Swallow Prior

My first encounter with Lisbeth Salander was a Facebook status. In case you’ve been under a rock for a while, Salander is the heroine of the new film based on the New York Times best-selling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by the late Swedish author Steig Larsson. The Facebook status had a young woman reading the book, proclaiming her own likeness to Salander. My immediate reaction, though I knew nothing at that point about the book or the character, was “uh oh”— for wannabes seldom want the right be.

I didn’t add Dragon to my already long reading list, but the recent release of the U.S. film adaptation offered a promising girls’ night out after a long bout of end-of-semester grading. Promise delivered. The movie was entertaining, if dark and rough, but not one I’d see again. To me, the most intriguing part of the story was Salander, who apparently has ignited a new obsession among moviegoers now joining longtime fans of the books. One website has compiled a lengthy list of the contradictory descriptions of Salander—ranging from hero to anti-heroine, from interesting to terrifying—proving her to be a kind of Rorschach test of cultural icons. The trendy clothing chain H&M has even announced a new “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” line. Clearly, the character the The New Yorker touts as a new kind of heroine is catching on.

And that’s a shame.

For anyone who’s unfamiliar with Salander, here’s the lowdown. (Note, this isn’t a film review and not having read the book, I offer analysis based only on the film.) Salander is an anorexic, pierced and tattooed, 20-something cyberpunk and ward of the state (having been declared mentally incompetent) who turns her hacking skills and photographic memory into adventurous private investigation gigs. A female Byronic hero haunted by a mysterious past, Salander is targeted by prowlers of the present, including the guardian who brutally rapes her, an experience she marks with one more addition to the sundry badges of physical and emotional wounds her body bears.

The film’s prolonged rape scene and that of her swift and sure revenge have earned the film criticism and the loss of potential viewers, including women I know: reading about sexual violence is very different from seeing it acted out. To me, the sex scenes in which Salander was a willing participant seemed more unnecessarily pornographic. This confirms my evaluation of Salander as less a role model for women and more the projection of a base male fantasy. Many men would be only too happy for women to emulate Lisbeth Salander.

She has the smarts and independence men increasingly expect in a post-feminist world, makes a great work partner, stitches up a bullet hole with vodka and dental floss, rides a motorcycle, initiates sex (and does girls, too), makes breakfast the morning after, brings herself to orgasm while her partner lies back and thinks about work—all the while staying (largely) emotionally unattached. She’s essentially a breasted boy.

This is not to say that Salander is not an interesting and believable character worthy of redemption. She is. Her story is set in a thoroughly modern and secularized European society, one in which the Christian belief of the male protagonist’s daughter stretches his liberal tolerance to its limits. Such a cultural setting—one that lacks any rootedness in religious belief and is haunted by its Nazi past—joined with Lisbeth’s own personal past, haunted by ghosts of her own, makes her emotional detachment and pan-sexuality both believable and understandable. With her independence, intelligence, resourcefulness, financial savvy, and vulnerability beneath it all, Salander might even be described as a pagan Proverbs 31 woman. But this doesn’t make her a heroine worth emulating.

I’m not saying Salander (or the book or the movie) should be boycotted, rallied against, or tarred and feathered. As Christians, we too often fall into the twin traps of demonization or idolization. In the case of Dragon, neither is correct. I don’t propose replacing Lisbeth Salander with Elsie Dinsmore, the dreadfully saintly heroine of the 19th century children’s book series. Unlike Dinsmore, there are people in the world like Salander—tough on the outside, wounded on the inside—who need neither to be put on a pedestal nor pushed away. People who need the love of Christ.

People like someone dear to me. While one young friend of mine claims a naïve and ill-founded semblance to Salander, another friend is in fact a great deal like her—and this she doesn’t wannabe. For many years, I’ve watched this friend undergo self-injury, sexual victimization, sexual deviancy, drug addiction, institutionalization, and the occasional come-to-Jesus moment. Her likeness to Salander (particularly as played by Rooney Mara in the American film) is so uncanny, I can’t help seeing in the character the friend I have tried to help.

And in seeing this—in seeing someone I love in a cultural idol—I am reminded that all around us, in the real world, real people lurk beneath exterior layers of facade. Whether those exteriors make us look more like Elsie Dinsmore or Lisbeth Salander (or, more likely, somewhere in between), they—we—are all in need of being loved and accepted for who we are, not demonized or worshiped for who we appear to be.

There’s only one pedestal that anyone worthy was ever placed upon, and that pedestal wasn’t comprised of a silver screen or a bestsellers list or a Facebook status, but of a mere plank and a crossbeam.

A Facebook Skeptic? News Flash: You Are in Control

Facebook is too big a mission field for the church to ignore.

Natasha S. Robinson, guest blogger

Okay, I get it: Facebook is not for everybody. I hear complaints all the time about privacy settings. I also frequently hear the groans from people who have never tried Facebook or get pushback from church leaders, older folks, and parents who are concerned that social media are killing the brain cells of our young people and not allowing them to connect intimately.

The New York Times recently ran an article highlighting Facebook’s plans to expand its membership beyond its current 800 million active users through its much-anticipated public offering (which I will not participate in). “Shunning Facebook, and Living to Tell About It” quotes Facebook resisters saying things like, “I wasn’t calling my friends anymore,” and my personal favorite, “I don’t want all of my information out there.”

My response: Call your friends, and don’t put all of your information out there. The article presents several of the concerns addressed in this article. At the core, however, it also reveals some “shunners” want the benefits but are paralyzed from taking the plunge to join Facebook. One resister actually said, “If I have a crush on a guy, I’ll make my friends look him up for me [on Facebook].” Clearly, she understands at least one benefit of using the site.

After responsibly using Facebook for several years, I don’t quite understand the resistance. (I should probably add that I do not play any of the Facebook games or participate in third-party features.) It’s as if some think of Facebook as a thief that comes in to steal all of your personal information and then sell it to the highest bidder. Facebook can “see” only the information that you provide, and you can set your own privacy settings to determine what to share and with whom you share it. Remember, you are in control.

There are other challenges, of course. Some people find themselves on Facebook all the time. Others get frustrated with their friends’ updates and feel compelled to respond. If you blow up on Facebook, chances are you blow up during face-to-face encounters as well. The only difference is, now all of your friends know about it. These challenges are really a matter of self-discipline. It’s quite simple, I believe: share what you want, with whom you want, when you want; manage your time, and discern what you “put out there” for others to see.

Facebook is not supposed to be the heartbeat of any true relationship. Face-to-face encounters are preferred; phone calls are still appropriate; handwritten notes should not become a lost art, and e-mails still come in quite handy. Therefore, Facebook is only one of many means for people to get and stay connected. As a former military officer, I have family members and friends who literally live all over the world. There is no possible way for me to visit each of them in any given year. The only reason I joined Facebook was because my former beautician, who is also a military wife, sent me a friend request. When we last saw each other, she was five months pregnant and her family received orders to Okinawa, Japan. I wanted to see pictures of her new baby and there was no way I was flying to Japan to do it.

Additionally, from a professional standpoint, I have connected with several Christian writers, publishers, speakers, leaders of nonprofits, and advocates through Facebook. My most intimate relationships have been formed through the Synergy Women’s Network and Redbud Writers Guild. Not only do we share pictures and life updates, we also explore ideas together, encourage one another, support each other’s work, and pray for each other. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with any of this, and believe it or not, there are times when we actually meet face-to-face. For growing relationships in situations like these, Facebook works.

“We can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” There is a lot of good, and dare I say ministry, going on in the Facebook world. In this quarter’s Leadership Journal, Nicole Unice and Jenni Catron wrote an article titled “The (Digitally) Connected Church,” in which they share several ways Christian leaders can use social media, including Facebook, to inform, innovate, mobilize, and foster spiritual growth among Christians. The authors, both staff members at thriving churches, also take great care when addressing leadership objections, risks, and challenges.

Pertaining to the use of social media, Unice and Catron specifically present three leadership challenges: “1. I don’t want my life on display; 2. I don’t have time to add another thing that I have to keep up with; and 3. How do I manage a team that is using social media?” Like working or leading in any other arena, Christian leaders need to understand the importance of communicating with those they are called to lead. Intentionally closing a line of communication like social media could communicate a very clear and wrong message that you are not interested.

The bottom line is: We are not a peculiar people by rejecting everything the world has to offer. We are a peculiar people when we show up where others are and are different in that environment. This is the foundation of Paul’s argument when he states, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings” (1 Cor. 9:22b-23). Therefore, if Facebook has 800 million active users, for the sake of the gospel, Christians need to show up there. Shine the light and share the blessings.

Natasha S. Robinson serves as Co-Director of the Women’s Mentoring Ministry at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. She is the founder, writer, and speaker for His Glory On Earth Ministries, a member of the Redbud Writers Guild, and a full-time student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Connect with Natasha through her blog, A Sista's Journey or Twitter @asistasjourney.

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