Hermenuetics

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Early marriage sounds great — as long as there are mature Christian men willing to initiate.

If you thought navigating the 20-something dating and marriage scene wasn’t complicated enough, former President Bush speechwriter and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson just put his oar in.

In an argument similar to Mark Regnerus’s cover story in the August issue of Christianity Today, Gerson says that “it doesn't seem realistic to expect most men and women to delay sex until marriage at 26 or 28.”

He believes that kind of self-control is possible but not likely, even among churchgoers. Besides, marrying late in one’s 20s can result in unhappier marriages, while early-20s marriages have the happiest results.

Where does Gerson get those numbers, you might ask? Slate’s XX Factor did some digging and found this 2004 study from the National Fatherhood Initiative. (Especially check out the graphs on page 19.) XX Factor also notes that some key information, like statistical significance, is missing from the graphs, so it’s hard to tell how seriously we should take the information.

Statistical reliability aside, Gerson’s argument — marry young, because people cannot handle not waiting to have sex until their late 20s — is weak on many levels. Is marriage really an excuse for sex? Should a lack of self-control be rewarded with early gratification? To say nothing of evangelical churches and families, it doesn’t seem like that mindset will lead to a healthy society at large.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:05 AM | Comments (82)

Anne Graham Lotz, the Church, and Me

Like Lotz, I've never doubted faith in Christ, but I have mightily doubted the goodness of church.

Renowned evangelist Anne Graham Lotz recently told Amy Sullivan at Time magazine, “Religion can be one of the greatest impediments to finding God.” Newsweek took that as Billy Graham’s daughter “slamming” churches. Actually, I think Lotz is expressing the difference between faith in God and faith in the church.

“I've been [burned] by local churches and by people who call themselves in God's name,” Lotz told Sullivan. Newsweek reports that Lotz has parted ways with more than one church over theological or pastoral disagreements. "I've had Christians treat me in a way that is so wrong and so vicious, I realized there's a difference between God's people and God,” she said.

Lotz’s story, sadly, is not unique. She dedicates her new book, The Magnificent Obsession: Embracing the God-Filled Life, to everyone who has ever felt disconnected or hurt by organized religion.

I am one of those people, calling myself an "uncomfortable ex-churchgoer." I stopped going around 10 years ago, after many of the same experiences Lotz described in the interview, but I was uncomfortable with giving up on the church community. During college, I church hopped — and felt bad about doing it, because most Christians emphasize the importance of making a commitment to a church home. Honestly, for a person who is not entirely convinced that church is worthwhile, visiting church after church after church for two years is a profound act of optimism.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:25 AM | Comments (13)

Adoption: Single Christians Need Not Apply

When there are 132 million orphans in the world, should unmarrieds really be discouraged from reaching out to them?

National Adoption Month is coming up, and churches are mobilizing like never before to encourage people to adopt. But there is a secret underneath it all: Single Christians need not apply.

When I was considering adopting my daughter, one of the most disheartening things was the active discouragement of many Christians who told me point-blank that only married couples should adopt. It was bad enough, I thought, to be consigned to a life of singleness because of the lack of unmarried men in church. For people to say singles are unworthy to adopt a child who would otherwise be living in an orphanage boggled my mind.

The other day, I received a copy of SBC Life, the Southern Baptist Convention’s denominational magazine, where I saw David Roach’s piece “Adoption Ministries Thriving in SBC Churches.” First, the good: It pointed out how any church, large or small, can be involved in adoption ministry toward those who want to adopt, how scandalous it is how many orphans are in this world, and that it’s up to Christians to do something about it. I was gratified to learn of a few loan programs out there for those wishing to adopt, as the costs — especially for international adoption — usually climb well past $30,000. It was also refreshing to see how many parents were supporting interracial adoption. And it providing some good ideas for preparing for November 8, which is Orphan Sunday.

All the photos and the pronouns used in the article, however, referred to couples. This was true on some of the related websites, such as Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, where I found no mention that some of the adoptive parents might be single men or women. This was certainly true on the application forms attached to these sites. I e-mailed Highview's adoption ministry director about this, and she was not aware of any singles adoptions there. “The leadership of Highview believes that it is the best for children to be adopted into traditional homes with a father and a mother,” she told me.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:05 AM | Comments (82)

The Lutherans and Twister Theology

Julia's first-person account of the strange events at last week's ELCA convention.

When is a warning from God not a warning from God? Or a "we can't tell whether or not it's a warning from God"?

This question came up last week while I was covering the church-wide assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Minneapolis. Members of America's largest Lutheran denomination voted to allow non-celibate gays to become clergy and paved the way for same-sex blessing ceremonies. Conservatives I talked to were devastated by the convention, but even they admitted that before the meeting began August 17, they knew they did not have enough votes to prevent the juggernaut.

Then the tornado came.

It was just before 2 p.m. on Wednesday, August 19, right before one of the first significant votes of the assembly. The Lutherans were slated to vote on a sexuality statement that, for the first time I know of, gave the gay-friendly view a place at the table as one of four theological positions Lutherans could have. If the statement passed, it indicated where the convention would go from that point on.

Then someone rushed into the press room and told us to vacate the place fast. A tornado had touched down close by, we were told. The police wanted us in a safe place away from the glass windows that encase the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Everyone rushed into the main hall to join some 1,045 voting members who were listening to a Bible study being led by a female preacher. (A few blogs say the debate on the statement had already begun, but that is not true. I was there). A palpable blanket of fear descended on the entire group as the doors to the outside hallways were shut, enclosing us in the giant hall, which was apparently was the safest place to be. We could hear the winds howling outside. I thought of my rental car parked nearby and hoped it would stay in one piece. After the Bible study, ELCA President Mark Hanson read the 121st Psalm to calm everyone down.

"We trust the weather is not a commentary on our work," said the Rev. Steven Loy, chairman of the ad hoc committee on the sexuality statement.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:39 AM | Comments (26)

The Persecuted Rifqa Bary?

Christians rally support for a 17-year-old believer who says her Muslim parents have threatened to kill her. Should they believe her?

Fathima Rifqa Bary's story is quickly circulating on blogs and Christian media as proof of Islam's violent roots and the cost of following Christ. While the latter is true no matter who's doing the following, the former is disputable in the case of the Ohio teen who fled her home two weeks ago to meet up with Blake and Beverly Lorenz, Florida pastors she had met on Facebook.

"They [my parents] threatened to kill me," Bary says tearfully in a YouTube video (above) posted Tuesday. She goes on to explain the logic of honor killings: "They have to kill me. My blood is now hallal, which means that because I am now a Christian, I am from a Muslim background. It's an honor, they love God more than me. They have to do this."

Bary says she hitchhiked and rode a bus July 19 from New Albany, a Columbus suburb, to Orlando, calling the Lorenzes upon arriving. She stayed with the pastors of the nondenominational Global Revolution Church until Monday, when she was placed into emergency custody with the Dept. of Children and Families.

"We are doing everything we can to protect her," Blake Lorenz told The Orlando Sentinel. Beverly Lorenz told The Columbus Dispatch they hardly knew Bary but took her in and called an abuse hotline last Friday, which prompted a visit from state police. Blake Lorenz said that he's "very concerned that the system will let her down."

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:15 AM | Comments (42)

Deciphering the Pennsylvania Gym Shooting

What George Sodini's journal reveals about women and violence.

It seems from his blog that George Sodini had a longstanding anger toward women. The isolated 48-year-old took a gun to a Pittsburgh-area gym last week and opened fire during a fitness class. Three women were killed and nine were injured before Sodini killed himself.

ABC News posted Sodini’s online journal, in which he writes about his hatred for his mother and brother, his frustration of “never having spent a weekend with a woman,” and executing a “plan” as early as November 2008.

“Thirty million is my rough guesstimate of how many desirable single women there are. A man needs a woman for confidence. He gets a boost on the job, career, with other men, and everywhere else when he knows inside he has someone to spend the night with and who is also a friend,” he said. “This type of life I see is a closed world with me specifically and totally excluded.”

Sodini also made a list of people and places that angered him. First on the list was the church he attended sporadically for 13 years, Tetelestai Church in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.

“Religion is a waste,” Sodini wrote on his blog of Alan “Rick” Knapp, pastor of Tetelestai, a nondenominational church focused on group Bible studies. “But this guy [Knapp] teaches (and convinced me) you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven.”

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:00 AM | Comments (21)

Women Pastors Remain Scarce

The Assemblies of God elected a woman to one of the highest leadership positions in the denomination, but women pastors remain few and far between.

Members of the Assemblies of God elected the first woman to the denomination's Executive Presbytery. The Ledger reports that 18 percent of the pastors in the denomination are women (where they have long allowed women to lead), but women have not been in the AG's top leadership.

The General Council elected Beth Grant who is a missionary in India with her husband where they run a ministry for prostitutes and sex-trade workers.

Grant said between the 1970s and 1990s, the percentage of ordained women in the Assemblies of God had gone down, and concerned leaders in the Assemblies asked her to chair a task force on the problem.

...In her address to the General Council, Grant admonished the male pastors present to encourage girls and young women to consider the ministry.

"You can say to little girls in your churches, 'God's hand is on you. God is calling you,'" she said.

Nationally, just 8 percent of all congregations are led by women, according to the National Congregations Study released earlier this summer.

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Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at 7:16 AM | Comments (60)

The Charismatic Alberto Cutie

Time will tell if the celebrity priest lives up to Church of the Resurrection's lively tradition.

It's been about three months now since we heard of Alberto Cutie, the former Roman Catholic priest who was caught kissing his girlfriend on a Miami beach. No sooner was he removed from his post than he left the Catholic Church altogether for the local Episcopal diocese, which welcomed him with much fanfare and sent him to pastor a local church.

As I looked at photos of Cutie, I realized there was something very familiar about the background: I used to attend that church.

That was when I was a reporter for the Hollywood Sun-Tattler, a daily of about 35,000 circulation when I moved there in 1983 as a general assignment reporter. Hollywood is a few suburbs to the north of Biscayne Park, where sits the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, Father Cutie's digs.

Back then, the church is not the smallish place it is today. Many of us drove 20 or more miles to attend Resurrection because it was the only openly charismatic church in the diocese. Two others were somewhat into the charismatic renewal, but Resurrection was huge on the prophecies, healings, and speaking in tongues the renewal movement is known for. It also had a healthy emphasis on the Bible and weeknight home groups.

It also helped that the rector, Cliff Horvath, and his wife, Nedda, had been committed to the place for years and held to rock-solid evangelical theology. Cliff was a risk taker when it came to things charismatic, and he drew many like-minded people to sit under him. The parish flourished with involvements in everything from Cursillo to Life in the Spirit seminars, and what was a quiet Anglican worship style when I first arrived became a full-blown swinging-on-the-chandeliers (I exaggerate a tad) church by the time I left in 1986 for a job at The Houston Chronicle.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:44 AM | Comments (11)

Dancing Down the Aisle

What a viral wedding-dance video can teach about the meaning of marriage.

If you haven't seen "Jill and Kevin's Wedding Entrance," the video that's shown up all over the Internet since late last week, I recommend you watch it now. It's five minutes of pure joy as the St. Paul, Minnesota, couple and their wedding party break into a choreographed dance down the aisle to the tune of R&B singer Chris Brown's hit "Forever." As soon as I finished watching it, I immediately posted it to Facebook and sent it to my friends with only the comment, "Stop whatever you're doing and watch this right now!" In sum, I would say that I like it.

And I'm not the only one. So far it's the second-most-watched video on YouTube this month, with over 10 million views as of today. And only five of those are mine (so far).

From the first beats of "Forever," it's clear that this isn't going to be your standard wedding ceremony. Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz's playful reinterpretation of the tradition re-injects life and, perhaps, meaning into the procession. As Sarah Kaufman writes for The Washington Post:

By dancing their entrances and sending that upbeat, physical energy right back out to their guests, the Peterson-Heinz wedding turns the rote behaviors into spontaneous reactions. Of course the guests watch attentively as the wedding party bobs in. You can bet not a single child had to be shushed at that point. This was no longer a display of bad posture and dyed-to-match pumps - it was an uplifting swell of celebration with a beat. The bride - unescorted - was and wasn't the center of attention. The true focus was on the unified, wordless but palpable emotions of her whole support system.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 3:58 PM | Comments (31)

Jimmy Carter Speaks Up on Women

The born-again President recently penned an op-ed condemning gender inequality in the name of religion.

Former President Jimmy Carter recently penned dramatic columns for The Guardian and The Age, leading some people to believe that he's leaving the Southern Baptist Convention for the first time.

So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

But Carter actually made the decision to leave the SBC back in 2000, even though he did not have an official role in the 16-million-member denomination.

In his Guardian op-ed, titled "The words of God do not justify cruelty to women," the former President condemns gender inequality among all religions:

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world.

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Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at 11:53 PM | Comments (9)

Building Up Without Walls

Paula White steps up as senior pastor of the troubled Pentecostal megachurch.

Popular Pentecostal teacher Paula White announced two weeks ago that she is taking the helm of the megachurch that she and ex-husband Randy White founded 18 years ago.

Paula's willingness to become senior pastor of Without Walls International Church - a Tampa, Florida, nondenominational congregation that once boasted 20,000+ members - shows immense optimism on her part, because the question remains if Without Walls has a future, or if it should.

Without Walls' leaders have been accused of preaching a prosperity gospel that says God will bless believers by making them succeed in all things, including in finances. One article reports that Without Walls used to have over 23,000 members (including celebrities and world leaders) and received up to $40 million in donations annually. All the while, the Whites were allegedly purchasing expensive homes and buying or leasing costly cars and private jets. Last fall the church faced foreclosure by the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, and is rumored to be in serious debt.

In August 2007, the Whites announced they were divorcing after 18 years of marriage. Since then, church membership has dwindled: three services have been cut to two, and hits to Without Walls' website and Paula's personal site have dropped dramatically.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 10:59 AM | Comments (8)

Julia Duin: The Anna Syndrome

When hanging out at church only hinders single women.

Summertime is when weddings abound. No one longs for them more than the abundance of single women in our nation's churches. The dearth of marriage opportunities for most of these women calls forth certain coping strategies, one of which I'll call the "Anna syndrome" after the prophetess in Luke 2:36-38 who hung around the Jerusalem temple and happened to catch the baby Jesus on a good day.

Anna had been married at one point and as a widow was presumably living off her husband's estate. But he'd been dead many years and she had no children to provide for her, so perhaps she was quite poor. But instead of resorting to prostitution, which was the sole choice for women back then, she lingered about the temple and prayed.

I bring this Bible passage up because of memories that arose while helping a single female friend move. I got the job of organizing the piles of notes she had lying around. It struck me that so many were related to various church events geared to keeping members busy: retreats, visiting speakers, conferences, and Bible studies. This woman was in her 60s, poor and headed toward an old age on Social Security. She hung around church because it's the only family she has in the area.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:58 AM | Comments (48)

The Faith of Our Mothers

Surveying the countless women in history who lived audaciously for Christ, we have a tall order to fill.

This week is Vacation Bible School at our church, and my four-year-old daughter's first year in attendance. In a moment of questionable sanity, I volunteered to help out in the nursery, with my two-year-old and three-month-old sons in tow. Suffice it to say, it's been a very VBS-centric sort of week.

On the CD of VBS songs, there's a hip-hop rendition of "To God Be the Glory" that starts out with a funky beat and a suave voice chanting, Check it out now, to God be the glory! "I wonder what Fanny Crosby would think of this?" I asked my husband as we listened to the CD in the car on our way home from church.

"Why?" he asked.

"She wrote this song," I told him. "She wrote, like, a hundred hymns or something, I think. I read a biography about her when I was little."

When we got home, I looked up Fanny Crosby online and found that my memory was slightly off. Crosby actually wrote over 8,000 hymns during her lifetime, and is considered by some to be the most prolific hymnist in recorded history.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 9:07 AM | Comments (1)

Women's Ordination: A Crack in the Cathedral?

Female bishops outlawed, female priests tacitly allowed at last week’s Anglican gathering in Bedford, Texas.

After the Anglican Church in North America's (ACNA) momentous inaugural gathering, the verdict is out on whether the issue of women's ordination will inhibit the budding alliance from moving forward.

Last week more than 800 men and women gathered in Bedford, Texas, to elect an archbishop and ratify a constitution for the ACNA, a new alliance for churches that have left the Episcopal Church. Led by Robert Duncan, bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, the ACNA comprises more than 700 theologically conservative churches with about 70,000 parishioners.

There were many central theological beliefs that last week's attendees could agree on in their constitution and canon laws, including the full inspiration of the Bible, the centrality of baptism and Communion to church life, and the authority of the historic church creeds. But for the time being, ACNA leaders have not reached full agreement on female priests. At this time, each jurisdiction is free to decide whether or not to ordain women, but jurisdictions cannot force others to either accept women's ordination or to stop practicing it. Women bishops are forbidden.

"For those who believe the ordination of women to be a grave error, and for those who believe it scripturally justifiable . . . we should be in mission together until God sorts us out," said Duncan in last week's opening address. "It is not perfect, but it is enough."

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 12:15 PM | Comments (14)

Redeeming Twitter

It doesn't have to be for shallow updates.

The U.S. State Department asks Twitter to delay maintenance plans for the weekend so Iranians voting in Friday's election can communicate instantly, and defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi uses Twitter to organize protests against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The FBI tracks Twitter to stop a crazed Oklahoma City man from turning the April 15 Tea Party Protests into what he warned would be a bloodbath. Beating even The New York Times, a ferry passenger on the Hudson River uses Twitter to deliver the first reports and pictures of U.S. Airways Flight #1549's emergency landing.

The instant firsthand information sent from someone's cell phone or computer to the Twitter stream is appealing to this wiki culture; nowadays, we trust mass accumulation of knowledge more than we do an authority figure's research. Besides, there's nothing quite like being able to talk directly to the guy who watched the school bus tip over 20 seconds ago.

As popular as Twitter is (reporting over 7 million users this winter, with a 1382 percent growth rate from 2008), many people still don't know about it, or dismiss its usefulness when they learn about it. (As guest editor of Newsweek last week, satirist Stephen Colbert poked fun at the three-year-old site by proposing the cover story, "Hey, Have You Heard About This Thing Called Twitter?") I happen to know a few folks who have enjoyed a chuckle on my behalf when I call myself a "Twit." It's not worth the risk of being labeled a rabid Twitter evangelist, so I usually refrain from giving my whole spiel to my skeptical friends (I limit it to 20 minutes).

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:57 AM | Comments (9)

Schuller's Eldest Daughter to Lead Crystal Cathedral

Sheila Schuller Coleman to become her father's 'legs' in new role.

The Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times reported late yesterday that Sheila Schuller Coleman, eldest daughter of the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, will become "co-leader" with her father of the Garden Grove, California, church. Coleman will replace senior interim pastor Juan Carlos Ortiz, who stood in for Robert A. Schuller after he parted ways with the Cathedral last fall over clashing visions for the ministry. "[Sheila] is taking over her brother's place," Donna Schuller, wife of Robert A., told The OC Register.

With a doctorate in business administration, Schuller Coleman, 58, is already deeply involved in running the 54-year-old ministry, as superintendent of Crystal Cathedral Schools, head of the church's family ministries, and program director for The Hour of Power. It looks like she has given at least one message on The Hour of Power, but does not preach regularly.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:53 AM | Comments (14)

Promise Keepers Invites Women to 2009 Gathering

Promise Keepers (PK), the evangelical ministry known for its focus on making men better fathers and husbands, is inviting women for the first time to its main 2009 conference, the ministry announced this week.

"This year we are calling men to bring the women in their lives," founder and chairman Bill McCartney announced Monday. "To celebrate our 20th year of ministry, we are called to do three things: honor our wives, daughters, and sisters, be a tangible blessing to the poor and oppressed, and embrace our Messianic Jewish brothers as our spiritual fathers in the faith."

"The time for Proverbs 31:31 is long overdue!" PK's website announces. "It's time to bring our wives and daughters so that we can honor them together. They need to stand side by side with us as warriors of the faith. Coach will issue a two-minute warning. Like the men of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32), we must understand our times and know what to do. It's time to get ready!"

At its height, PK held more than a dozen large conferences a year across the country and gathered hundreds of thousands of men on the National Mall in a 1997 event, but it has diminished in size and staff in recent years. The lone 2009 event will be held in Boulder, Colorado.

McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach, returned to the helm of the ministry in 2008 after resigning in 2003 to care for his ill wife. After he left Promise Keepers, he started "The Road to Jerusalem" ministry that focuses on Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at 8:00 PM | Comments (3)

Re: Evangelical Women in Public Life

Alisa Harris, editor at Patrol magazine, responded to the question we posed last Thursday, "Where are all the evangelical women in public life?" by pointing to prevalent beliefs about women and spirituality. Here's her helpful analysis:

That's what's interesting -- women have more influence inside the church than outside it. Why is this? My guess is that the evangelical church accepts women in the role of spiritual counselors because of the lingering Victorian idea that women are gentler, more spiritual and just all around more naturally virtuous than men. They're good at Bible studies and exhorting people to live good lives. . . . But (so the idea goes) they should do it privately, not publicly since women's sphere is in the home. Not in the pulpit and not in the public square. Also (so they say) women deal with emotions and not reason. It's a way of putting women on a pedestal but also limiting their role, their development, and especially men's development, too.

Harris then links to the recently published Pew Forum survey about women and spirituality, where women self-report that they are more likely than men to pray daily, have "absolutely certain belief in God or a universal spirit," say that religion is "very important" in daily life, have "absolutely certain belief in a personal God," and attend church regularly.

My only quibble with applying the Pew study to explain the prevalence of women leaders inside the church (but not outside of it) is that the study is trying to measure generalized spiritual beliefs, not distinctly Christian teachings. Many female Bible teachers in the church are hardly "lite" or "soft" in their tone, but can pack as much of a punch in their biblical exegesis as the next Reformed pastor. Anne Graham Lotz and Beth Moore come to mind as women who take doctrinal precision seriously. They stand as refreshingly counter-intuitive examples of those who are equally concerned with loving the Lord with their minds as they are with their hearts.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 2:08 PM | Comments (5)

Priest Who Professed Islam Defrocked by Episcopal Church

An Episcopal priest who professed two years ago that she was also a practicing Muslim has been defrocked by the Episcopal Church.

Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf informed Ann Holmes Redding, who lives in Seattle, of the decision on Wednesday. Although she lives outside the diocese, Redding was ordained in Rhode Island and remained under Wolf's authority.

"Bishop Wolf found Dr. Redding to be a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two yeas have been open, honest and respectful," the diocese said in a statement. "However Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim."

The diocese learned in June 2007 about Redding's Muslim profession. It removed her from ministry temporarily and told her to spend a year on "discernment of her faith commitment."

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Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at 4:23 PM | Comments (10)

When Serving Makes You Sick

Popular blogger Anne Jackson witnessed hurting church leaders at an early age, when vitriolic attitudes invaded the churches her parents were pastoring. Years later, while working 70-hour weeks at a Midwest megachurch, she re-encountered that hurt — expressed in addictions, adultery, and depression — and knew she was called to remind leaders of the primary antidote for burnout: union with Christ. Her first book, Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic (Zondervan, 2009), aims to do just that. CT assistant editor Katelyn Beaty interviewed Anne yesterday.

You grew up a pastor's daughter in Texas. What was your family's experience with burnout?

After my dad finished seminary, my younger brother and I were born, my mom had her tubes tied, and our family jumped into the world of ministry. We mainly pastored at smaller, rural churches in West Texas and at first, everything seemed perfect. [But] at my dad's third church, the politics started invading. I was only 9 at the time, but I could tell my normally involved, optimistic father was withdrawing. My mom wore her concern on her sleeve. I spied on a deacon's meeting and discovered the truth: Our church was full of a lot of mean and bitter people.
Three years later, the same ugly politics resurfaced. I was 16, and at a brutal business meeting, my dad was forced to resign. I stood up, confident in my teenage angst, and confronted the church [members] for their lack of unity. Storming out, I climbed a fire escape and wrote a letter to God, begging him to give me a way to help restore unity to the church.

We moved to Dallas a few months later, and I'd like to say everything has been great since. But almost 13 years later, my parents are still deeply hurt from the last experience. They have only recently started attending a church. . . . Their faith in the local church has yet to be rekindled. That kind of brokenness breaks my heart every day. It also propels me forward with a passion I can't begin to explain.

How do men and women experience church burnout differently?

As I've extensively researched and interviewed thousands of church leaders and their families over the last two years, [I've found] there isn't much difference. Burnout doesn't play favorites.

Sometimes the force behind our burnout may differ, though. Genesis 3 mentions how, after the Fall, men will be slaves to the earth (work) and women will be ruled over by men. I see how many times men chase ministry like it's their work — and find their purpose in what they do. Ultimately, that leads to burnout. And generally speaking, many women fall to the approval of man. We are people pleasers by nature, finding our worth and affirmation of our calling by being a slave to man — not God.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at 8:30 AM | Comments (35)

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Anne Graham Lotz, the Church, and Me

Adoption: Single Christians Need Not Apply

The Lutherans and Twister Theology

The Persecuted Rifqa Bary?

Deciphering the Pennsylvania Gym Shooting

Women Pastors Remain Scarce

The Charismatic Alberto Cutie

Dancing Down the Aisle

Jimmy Carter Speaks Up on Women