shame

Notable News: Week of March 1-8, 2013

It’s International Women’s Day! How are you celebrating?

Here are some of the articles and posts I enjoyed this week. Read them with your favorite woman.

1. On the importance of girls

This post is from more than a year ago, but Princess Free Zone shared it again today on Twitter. It means just as much now as it did then.

Sadly, around the world, girls are undervalued, underestimated, uneducated, used, abused, and ignored. Research shows that the plight of girls is directly linked to many of the world’s problems like hunger, economic disparity, and disease. Inevitably, helping girls and women in various ways can have a tremendously positive impact; one way to do this is through efforts to improve education.

2. On body image

I linked to this post by Jennifer Luitwieler in my own post yesterday, but here it is again in case you missed it.

When we hang so many hopes on one thing, one arbitrary, deeply powerful thing, expecting untold happiness from attaining the holy grail of physical perfection, we will be disappointed. Our bodies may look different, we may feel like we look amazing. But it won’t change our circumstances. It won’t make someone love us better or our families not be weird. Being skinny will not make us also rich or flawless.

Being skinny is not everything.

3. On the Jesus bridge

Reading this fantastic post by Addie Zierman, I found myself nodding in agreement. I, too, have had negative experiences with Christian “counselors” who offer pat answers about just needing Jesus. I, too, have listened to the testimonies of people who leave the impression that their lives did a rapid 180 rather than the truth of a slower turn.

Instead of looking into my eyes and seeing that I was fighting to hang on, she assumed that my doubt and pain and struggle was symptomatic . She assumed it pointed to a faith that had never been there, and so she sent me back to the beginning to take a first step toward God.

But the truth was that it wasn’t a broken faith at all. Just the normal middle of things.

4. On being an angry feminist

I love this excellent response from Sam Ambreen to yet another shameful post over at Good Men Project. Not surprising that GMP has included a woman stroking the egos of the “nice guys,” unfortunately.

I have every right to hold patriarchy responsible for the ways in which it controls women. Unfortunately the patriarchy is mostly made up of men. I am angry but there is love in my life. It surrounds me and supports me. Anger at the patriarchy is one of my redeemable features and shock horror; there are men that get why! And totally dig it.

5. On “good” racists

I constantly have to check myself because I know that as a person with privilege, I’m in danger of ignoring that privilege. I don’t want to be the “good racist” in this post who refuses to believe that such things exist.

The idea that racism lives in the heart of particularly evil individuals, as opposed to the heart of a democratic society, is reinforcing to anyone who might, from time to time, find their tongue sprinting ahead of their discretion. We can forgive Whitaker’s assailant. Much harder to forgive is all that makes Whitaker stand out in the first place. New York is a city, like most in America, that bears the scars of redlining, blockbusting and urban renewal. The ghost of those policies haunts us in a wealth gap between blacks and whites that has actually gotten worse over the past 20 years.

6. On making Satan proud

This is an incredibly heartbreaking story that should remind us just how important it is to make sure that we are holding churches, pastors, and leaders accountable not only for their own abuse of congregants but for their failure to take action when it’s warranted. Of course we want churches to be places filled with grace; but not at the expense of terrified 14-year-old girls. John Shore explains why he posted this:

I’m running this comment as a post for two reasons. The first is because if I have learned anything in this world, it’s that people—particularly if they’re trying to communicate an injustice visited upon themselves or anyone else—need to be heard. When you’ve been traumatized an affirmation of your trauma by others can spell the difference between salvation and desolation. I have no idea who has or hasn’t read this girl’s story. But having read it myself robbed me of any excuse for not making at least some effort to ensure that more people read it.

7. On speaking about spirtual abuse

Dianna Anderson writes a great response to Matt Appling (of The Church of No People) regarding his series of posts on spiritual abuse. As she rightly points out, co-opting the term is inappropriate and diminishes the suffering of those who have been abused by people in spiritual authority.

Appling suffers from a common malady that afflicts a lot of white male evangelicals – not bothering to research the actual definition of the terms they’re using, and predicating entire ideas on a misunderstood definition.

8. On God-centered shame

Elora Nicole’s post on how words mean things delves into the worrisome teaching that shame is godly because it leads to repentance. When we make words mean what they don’t mean, even ancient words in foreign languages, we risk presenting a false gospel that isn’t filled with grace.

“I still don’t see how they relate.” I said. “Grief is not shame. Sorrow is not shame. When I feel shame, I believe lies. Grief and sorrow are healthy emotions. Shame is not. Shame is negative. Shame speaks lies.”

9. On environmental impact on sexuality

I get fairly sick of hearing about how one’s childhood experiences must have “turned them gay.” I’ve found that the people who say that must not know a lot of gay people. Or a lot of people in general, actually. I don’t really know if I think that this particular cartoon by Naked Pastor is necessarily logical, but it did make me smile and wish I could say this to anyone who thinks they can explain why someone is gay.

I’m okay with theories. If they work. When they no longer work it’s time to dispense with them. The number of theories out there attempting to explain away the vast array of orientations out there are just that: an attempt to invalidate them.

10. On my fiction blog

This week’s story is about unresolved sexual tension. Kind of.

Whatever it was, Kay found nearly everything about Devon maddening. She disliked his booming laugh, his boastful reenactments of his weekend activities, and his assertions that the team would fall apart without him. She even disliked his obnoxious printed ties—even if she did have to admit they suited him. Kay’s least favorite thing about Devon was the fact that he always looked good, no matter how horrid his ties.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Go celebrate a woman you love!

Shamesville

Sin

Congratulations, new follower of Christ, you have won an all-expense paid trip to Shamesville. Please carry your own baggage.

While we don’t ever hear that when we walk into a church, it would certainly be more honest than what most people get.

Last night, I was tweeting with some fellow bloggers about the way in which conservative Christian (and here, it goes beyond evangelical) culture frames love, sex, dating, and marriage. I was torn. On the one hand, I was stunned at how many people have such deep pain not because of their history but because of what was said to them by the church or by fellow Christians. On the other, a big part of me is not surprised at how vast this shaming is.

It is a deeply rooted problem within the church that we talk about how “free” we are in Christ yet apply layer after layer of guilt on people. This isn’t just true when it comes to matters of sex, gender, and sexuality (although those seem to get the most mileage on the guilt train). It permeates everything. I can see why so many Christians either hide their behavior or hide behind legalism. When you regularly hear two conflicting messages, it’s not hard to understand why so many people feel like failures.

Even the imagery we use surrounding the concept of sin is laden with shame: A cup that’s been spit in; a gift-wrapped dirty diaper; cookies with salt replacing the sugar; chewed gum; a licked lollipop; brownies made with dog poo.* The message is the same with each of them—that you are dirty, worthless, and full of things no one could ever possibly want.

It’s true that right after we hear the message of how completely screwed up we are we get the “good news” that even though God is royally pissed off at us, we don’t have to worry. Jesus took one for the team! Yay! We are now supposed to feel free and clean.

Except it doesn’t work that way.

Even after we give our lives to Christ, the church continues to lay on the guilt week after week, a bringing out a constant stream of all the things we need to improve in our lives. We get tidy sermons in which our sins are bullet points in a list of words all beginning with D, and the solutions are often out-of-context Scriptures that speak to the behavior but not the heart. Sunday after Sunday, people leave the building feeling less human than when they went in.

When I read and hear the stories of people like the women on Twitter last night, I am horrified that this is how we make people feel. Is it any wonder that there are so many people who are turning to desperate measures to feel whole? Is it any wonder that people are leaving the institution that has driven them into hiding in shame?

I’m not suggesting that there is no such thing as sin or that everything is relative, nor that we have no responsibility to call people out on their sin. But I think we’ve become people who fixate on exactly the wrong things. We hear in churches all the time about purity and modesty, pornography, the proper role for women, homosexuality, lying, and gossip. But where are the church leaders speaking out against violence and racism and greed? Who is demanding justice for the abused child or the rape victim? I can’t recall the last time I heard a sermon on sin that raged against any of those things. (And just for some perspective, in the last week I have seen the exact same people, who claim to be “Christians,” make both racist remarks and slut-shaming comments.)

Churches, if you want to know why people are leaving, it’s not because you’ve become irrelevant in your style; it’s because you’ve become irrelevant in helping wounded souls heal. Do you really want to know how you can fill your seats? Open your doors wider. Stop fixating on personal sin and start spreading the message that God can reach into the places of pain and shame. Speak out against abuse and stand up for victims. Don’t treat frightened victims as though they have a responsibility to their abusers. Don’t treat survivors as though they still have something to feel guilty about. Teach your members that respect means all people, not just the ones that look and act a certain way.

When are we going to stop living—and treating others—as though we are all permanent residents of Shamesville?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Those are all real object lessons used to teach “purity” and/or sin. The brownie one made me laugh, though, given the fact that there often are…er…added ingredients in brownies; just preferably not that particular one.

Women are not the problem

Morality, Sexual Morality, Women

Warning: This post contains subject matter which may be triggering for some people. Things I will mention include rape, sexual assault, harassment, abuse, molestation. Also, I use some strong language (read: swearing). Read at your own risk. If you choose to comment on this post, please show respect by providing a trigger warning for sensitive topics each time you include them. (Posts with potential triggers that don’t include a warning will be removed within 24 hours.) Thanks!

Last night, I participated in an animated discussion on Twitter regarding the 2005 book Sex Is Not the Problem: Lust Is by Joshua Harris. One of the people I follow is reading it for research and was live tweeting her reactions. I won’t take up space with all of the horrifying quotes she tweeted, but I will tell you which two I found the most disturbing:

When you dress and behave in a way that is designed …to arouse sexual desire in men, you’re committing pornography with your life.

and

Ask God to help you see how selfish and uncaring it is to want to use your body to encourage your brothers to lust.

Those two statements, right there, are exactly why we have a problem with boys and men who act as though they have the right to take whatever they want from girls and women.

You may not be able to see it. You almost surely won’t see it if you are a straight, white, cis-gender man. You probably won’t see it if you’re a woman who buys into purity culture and have never been victimized.

But the rest of us see it.

It’s especially bad for those of us who have been harmed by it. We’re the survivors. We’re the ones who have had to deal with years of shame because we believed that what we suffered was our own fault. We’re the ones who…

were raped by our innocent, safe boyfriends with whom we never even shared a kiss.
dressed in baggy clothes and pretended we didn’t have breasts because we were sure that they wouldn’t have raped us if we’d been more modest.
were licked, leered at, and taunted by our classmates because using sexuality was a way to make us feel small.
had boys write “slut” and “whore” and “bitch” on our homework, then had friends tell us we should be flattered because “he likes you!”
had our fathers demand chastity with our boyfriends while themselves finger-fucking us in bed at night.
got felt up by boys, without our permission, and then were ashamed because we kind of liked it.*
had boys ask to touch our bodies, and said yes because we were scared, and never told anyone because we hadn’t said no.
thought something was wrong with us when we felt sexually aroused, because that wasn’t supposed to happen to girls who weren’t married.
were virgins when we got married and endured years of painful intercourse instead of real lovemaking because the first time was so painful and scary, and no one ever taught us that it didn’t have to be—even if we’d never had sex before.
continue to live with shame over our non-marital intimacy because we’ve been labeled as “sluts.”

And through every single moment, we heard the message loud and clear that whatever we were doing was the cause of our misery.**

So you can sit there in your self-righteous bubble and tell us how we should dress or act so that we don’t attract the “lust” of boys and men. Or you can choose to use your own feelings of guilt and shame to do more damage to other people. Either way, though, you need to keep it to yourself. You need to stop using your words to continue the cycle of blame and guilt that has been inflicted on too many women.

If I sound angry, it’s because I am. I’m angry that we spend our energy demanding that women take responsibility for both their own and men’s sexuality, instead of doing what we should be doing: going after the actions of the people who victimize others directly, without blaming those they’ve harmed. I’m angry that anyone gave Joshua Harris a platform for his douchey attitude toward women. I’m angry that the message that what women wear causes uncontrollable urges in men is still being spouted in churches everywhere. I’m angry that because this message is so prevalent in Christian culture, my children will someday hear it, even if it isn’t explicitly preached to them at church (the same message appears in music, books, devotions, and educational material for Christian teens).

I have two messages. First, for men like Joshua Harris and other men who call themselves Christians: Shut up. Just shut up. We women don’t need you to tell us how we should dress or act. And we don’t need men to “protect” or “rescue” us from the fairly uncommon random stranger that attacks women. No, we need you men to keep your damn pants zipped and stop being the ones who rape and molest us, and then trying to blame us for being immodest.

Second, for those of who have been abused and assaulted, stop believing the lie that it’s your fault. Stop believing that there is something wrong with you. There isn’t. And you don’t need Jesus to heal you from whatever sin caused your pain, because it wasn’t your fault at all. You don’t need to recover from your own fall, but from the shame placed on you by other people. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

This has to stop somewhere, and I’m determined that, at least in my own household, it stops with me.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*It’s not uncommon for children who are molested or people who are sexually assaulted to feel some degree of arousal. Those parts of our bodies are designed to respond to stimuli. The shame comes both from the confusion that it’s simultaneously unpleasant and yet stimulating, coupled with the belief that anything sexual is bad until marriage.

**Yes, everything on that list has happened to someone (or multiple someones) that I personally know. Yes, some of them happened to me. No, I’m not going to tell you which ones.

Notable News: Week of March 1-8, 2013

Shamesville

Women are not the problem

Let's Be Friends

Sharing

Tip Jar

Shopping Cart

Your Shopping Cart

Supposed Crimes Publishing

Beaten Track Publishing

More Content