There’s a bit of intimacy at the end of this story. If you don’t care for that, just skip this one. [Read more…] about The Wax-In
No-vangelism 101
Anyway, I was thinking about evangelism. We currently attend a Lutheran church–ELCA–, and, not having grown up Lutheran (or having any prior experience), I’ve been learning some very interesting things. One of my discoveries is that “evangelism” means something really different to Lutherans than to people in denominations labeled “evangelical” (such as Baptists). The separation on this point is as wide between Lutherans and Baptists as it is between Baptists and, say, Mormons.
The main difference is that there’s no pressure to “share my faith.” That is, I’m not expected to go tell everyone how to be saved, nor am I pressured to constantly invite people to things so they can hear the message of salvation from someone else. In fact, that doesn’t even exist, and Lutherans (at least, the ones at my church) kind of think it’s weird. One woman shared with me that she attended an evangelical non-denominational church with a friend. She said someone at the church approached her and said, “Have you found Jesus?” The woman was momentarily thrown off, but she recovered and replied, “I don’t think I ever lost him.”
I have to admit, I like this approach. I really don’t mind talking about Jesus, but I hate the sense that every single one of my interactions with my friends of other (or no) religions must have some kind of Formula for Sharing the Gospel. Maybe it’s that whole random progression of thought thing, but it always just felt so forced, like I had to find some way to work God into the conversation even if we were just talking about spaghetti sauce recipes or breastfeeding or Doctor Who. I was never good at steering conversations that way.
Plus, it just felt manipulative. Those people who come door-to-door are so much more honest. They’re not trying to be your friend, they’re trying to get you to listen to them talk about their religion. You have the option to say no thank you because you’re not blindsided by it. You also have the choice to engage and either listen or argue with them. There’s no real manipulation there. Sure, they may try to hook you by asking you questions designed to elicit certain responses. But everyone knows that going in.
It’s not like that with the evangelical set. I’m not lying when I tell you that they teach classes on this stuff. You’re instructed to find ways to work it into your conversation, to “share your story,” and to find commonalities with your target. Yes, I said target because that’s what it always felt like. You’re supposed to consider who in your life “needs Jesus” and then try to “build relationship” with the express purpose of presenting the gospel message.
Of course, this all makes perfect sense if your belief going in is that anyone who hasn’t “found Jesus” is going to hell to suffer eternal conscious torment. I mean, who wants their loved ones to end up that way? Or their random acquaintances? Even Mark Driscoll doesn’t deserve that kind of punishment. Honestly, I think that must be a very scary way to live, constantly afraid that when they die the vast majority of humanity will be permanently separated from God and tortured.
Imagine my relief at not having to worry about that anymore. This particular version of hell and the requirement to believe in order to be spared were one of the first things to go when I stepped away from that strain of Christianity. I had never really looked at my friends and family as some kind of mission field anyway, but it was good to give myself permission not to feel guilty about that.
At this point, I don’t really have a clue exactly what happens after this life, and I don’t much care. Being spared some awful fate isn’t the focus of either my church or my faith. For now, it’s enough to concentrate on whether my beliefs are making me a better person. Because if they’re not, then either there’s something wrong with those beliefs, or I’m doing something wrong.
If you’re in process of deconstructing, what are some of the beliefs you want to let go of? What are some of the things that you hold on to?
Forbidden Fruit
This morning, I participated in a discussion which reminded me of all the things I gave up over the course of my years as a conservative Christian. When I began deconstructing the legalistic platform on which I’d built my faith, I discovered so many things that I’d never properly given myself permission to do or enjoy. That’s the funny thing about fundiculturalism–it seeps in and permeates everything until it can be hard to know the difference between something that truly is inappropriate and something that’s merely taboo.
There was a list of things I wasn’t supposed to listen to, watch, wear, and do. I’m not joking. At one point, a former church instituted a boycott of certain products because they advertised during television shows considered immoral. In high school, I swore off any music that wasn’t instrumental or explicitly Christian. Those were the days when we were taught that backmasking was real and that there were people who truly had come out of “satanic” cults where they performed human sacrifice.
In addition, whenever something or someone didn’t meet the church’s expectations for tone or behavior, it suddenly became something to be explained away or avoided. Some of my fellow Gen-Xers who were involved in Christian culture in the 1990s may remember when we were all supposed to stop listening to Amy Grant because she “sold out” and had “secular” hits, for example. There was also the time the Canadian teen show “Degrassi High” was booted off Approved Christian Island because one of the characters had an abortion. (The show was probably only on there in the first place because one of the actors was supposedly a Christian. Honestly, it wasn’t a particularly “Christian” show and dealt with a lot of realistic, mature themes.)
What I find sort of disturbing about the whole thing is that it never seems to touch any Christian who has managed to remain on the correct side of the behavior-policing flavor of the moment. So long as a professing Christian isn’t divorced, gay, unmarried but singing about something that sounds vaguely sexual, acting in movies with “immoral” themes, or publicly saying anything that challenges mainstream theology, that person is completely safe. It’s why, despite the sheer volume of bizarre beliefs, Kirk Cameron consistently gets a pass. He regularly acts like an ass, but he’s apparently not doing anything naughty. Rob Bell, on the other hand, couldn’t even publish a relatively innocuous book that sort of almost kind of hints at universalism without being labeled a heretic.
At the same time, Christian “leaders” are frequently allowed the freedom to either screw up royally (“Look! He’s really, really sorry!”) or simply say the most vile things without being called on it. For the life of me I can’t figure out why Mark Driscoll continues to enjoy such popularity nor his sermons so many contortions of apologetics. There is simply no excuse for defending this man or his strangely hypersexual theology.
And right there is the problem with fundiculturalism. The distinction made between right and wrong is skewed so that “braless” selfies are bad, bad, bad but commanding wives to “service” their husbands orally is entirely acceptable. Loving, committed gay couples trip the gag reflex, but churches cover up rape and sexual abuse. Music, clothes, and movies are monitored but not whether we’re taking care of “the least of these.” Fifty Shades is taboo because of all the sex but not because of the overt domestic violence. Bullies and abusers get a pass because we extend “grace,” but victims and survivors frequently don’t.
How did we get to this point? How did we arrive at a place of such legalism? I can’t answer that. What can say is that I’d rather listen to “Highway to Hell” than a Mark Driscoll sermon or give my teenager Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye than Joshua Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I’d rather hang out in the company of people the church considers misguided or sinful than sit at the feet of most of the well-known preachers.
If you’re coming out of fundiculturalism, what things are you trading in? What have you been denying yourself?
6 reasons not to waste your money…
…because your daughter is just going to stay home and have babies anyway.
Last week, several friends were kind enough to bring to my attention this awful piece on why parents shouldn’t send their daughters to college. Go ahead and read it if you’d like some rage with your coffee this morning. In case you prefer not to, here’s the list in brief:
- Your poor daughter will end up with a–gasp–educated man. No, wait, she’s just going to end up being the hard-working, intelligent wife with a lazy loser for a husband (kinda like all those sitcoms).
- She’s going to have the opportunity to have sex. Maybe a lot of sex. Probably with lazy losers. Once that happens, she’s not going to notice that her guy is bad for her because sex hormones.
- She’s going to end up with a career, dammit. She probably won’t want to play house anymore. Maybe she won’t even want babies!
- Since she’s just going to be a good wife and mommy, she won’t enjoy having the career that would have paid for her college education. Also, it’s a total waste of money to go to college and then stay home, thus forcing your husband to pay for your loans with his money.
- There is obviously only one way to be a feminist, and that is by going to college and having a career (which is dictated by your college education, of course) and not being a wife and mommy. It’s a slippery slope, thinking she has to prove she’s a feminist by doing all this. We can’t have that.
- In order to pay for college, parents might plan ahead and not have all the babies God wants them to. They might use birth control! No worries that sending sons to college might make parents sin by preventing pregnancy, though.
- Those young women are going to regret it someday when they are stuck in a cube somewhere wishing they could just stay home and luxuriate, eating bonbons and watching daytime television like the rest of us stay-at-home moms.
- They won’t be able to go to seminary (at least, not a Catholic one) if they have debt. Fine, that one might be real, especially since no woman called to vocational ministry ever knows that before she stupidly and blindly goes off to college to get a degree in chemical engineering first.
I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that I’m informed now. It’s only about ten more years til I have to think about sending my own daughter off to college, and I sure as heck don’t want her to end up with a degree that keeps her from her duties as wife and mom. Who cares if she’s ambitious and has talked for the better part of two years about wanting a career working with animals? She should just squash those dreams right now before they get out of hand.
Meanwhile, I guess I’d better figure out a way to pay my husband back for using “his” money (that he worked super hard for!) to pay off my loans from undergraduate and graduate school. After all, I’m just playing 1950s-television-style housewife here and not contributing financially. On second though, never mind. I’m just gonna go watch some television to alleviate my regrets.
Fifty Shades of Bad Lines
So, I really did mean to write a post on Friday. Instead, I had my pupils dilated at the eye doctor’s office followed by the Day from Hell. I was all proud of myself for getting my chores done before lunch so my daughter and I could go pick out new glasses. It was a good thing I did, since the rest of my afternoon was filled with one stupid frustration after another. Anyway, I’m making up for it by snarking about Fifty Shades. That always makes me feel better.
I’m tired of rehashing the plot of these novels week after week by saying, “Christian is abusive, Ana shows signs that she’s a victim of domestic violence, and they are two of the most self-absorbed people on the planet.” So I’m going to list my least favorite phrases in this chapter and offer commentary. All grammatical errors are the author’s.
I allow myself a moment to examine his godlike profile…
Um. Ok.
“Happy now? He’s [Taylor, Christian’s driver] listening to his iPod. Puccini. Forget he’s here. I do.”
So, basically, he treats his employees like crap. Got it.
My inner goddess is down on bended knee with her hands clasped in supplication begging me.
Gah! It’s the Return of the Inner Goddess! There needs to be a Fifty Shades drinking game for every time “Laters, baby,” “oh, my,” inner goddess, and subconscious make an appearance. Wait–there probably already is. I want in.
My anxiety has shot up several magnitudes on the Richter scale.
So anxiety and orgasms are both earth-shaking. I’ll keep that in mind.
Those photos the boy [José, emphasis mine] took…
There’s so much wrong with this. Should we start with the racism or the infantilization?
My subconscious nods with satisfaction.
Drink!
If that isn’t a declaration of love, I don’t know what is.
Christian has just listed things he likes about her and has said he wants her, but he never said he loves her. A declaration of love is usually, oh, I don’t know, maybe saying “I love you”?
“Christian, why do you think you have a dark soul?…you’re a good man…you’re generous, you’re kind, and you’ve never lied to me.”
Is that all it takes to be a “good man”? Giving people things and/or money and not lying? Huh. I’d have thought “not stalking people” and “not abusing people” might make the list.
“Then, after I left, it dawned on me that the physical pain you inflicted was not as bad as the pain of losing you.”
Said many an abused partner.
“Sometimes you’re so closed off…like an island state.”
Uh, what? I think that’s a good description of “isolated,” not for shutting people out.
“You intimidate me. That’s why I keep quiet.”
How again are people missing the abuse here?
“And you’re prepared to do all this for me. I’m the one who is undeserving, and I’m just sorry I can’t do all those things for you.”
This is how it works, people. She shouldn’t have to put up with his shit, but he somehow manages to turn it around, make it look like he’s being noble, and suddenly she’s saying she’s “undeserving” of having him NOT FUCKING ABUSE HER. No, I didn’t read it wrong.
“…I am not going to touch you again, not until you beg me to…so that you’ll start communicating with me.”
Nice manipulation there.
He…pulls out a large gift-wrapped box.
So, he had this whole thing planned out, despite the fact that they had broken up. Because it’s not at all creepy for your ex to buy you expensive gifts in order to bribe you.
“Laters, baby.”
Ugh. I completely hate this phrase. Hate. Drink!
Holy shit…an iPad.
Because the rest of the gifts aren’t good enough? And why is she more shocked by the iPad than the other things? Also, why does she have a Blackberry if all her other stuff is Apple products? Inquiring minds want to know.
Holy cow. I have a Christian Grey mix-tape in the guise of a high-end iPad.
Is there even such a thing as a “high-end” iPad? I’ve been checking out iPads in order to make a purchase later this year. They’re basically all the same, other than size and memory. I’m not sure that’s the term I’d use to describe the difference. Also, “mix-tape”? Seriously? Do people even use that term anymore?
…he’s put a great deal of thought into this gift.
She describes how he’s built the model plane she gave him when she left, photographed it, and made it into the background on her iPad. So, actually, this quote is true. I would actually find the gesture very romantic and sweet. That is, if Christian weren’t such a stalker who did all this after she had broken up with him.
…my inner goddess curls up hugging herself on her chaise lounge…
Drink!
With a swipe of my finger, the icons shift, and several new ones appear…
How much is E. L. James being paid to be free advertising for Apple?
Words–whatever that is
I found exactly one app called “Words,” and it’s a word search puzzle game. Maybe she means Words with Friends, but how she doesn’t know that one is beyond me. I don’t even play it and I know what it is. For someone working in publishing, Ana is kind of a Luddite.
She starts to sing, and her voice is a silken scarf wrapping around me, enveloping me.
The over-the-top metaphors are wearisome. Maybe we need a drinking game for those, too.
If this isn’t an apology, what is it?
She’s listening to the music on the iPad. Somehow, the whole thing seems sort of like the way very young people interact when they’re dating. Teenagers and people in movies make music mixes and think that suffices for an apology. Adults actually, you know, apologize.
My subconscious nods at me, trying to hide her pity.
First of all, what? Ana, it’s your own damn subconscious–it can’t “hide it’s pity” from you because it is you. Second, drink!
I’m glad you like it. I bought one for myself. [email to Ana about the iPad]
Yeah, okay, that totally sounds like the way some guys interact. “I love this new gadget! I bought one for you too, honey!” It made me laugh. Also, my husband would never do that, but I’ll bet he smirks inside every time he gets a new thing, lets me check it out, and I say, “Hey this is awesome. I want one too!”
His response made me smile, still so bossy, still so Christian.
Yep. Bossy reply to the woman who just said she loves you. Good going, dude. (Ana ended her email with “I love you,” which Christian did not say back to her.)
I drift slowly into sleep, marveling at how the world has righted itself in one evening…
That’s certainly not what I got out of this chapter.
Up next week: Chapter 3. Dun, dun dun! Laters, baby. (Drink!)
Sign Here
When Charlotte signed the petition, she figured that was the end of it. Students were forever seeking signatures to change school policies, most of which would never see the light of day. The principal was fond of issuing a “Thank you very much” and sealing the offending document in the bottom drawer of his file cabinet. It was a mere seven weeks into tenth grade, and Charlotte had already signed half a dozen petitions on everything from improved cafeteria food to allowing students to roam the halls without passes (after all, what student would bother staying out in the open when cutting class?). It didn’t matter whether or not she believed in the cause; she was doing her duty to her fellow students.
Of course, in this case, she actually did support the petition. Which was why it came as a complete shock that Mr. Vanderburgh planned to hold a forum for the students to present their arguments.
Morton Ponds wasn’t known for its high-quality health education. In the previous ten years, there had been six different teachers. Students had complained, parents had complained (not usually about the same things), and even Mr. Vanderburgh had grown weary of the debates. The student petition was merely the last straw. Everyone needed to actually talk to each other about the problem rather than calling him once a year to complain about the new hire. It helped that both Regina Crossly, the latest health teacher, and Nan Molomo, the assistant principal, were on board with making a few changes. Mr. Vanderburgh knew an opportunity when he saw one.
That, of course, was how Charlotte became involved. Mr. Vanderburgh had the good sense to see a local minister’s daughter’s name on the petition and take advantage of that. After all, if a man of the cloth was endorsing improvements in the “health” (read: sex) education curriculum, surely others would follow. No one had ever accused Mr. Vanderburgh of being courageous; he wasn’t above pressing any and all advantages.
The problem with that reasoning was that Charlotte’s father had no idea she’d signed the petition, nor did he have any investment in the cause.
Meanwhile, word was spreading rapidly through the school. The students who had fronted the whole operation were advocating for not only an improved curriculum but the availability of certain services within the school—chiefly pregnancy tests and free condoms. Naturally, Charlotte somehow became associated with all of it, guaranteeing herself a spot at the center of the upcoming presentation. She took a good amount of teasing for that; her classmates sensed the irony in the pastor’s kid advocating free birth control for teenagers. Unfortunately, that extended to unwanted suggestions regarding her vagina. When the third person made a rude comment to her, Charlotte returned it with her best right hook.
Ten minutes later, she was sitting in Ms Molomo’s office with the offending boy. Charlotte didn’t even know his name. He had an ice pack over his eye.
“I’m surprised at your behavior, Charlotte. What would possess you to punch someone?”
“He offered to let me give him a blow job behind the field house and told me he’d bring the condoms.” Charlotte glared at him. “Said they come in cherry flavor now.”
Ms Molomo raised an eyebrow at him. The boy scowled and slouched in his seat. “It was just a joke.”
“It wasn’t funny!” Charlotte snapped.
Ms Molomo massaged her forehead. “Charlotte, I really can’t condone violence—”
“But—”
Ms Molomo put up her hand. “I understand why you felt threatened, but there are consequences for your actions. In place of suspension, you are on probation for the foreseeable future. As for you,” she addressed the boy, “you will be enjoying a week of in-school suspension, during which you will be spending a lot of time researching misogyny and sexualized violence against women.”
Charlotte stalked out of Ms Molomo’s office. The probation meant very little; Charlotte wasn’t much for making trouble, and she was an excellent student. All of her extracurricular activities were outside of school, so there was nothing to be suspended from. The only problem was that Ms Molomo would be calling her parents. Charlotte dreaded the end of the school day.
____________________
There was no one home when Charlotte entered the house. Tyler was probably at practice, and Colby had classes; she didn’t know—and didn’t care—where Helen was. She dropped her bag and headed to the bathroom. It had been just her luck that she’d also started her period that afternoon because there was nothing better to add to a lousy day than cramps.
And a distinct lack of pads in the bathroom.
Remembering that her mother kept some in the bedroom for emergencies, Charlotte went upstairs. She rummaged in her mother’s dresser, searching. She didn’t come up with so much as a lone tampon, but right underneath the neatly folded nightgowns were a variety of. . .objects, all labeled with a company name. The only thing Charlotte could identify were the vibrators. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
She heard a noise behind her and turned around, shoving the drawer with her foot. “I was just looking for pads,” she said before her mother could speak.
Joy sighed and shook her head. “Just don’t tell your father, okay?”
“Uh. . .okay. What is all that stuff for, anyway?”
Flushing, Joy muttered, “I sell it.”
“Mom!” Then, “To whom?”
Joy shrugged. “Women at church.”
Charlotte giggled. “I promise not to tell Dad about the vibrators if you promise not to tell him I decked a boy for asking me to suck him off.”
“Fair enough.” Joy extended her hand, and they shook on it.
She snagged a package of pads from a shelf in the closet and handed it to Charlotte. “Want to help me make dinner? We need to eat early because of that meeting at the school tonight.”
“Sure.” Charlotte decided not to mention that Mr. Vanderburgh thought her father endorsed the sex ed campaign; she decided it would be better just to let her parents handle that one themselves.
