Category Archives: Faith and Doubt

Christian Books Roundup: “The Nonviolent Atonement” and Others


It’s a bit early for a best-of-the-year roundup, but nearly getting beaned by a falling tree last week has convinced me that there’s no time like the present. So enjoy these capsule summaries of the best Christian nonfiction I’ve read this year, and be sure to prune your pear trees before they get top-heavy. (Although some would argue that God was angry at my perennials bed for supporting gay marriage.)

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J. Denny Weaver’s The Nonviolent Atonement (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001) argues, to my mind persuasively, that traditional “satisfaction” theories of atonement are inconsistent with the nonviolent character of Jesus, and have also done harm by permitting Christians to romanticize abuse and oppression. The satisfaction model portrays Christ’s death as the saving act that was required to reconcile God and humanity. Weaver, coming from the Anabaptist “peace church” tradition, prefers a model he calls “narrative Christus Victor”, in which Christ’s death is a by-product of the collision between good and evil. The salvific event is Christ’s resurrection, which has both objective and subjective effects: on the cosmic level, it assures the eventual defeat of the powers of evil, and on the human level, it invites us to begin creating an alternative power structure that will be fully realized only at the eschaton–one in which self-giving love triumphs over domination. This is not something we must do to earn salvation; it is salvation itself, defined as participation in the reign of God and restoration of God’s image in us.

Theologians throughout the ages have come up with different metaphors for how the satisfaction-atonement worked, each (as Weaver observes) reflecting their own contingent cultural viewpoint. The 11th-century scholar Anselm conceived of God as a feudal lord whose honor required blood repayment, while the Puritans employed the language of their harsh penal system. Contort the metaphors as they will, Weaver argues, all of these narratives ultimately make God the author of Jesus’ death. Narrative Christus Victor actually puts the blame where it belongs–on us!–and defuses charges of “divine child abuse”.

Weaver frequently accuses the mainstream atonement tradition of severing the links between ethics and Christology, or ethics and salvation. The actual values that Jesus embodied in his earthly ministry become irrelevant, or even contradictory, when we picture God as restoring cosmic order through vengeance. Protestants have become so skittish about works-righteousness that we’ve reduced salvation to a transaction that occurs in some apolitical, supernatural realm–which conveniently allows us to dodge self-scrutiny about the church’s collusion with oppressive social structures. I do feel that Weaver is too quick to dismiss the Nicene-Chalcedonian creedal formulas as examples of this post-Constantinian turn toward empty philosophizing, but to be fair, the progressive political implications of the Trinity don’t get nearly as much press as they deserve.

In the second half of the book, Weaver surveys developments in black, feminist, and womanist Christian theology, offering a respectful summary and critique of several authors who have argued that satisfaction atonement reinforces abusive power dynamics by mischaracterizing the giving and receiving of punishment as expressions of love. I appreciate Weaver’s willingness to buck the anti-supernatural trend among liberal Christians by insisting that Jesus as moral example is important but insufficient; we also need the cosmic dimension of Christ’s victory over sin, effectuated by the resurrection.

Readers interested in exploring the Christus Victor motif may enjoy the writings of N.T. Wright, the Anglican bishop credited (or blamed) for this so-called “new perspective on Paul”. Wright is the featured speaker at the April 2010 Wheaton theology conference, where fans and foes of his writings on justification will be duking it out. I’m hanging up my traveling shoes for awhile, so please send me your impressions of the conference for possible publication in this space.

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British novelist Sara Maitland’s A Big Enough God: A Feminist’s Search for a Joyful Theology (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995) is an amateur theology book in the best sense of the word. In the same spirit as Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Maitland loves God’s creations and loves using her literary gifts to share her vision of a God who is wonderfully complex, dynamic, mysterious and risk-taking. (Amazon.com informs me that there’s a sequel from 2002.) Maitland reads a much better story from the book of nature than the rule-bound, abstracted and boxed-in God that religious people want to defend against the perceived onslaught of Galileo, Darwin, and Freud. Her theology is specifically feminist in that it celebrates particularity, difference, and embodiment as evidence of God’s boundless creativity, rather than a threat to the (unattainable) universality of some theological system.

But this is not a fuzzy-minded, sentimental book about Dear Mother Earth. Both the human and non-human elements of creation are marred by violence and decay. Revelation is necessary because nature is not sufficient as a guide to ethics. Maitland firmly believes in the gospel story, which she views as no more or less improbable than the life cycle of the woodlouse. Read her book and you might agree.

Maitland’s solution to the inclusive-language dilemma is a creative one. She warns feminists against setting up a new kind of gender essentialism which merely strokes our egos and denies the dark side of the maternal. Purging liturgical texts of all gendered metaphors won’t do either, because in our incarnational faith, God is known through the particulars. For herself, Maitland concretizes the “both/and nature” of God by calling God “Father” but with female pronouns: “she is Father”. She suggests that men would benefit from using the reverse formula, “he is Mother”, because in both cases, imagining God as the opposite sex acknowledges “that God is ultimately Other, the beloved Other; the transcendent, the enormous, the infinite; everything that I’m not, won’t be come and can’t experience, understand or claim to own.” (p.21)

I’d love to see more exploration of transgenderism as a theological metaphor. Transpersons’ experiences might help us fully celebrate the masculine and feminine energies within God, so that our theological language can avoid both watered-down androgyny and the privileging of one gender over another. (Ex-ex-gay activist Peterson Toscano is doing interesting work in this area.) As Maitland writes:

There seems in all of us to be an enormous resistance to the idea that a thing can simply be different from another thing (usually with myself as the normative thing and divergence from that as abnormal) without becoming better or worse. Yet the scandal of particularity, the fact of the Incarnation, holds up difference, specificity, as desirable. Moreover if difference and diversity are not good in themselves then it is a little difficult to see how this can possibly be the best of all possible worlds–this cosmos in which difference proliferates and the number of insect species is uncounta
ble. The theology I am looking for must affirm the reality of difference; call attention to it; honour and proclaim it as part of the glory. For unless difference is proclaimed the possibility of communicating in love with each other, let alone with God who is manifestly and necessarily different from us, is patently impossible. (pp.8-9)

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While we’re on the topic of harmony within diversity, Thomas Breidenthal’s Sacred Unions: A New Guide to Lifelong Commitment (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 2006) develops an inspiring and inclusive vision of marriage as a Christian vocation. A Christian marriage points beyond itself to service to God and community. It gives us the most intensive schooling in how to love another person as one’s self, with complete commitment of body and soul. Learning how to honor and cherish the spouse’s otherness also teaches us about intimacy with God, who is the ultimate Other. Meanwhile, the particularity of marriage, our love for a specific and irreplaceable person, reminds us that neighbor-love must be equally reverent toward the dignity of each individual we encounter; it is not merely directed at humanity en masse.

Perhaps I’ve been spending too much time in the gay male alternate universe, but I wished Breidenthal would have spent more time explaining why sexual exclusivity is the only possible definition of sexual fidelity. Certainly it’s always felt that way in my marriage. On the other hand, I know at least one gay male couple who consider themselves married and use their marriage as a home base for the type of ministry and activism that Breidenthal envisions, yet have a wide-open relationship.

If there is still a reason why one-night stands are incompatible with a Christian way of relating to others, maybe it’s the “Ensign Expendable” problem. Each of us naturally thinks of our life as a drama with ourselves as the main character. A few others, such as our primary sexual partner, are also characters who are acknowledged to have feelings and worth. The rest of the people we encounter are props, extras, existing only to advance our storyline. On “Queer as Folk“, the audience isn’t supposed to feel anything for the random hunky guys that Brian is banging each time Justin walks in and wants to talk about their relationship. Their anonymity is part of the sight gag. But from God’s standpoint, Mr. Right Now is just as important as Brian.

My guess is that it’s hard for gay Christians to discuss these issues openly because they’re still fighting for basic recognition in the churches, which requires assimilation to the heterosexual ideal. Given that many straight Christian couples also break their vows of fidelity, I look forward to the day when we can pool our knowledge about the best ways to achieve a stable, honest and healthy marriage.

 

I’m in an Open Relationship with Jesus


Someone close to me was telling me this morning about her struggle to accept her rabbi’s teaching that she should love God more than anything or anyone. “I can’t help it,” she said, “I love my daughter more!”

In the past I might have given a neat response, paraphrasing Tim Keller, to the effect that idolizing any created thing puts unbearable pressure on yourself (because you can lose it through failure or mischance) and on the one idolized (who feels compelled to be impossibly perfect). C.S. Lewis illustrates this distortion in The Great Divorce, his fantasy of damned souls on a field trip to heaven, through the character of an old woman who mourned her dead son so obsessively that she neglected the surviving members of her family. Lewis suggests that over time, the object of her passion became her own identity as a mourner, rather than the real person she had lost.

To love someone properly, on the other hand, is to recognize that you are not the author of the universe, which sooner or later means that you must surrender to God’s will for the other person. After all, didn’t Jesus say, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt 10:37)?

And yet, my past year of queer activism makes me think that something is indeed amiss with the rabbi’s formulation of the question about how love of God relates to love of neighbor. This opposition between them is a common one in Christian apologetics, as the examples above show.

How many times have gay people been told that their loving partnerships are a form of idolatry, a choice to value their own desires more than God? Conservative Christian friends have warned me that I was imperfectly surrendered to God because I refused to leave my GLBT brothers and sisters outside the fellowship of believers. My friends hardened their hearts toward these people and called it “putting God first”. In a book I recently read about the ex-gay movement, the gay men in the “reparative therapy” program were encouraged to project all their longing for intimate companionship onto Jesus, the one relationship that would never let them down. I believe in Jesus, but this still sounds to me like a dangerous retreat into fantasy.

The mistake behind the question “Do you love God more than your husband, wife, child…?” is that it prescribes the via negativa as the norm when it’s probably not the healthiest spiritual path for most people. Some do find God through the path of asceticism, quieting down all human distractions in order to rest in the stillness of the Wholly Other, the “deep and dazzling darkness” of Henry Vaughan’s wonderful poem “The Night“.

But for most of us who don’t live in monasteries, God is mainly known through our interactions with His creatures. “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) The formulation that puts God in competition with our human beloveds subtly encourages us to hold back a portion of our heart from them, to dampen down our feelings for them, in the name of religion. This is a “jealous God” in the crudest sense, a God whose evil eye we attract if we praise our child too much. To prefer this God is really to prefer ourselves, because we are putting a mental construct ahead of a living person who can challenge our preconceptions and agendas.

I would contend that the problem with idolatrous love, such as the old woman’s feelings about her dead son in The Great Divorce, is not too much love but too little. It does not see the other person for who he really is, and therefore cannot seek the highest good for him. It turns the lover away from caring for others, rather than producing an overflow of creative energy that seeks new outlets for service. (For a beautiful discussion of how marriage can generate neighbor-love, I recommend Sacred Unions by Thomas Breidenthal.)

To love anyone rightly–that is, skillfully, compassionately and unselfishly–is to love God. If you want to show that you love me, Jesus says to Peter, you will “feed my sheep” (John 21:17). Conversely, if our love for God isn’t increasing our love for other people, then it probably isn’t the real God that we’re worshipping.

So what was Jesus saying, in Matthew 10, if he wasn’t telling us to worry about loving our family and friends too deeply?

I don’t think he was prompting us to seek out conflict between our loyalty to God and our loyalty to our loved ones. Rather, he was warning us to make the right choice in the conflicts that would inevitably come as a by-product of kingdom living. Quoting the prophet Micah, Jesus says, “For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.'” (Matt 10:35-36)

Sometimes our loved ones don’t understand the way we feel called to serve God. A career military man may feel rejected and dumbfounded when his son reads the Gospels and decides to be a pacifist. An evangelical mother may feel afraid when her daughter studies Buddhist meditation as a way to enrich her prayer life. A feminist mother might be angry that her daughter votes pro-life for religious reasons.

In such cases, to put God first means letting the other person work out his or her own salvation. When we can’t come to agreement on what the Bible says, we have to trust that somehow it’s God’s will that each of us sees the world from a particular angle. We’re part of a larger pattern where these differences will ultimately be transcended or reconciled without shame to those on the “wrong” side.

Every morning, in our separate homes, my conservative Christian friend and I pray the Daily Office. We read the same psalms and speak the same prayers. I am praying that she and others like her will open their hearts to the full equality of gay people and the salvation of non-Christians, and she is probably praying that I will return to an orthodoxy that anathematizes these views. This scares me, sometimes so much that I become angry and frightened by Christian talk in general. The word of God is indeed a double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). But if I’m so afraid to live without that friendship that I can’t follow my own sense of God’s will for me, then I am not obeying the command of Matthew 10.

Friday Random Song: Jason Bravo, “You Raise Me Up”


Buffalo, NY-based singer/songwriter Jason Bravo’s performances of original pop songs and classic covers can be enjoyed on his YouTube channel, BraveHealerMusic. His debut album “Between Head and Heart” is available from CDBaby.

In this concert clip from summer 2009, he’s performing Josh Groban’s hit song “You Raise Me Up”, with my best buddy Greg Bravo on the awesome guitar solos.

When I am down, and oh my soul, so weary.
When troubles come, and my heart burdened be.
Then I am still and wait here in the silence.
Until You come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders.
You raise me up to more than I can be.

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders.
You raise me up to more than I can be.

There is no life — no life without its hunger.
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly.
But when you come and I am filled with wonder.
Sometimes I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders.
You raise me up to more than I can be.

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders.
You raise me up — to more than I can be.

Lyrics courtesy of AnyChristianLyrics.com

Wednesday Random Song: “Brighten the Corner Where You Are”


Ina Duley Ogdon was a Midwestern wife and mother and Sunday School teacher during the early 20th century. Ogdon had ambitions of becoming a preacher but family responsibilities intervened. Her poem “Brighten the Corner Where You Are” was written in 1912 while she was caring for her sick father. Set to music by Charles H. Gabriel, the tune became a nationwide hit after evangelist Billy Sunday made it a staple of his revival meetings.

I first heard it this week on Enlighten 34, the Southern gospel station on XM Radio, in a lively rendition by The Statesmen which I wasn’t able to find on YouTube. (It’s featured on this album.) Instead, enjoy this old-school version by the Criterion Quartet:

This interesting 10-minute video tells the story of Ina’s life and the inspiration for the song, as well as its subsequent cultural reception.

1. Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.

* Refrain:
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!

2. Just above are clouded skies that you may help to clear,
Let not narrow self your way debar;
Though into one heart alone may fall your song of cheer,
Brighten the corner where you are.

3. Here for all your talent you may surely find a need,
Here reflect the bright and Morning Star;
Even from your humble hand the Bread of Life may feed,
Brighten the corner where you are.

Lyrics courtesy of the Timeless Truths free online library. (Click the “midi” music note icon on their website to hear the tune.)

Constantine P. Cavafy: “In Despair”


Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) is acclaimed for his poems of love and longing. The website Billie Dee’s Electronic Poetry Anthology includes several of his poems translated by Rae Dalven. I particularly appreciated this one, depicting the familiar tragedy of religious guilt coming between two lovers. Which of them is pursuing an illusion? Perhaps both; or perhaps the idealized lover of our imagination, whether human or divine, is a more rewarding prize than the love of an ordinary mortal.

In Despair

He has lost him completely.   And now he is
    seeking
on the lips of    every new lover
the lips of his beloved   in the embrace
of every new lover    he seeks to be deluded
that he is the same lad,   that it it to him he is
    yielding.

He has lost him completely,    as if he had never
    been at all.
For he wanted — so he said —    he wanted to be
    saved
from the stigmatized,   the sick sensual delight;
from the stigmatized,   sensual delight of shame.
There was still time —    as he said — to be saved.

He has lost him completely,   as if he had never
    been at all.
In his imagination,    in his delusions,
on the lips of others   it is his lips he is seeking;
he is longing to feel again   the love he has
    known. 

Speaking Justice Versus Living It


One of my challenges as an activist, and as a Christian, is finding the proper balance between speaking about my values and living them out. Too much discussion keeps me unhealthily engaged with self-justification against opponents, while too little can be a form of selfish quietism in the face of widespread misinformation about what the Bible says.

The Epistle of James has a lot to say about closing the gap between hearing and doing God’s word. This recent installment of the Human Rights Campaign’s Out in Scripture lectionary e-newsletter includes some fruitful reflections on that text (boldface emphasis mine):

Our conversation about this week’s lectionary Bible passages began with James 1:17-27. What is the way of God’s wisdom? The book of James suggests that it is the “law of liberty” (James 2:12). And that law starts with doing. Doers of the law’s basic justice requirements place themselves in risky outreach settings in which we are inevitably challenged to know who we really are. Acts of justice hold up the mirror that enables our transformation of heart, while doctrinal obsessions and arguments merely keep us in bondage.

Deeds and words both matter in the book of James. And at the beginning of today’s reading, we are called to be quick to listen, not to speak (James 1:19). This is a kind of listening that calls for inward listening. Sarah, a transgender woman, reminds us: “Before my transition, I needed to step back and away from all the outside advice I was getting from people. I needed to really listen for God’s voice inside, in the midst of all the other voices.” Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people know that it is often a matter of life and death that we distinguish the voices and learn to trust inner listening. The author of James provokes us, however, to remember that such times of contemplation cannot be divorced from habits of service and justice.

Listening to others without a prayerful discerning heart can lead to powerlessness. Words can be hurtful, dangerous and affect others in ways that the speaker may not realize. Those in power in our denomination, local church or civic settings may have power to name the “tradition” or to label others: for example, when only men decide about women’s ordination or only heterosexuals decide about the ordination of LGBT people in the church. Fatigued by the struggle against endless pronouncements, LGBT people may come to this place: “I just don’t know if I can listen anymore.” We cannot ignore the reality of power by idealizing an uncritical, non-discerning listening posture. We can, instead, lift up a reminder that those in power may themselves be transformed when they have the courage to listen to LGBT people for God’s voice.

Visit the Out in Scripture archives and sign up here.

The Theology of Abuse (Part One)


Hugo, via Facebook, pointed me to today’s Washington Post story about a new study on clergy sexual abuse from Baylor University’s School of Social Work:

One in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader, a survey released Wednesday says.

The study, by Baylor University researchers, found that the problem is so pervasive that it almost certainly involves a wide range of denominations, religious traditions and leaders.

“It certainly is prevalent, and clearly the problem is more than simply a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers,” said Diana Garland, dean of Baylor’s School of Social Work, who co-authored the study.

It found that more than two-thirds of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance….

For its study, Baylor used the 2008 General Social Survey, a nationally representative sample of 3,559 respondents, to estimate the prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct. Women older than 18 who attended worship services at least once a month were asked in the survey whether they had received “sexual advances or propositions” from a religious leader.

The study found that close to one in 10 respondents — male and female — reported having known about clergy sexual misconduct occurring in a congregation they had attended.

Researchers say they don’t know whether the incidence of clergy sexual misconduct had changed over the years. Nor do they know whether sexual wrongdoing by clergy is more, or less, frequent than in other well-respected professions.

But, Garland said, “when you put it with a spiritual leader or moral leader, you’ve really added a power that we typically don’t think about in secular society — which is that this person speaks for God and interprets God for people. And that really adds a power.”

All power can be misused, and greater intimacy risks greater pain. In one way or another, the world’s religions aim at making the hard and selfish ego more permeable, creating more opportunities for love but also greater exposure to others’ unsafe emotions.

In the past few years, as I’ve become more deeply involved in Christian fellowship, I’ve also experienced some serious violations of trust. It’s driven me to re-examine my core beliefs through this lens: do some doctrines make the believer more vulnerable to exploitation?

Certainly the reverse has been true for me, earlier in my faith journey. I wouldn’t have valued or trusted myself enough to break free of some abusive family patterns, had I not discovered the loving and forgiving God of the New Testament. (Read Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s Boundaries for details.)

I would hate to be one of those smug secularists who accuse Christians of being immature people with Daddy issues. Nonetheless, lately I’ve dared to wonder whether the traditional emphasis on human insufficiency, dependence, and sinfulness has kept me from outgrowing the need for parental approval, instead merely projecting it onto God. That wouldn’t be so bad if it were just “me and Jesus”, but inevitably, my understanding of God is mediated and influenced by the spiritual leaders in whatever community I join–either clergy or lay people who seem to be more educated and advanced in the faith than I am.

Dr. Edward J. Cumella’s Barnabas Ministry website lists 12 signs of spiritual abuse in their article “The Yeast of the Pharisees”:

Authoritarianism. Rather than modeling and teaching obedience to God, abusive leaders expect believers to obey them. Councils of elders, deacons, etc., are expected to rubber stamp leaders’ intentions rather than provide accountability.

Coercion. Rather than respecting freedom and conscience, as God does, and offering messages that persuade based on scriptural integrity and reason, abusive leaders use strong-arm tactics to coerce believers into overruling better judgment and following their demands.

Intimidation. Rather than building up the Body in the bonds of love, abusive leaders use threats of punishment, excommunication, and condemnation to force people into submission and continued church membership.

Terrorism. Rather than inviting people to follow Christ with the Gospel of love and forgiveness, abusive leaders intensify believers’ fear, shame, and false guilt, teaching that problems in believers’ lives are due to the believers’ personal sins.

Condemnation. Rather than refraining from judgment lest they be judged, an abusive leader liberally condemns those who leave his church, outsiders, and those whom he defines as sinners. The message is that believers will join the ranks of the condemned should they deviate from the leader’s teachings or leave his church/denomination. Individual members become the scapegoat when something goes awry in the congregation.

Classism. Christ was no respecter of persons. Abusive leaders are preoccupied with power, promoting church hierarchy, referring to and treating people according to their titles and roles. Those lower on the hierarchy are taught that their needs don’t matter.

Conformity. Abusive leaders have the greatest hold over inexperienced, naïve, and dependent individuals who are seeking a strong leader. These individuals suppress their objections to the leaders’ teachings for fear of being shamed or ostracized. Hence, abusive churches often appear unified, but beneath the surface there is discontent, anguish, whispers, rumors, secrets, and a desire among many to leave.

Manipulation. Rather than taking scripture in context, interpreting the Bible with the Bible and according to long-held Christian beliefs, abusive leaders twist scripture to convey their personal opinion rather than God’s intent.

Irrationality. Because scripture is manipulated, one interpretation may contradict another. Interpretations may contradict reason and obvious reality. This requires suspension of critical thinking. Some abusive leaders claim to receive direct messages from God about their church or individual members, but these messages typically deviate from Scripture and reality.

Legalism. Rather than treating others with love, grace, and forgiveness, as Christ commanded, abusive leaders offer little grace. They communicate instead that one’s worth and the amount of love one deserves depend on performance and status in their church. Abusive leaders expect believers to make heroic financial, time, and emotional sacrifices for their church and its members.

Isolation. Rather than respecting family ties, community obligations, and friendships, abusive leaders are concerned that such influences will interfere with their control over believers, so they encourage isolation from family, friends, and the outside world, and wage war against the outside world as a sewer of sin devoid of anything redeeming.

Elitism. Rather than modeling and encouraging humility, abusive leaders beam with false pride and teach the same to believers. An attitude arises of, “We’re it! We’re special! Everyone else is condemned!,” partially compensating for the shame and worthlessness that believers feel because of other experiences in the abusive church. The leader instills that believers must protect the church’s image at any cost.

Ensnarement. Rather than promoting maturity among believers, abusive leaders inevitably promote self-dou
bt, guilt, and identity confusion, since believers struggle with the contradiction between what their conscience and reason tell them and what they are being taught. This ambivalence, coupled with fear of condemnation and loss of direction and fellowship, make it difficult and painful for believers to leave abusive churches.

Before you write this off as only applying to cults, consider how the above attitudes are encouraged by the doctrines of many mainstream churches:

Isolation: If you truly believe that God condemns all people to eternal conscious torment, except for the lucky few who have heard the gospel and been convinced by it, you either (1) are a compassionate person and go mad from the horror of all that suffering, or (2) teach yourself not to care about people outside your tribe. It has become impossible for me to trust Christians who can go through life smiling and making friends with unbelievers while inwardly holding, in fact cherishing, belief in a God who would torture these people forever.

Ensnarement: Isn’t this the experience of GLBT people in conservative churches–forced to choose between loss of fellowship and their own psychological self-understanding? Undermining people’s pleasure and pain signals is a classic technique to prime them for abuse. This happens, for instance, when leaders tell gays that their homosexuality is a delusion, or that their relationships aren’t genuine and loving.

Classism: Churches that exclude women from leadership, for example, send a broader message that inequality is acceptable in the body of Christ. We learn to justify our failures of moral imagination and our natural tendency to see others as less than fully human.

Conformity: Biblical inerrantists are among those who argue that any deviation from tradition will undermine our confidence in our entire relationship with God. In this model, the living always lose out to the dead; the flow of learning only goes in one direction. We are taught to venerate those who will not respond to us. Like the child of an abusive parent, we have only two alternatives: submission or loss of love. We have no way to make our suffering heard.

Terrorism: I am leaning toward the opinion that the Calvinist belief in total depravity is an abuse-enabling doctrine. It’s a “hazing” model of identity destruction and re-formation in which the lay person is convinced to radically mistrust and despise herself, making her so desperate for approval that she falls gratefully at the feet of the “God” who spares her the punishment she thinks she deserves (the “honeymoon phase” in this Cycle of Abuse diagram). Similarly, advocates of predestination speak as if God’s absolute and unquestioned sovereignty would be weakened by requiring His judgment to be leavened by compassion or fairness. This idolization of content-free obedience sets up psychological blocks against defending one’s self from an abusive leader.

The website Under Much Grace provides other resources for conceptualizing and healing from abuse-enabling doctrines. In a 2007 post on “Doctrine Over Person”, author Cindy Kunsman writes:

Members’ personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group. The end ideology of the group must be maintained by any means, even at the personal expense or the personal suffering of the group members. Love for the system or ideology supersedes that of the people, places or lesser causes. This promotes hatred and intolerance of all opposing critics or ideologies (sadly, often including those within the group).

This was my painful experience when I found myself in close fellowship with some Christians who were not affirming of gays and lesbians. At that time a novice in reading the Bible, I hoped that perhaps they had simply not heard a convincing case otherwise. After much study and soul-searching, I was able to make such a case, only to discover that they resisted hearing it. I don’t think my friends felt an animus toward gays so much as a general rigidity such as Cindy describes above. They thought personal emotions about fairness were less trustworthy than a System. These feelings were branded a sign of weakness and partiality, of incomplete submission to God. The irony is that their fear of being wrong is also an unacknowledged emotion, one which a relationship with Jesus is supposed to heal.

I’m struggling to hang onto that relationship myself, even as I see how a person’s love for God can be used as the ultimate weapon of emotional blackmail. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38, NIV)

Christian Community in Fiction


Nathan Hobby, an Anabaptist Christian and fiction writer in Western Australia, posted some worthwhile reflections earlier this summer concerning what it means to write novels for the kingdom of God. In this essay, Nathan unpacks N.T. Wright’s directive to write “a novel which grips people with the structure of Christian thought, and with Christian motivation set deep into the heart and structure of the narrative, so that people would read that and resonate with it and realize that that story can be my story.”

Nathan observes that a lot of popular fiction with the “Christian” label is unfortunately cheesy and simplistic. Brian McLaren’s books, such as A New Kind of Christian, use a fictional narrative to put across some sophisticated ideas in an emotionally accessible way, but are not well-crafted as novels. The same might be said of The Shack, an unlikely bestseller about the Trinity, which I admit I enjoyed despite its clunky plot.

In the modern naturalistic novel, it’s a challenge to dramatize complicated abstractions without turning one’s characters into speech-makers. The rules of the genre also make it difficult to represent the supernatural in anything but a subjective and fuzzy way. The author who throws in a miracle seems to be cheating, unless he leaves open the option of material causes. The take-away lesson of the book may then become more about the virtue of having faith than about the content of that faith. (Did you clap your hands to save Tinkerbell or not?)

Nathan’s essay discusses his own struggles to solve these problems, leading him to the conclusion that too much conscious purpose on the writer’s part can thwart the emergence of well-rounded characters. He’s inspired by N.T. Wright’s message that salvation is not merely personal access to heaven but a project of improving this world here and now. Thus, the novelist can spread the kingdom by depicting what a community based on gospel values would look like:

The three aspects of this that [Wright] discusses are justice, beauty and evangelism. He talks about
justice in terms of the setting right of the world as a sign and symbol of what’s to come. He talks
about beauty in terms of us creating things that reflect simultaneously the beauty of the original
creation, the scars of a fallen world and the hope of the new creation. Evangelism, then, is the
invitation for others to join in the kingdom life, and it needs to reflect the kingdom focus and
hope for renewal of the Earth.

A community-centered literary vision presents its own challenges, Nathan notes, because the novel is a product of Enlightenment individualism. It tracks particular characters rather than groups. “The focus on the individual and the individual’s
consciousness pushes the novel toward individualism and mere spirituality.”

Since my own novel is about a fashion photographer’s faith journey, I was especially interested in Nathan’s suggestion that a novel can reorient our standards of beauty in a more Christian direction:

…[B]eauty has a new shape for a community living in
the kingdom. So, how might beauty in fiction be transformed by the practices of the Christian
community?

There is an obvious and trite answer – for a start, the upside down values of the kingdom
challenge the world’s idea of beauty attached to slim, young models. We might also strain
ourselves and insist that prose is more ‘beautiful’ when it describes a world of God’s presence,
rather than one of his non-existence.

Perhaps in the diversity of the body – the breaking down of racial barriers in the church as a
proclamation of Christ’s victory over the powers – we might also be encouraged to find beauty
outside our cultural comfort zone.

I would like to think that Nathan’s right that prose is more beautiful when it describes a God-infused world. But I’m not so sure. What is beauty, anyhow? Literary tastes vary as much as theological ones, and maybe for similar reasons. Because I’m already a believer, a gorgeous style wedded to a nihilistic vision will seem false to me, perhaps more of a turn-off than if the bleak content were matched by austere prose. On the other hand, that same book might satisfy someone who’s looking for transcendence in art because he doesn’t find it in religion.

I do love Nathan’s notion that a Christian book could bring our aesthetic and moral judgments more into harmony, so that goodness and reconciliation seem more attractive than conventional beauty standards based on inequality and extravagance. My fabulous protagonist, however, hopes there is a place for both, because Vogue is paying his rent.

Upcoming GLBT Conferences: Send Me Your Reports


Three conferences of interest to GLBT Christians and straight allies are coming up this autumn. My heteronormative family responsibilities are likely to keep me from attending any of them. So I’m counting on you, dear readers, to send me your reports from the field. Write up your impressions and I’ll consider them for publication on this blog, or send me a link to your own blog post about any of these events.

Why Homosexuality? Religion, Globalization, and the Anglican Schism
Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT
October 17, 2009

This interdisciplinary conference is sponsored by the LGBT Studies Department at Yale. “Rather than restaging the arguments for and against the ordination of openly gay clergy, this day-long conference analyzes the threatened schism in the Anglican Communion in order to examine wide-ranging and interrelated issues of religion, secularism, globalization, nationalism, and modernity. How and why, we ask, has homosexuality come to serve as a flash point for so many local and global conflicts?”

The Ivy-League roster of panelists includes Harvard’s Kwame Anthony Appiah and Mark Jordan. Registration is a dirt-cheap $10, which includes lunch and conference materials. I so, so want to be there…please, someone go and videotape this for me!

Translating Identity Conference
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
October 24, 2009

“The Translating Identity Conference is a free conference focusing on transgender communities and gender identities. Open to the public, this event hopes to reach out to the University of Vermont, the Burlington community, and the nation as a whole to further educate us all about gender. With multiple sessions and workshops to choose from at any time, some will be directed specifically towards trans-identified people, while others will be for families, friends, and lovers of trans persons. Some will be for those already well versed in this subject area and some will be for those who are fairly unfamiliar with the transgender community and the topic of gender identity. This conference is a safe space for everyone to come, learn, and enjoy themselves!”

Registration is free, but donations are gladly accepted. The 2009 speakers’ list is not yet available online. Last year’s participants included Kate Bornstein and Gunner Scott. In this informal 10-minute video, the young transpeople who are organizing the conference introduce themselves and talk about the upcoming events.

Soulforce Anti-Heterosexism Conference
West Palm Beach, FL
November 20-22, 2009

Co-sponsored by Soulforce, Truth Wins Out, the National Black Justice Coalition, Beyond Ex-Gay, Box Turtle Bulletin, and Equality Florida. The purpose of this conference is “Building Community to End the Harm Caused By Heterosexism & Reparative Therapy”.

“The 2009 Anti-Heterosexism Conference is open to everyone who cares about the welfare of LGBTQ people and wants to help stop the harm caused by heterosexism, reparative therapy, ex-gay ministries and other sexual orientation change efforts. Conference attendees come from all walks of life and many professional backgrounds, including LGBTQ people, clergy, educators, mental health professionals, and allies. By attending this conference you will learn to:

* challenge heterosexist attitudes that exist on personal, interpersonal, institutional and cultural levels.
* speak out publicly against the dangers of reparative therapy, ex-gay ministries, and other “conversion” efforts.
* build community to advocate for LGBTQ people and support them in leading successful, happy, and productive lives.

“The 2009 Anti-Heterosexism Conference also serves as a counter to the misinformation and harm perpetuated by the national antigay group NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality) which will be holding its annual conference in West Palm Beach on the same weekend.”

Conference registration is $145, going up to $195 after Oct. 5. Visit Soulforce’s website to make a donation to support this event.

Read the American Psychological Association’s recent report opposing “ex-gay” conversion therapy here.

William Childress: “How the Earth Was Made”


William Childress is a Pulitzer-nominated author and photojournalist who is regarded as one of the foremost poets of the Korean War. His books include Burning the Years and Lobo. “Chilly” is a Winning Writers subscriber and an endlessly entertaining correspondent. He emailed me one of his latest poems, which I liked so much that I got permission to reprint it here. Though I don’t share the narrator’s atheistic conclusion, I can relate to the feeling that God’s creation is so much grander and more mysterious than some of our stunted human concepts of the divine. Sometimes, religious ideas (like any ideas) can be a distraction from appreciating what’s right in front of us.

How the Earth Was Made

I was a youngster when I walked a trail
Through autumn woods a nonexistent god
took credit for. I never thought it odd
that to a child, the world was magical,

and yellow was the color of enchantment.
It wasn’t simply that a golden hue
should bejewel and complement the blue
eternal arc that made a firmament,

but that the sky itself should overlay
my own poor silly guise. There had to be
so many ways to create such a world,
ways understood by all but those who spoiled

the fairness and the flowers by saying God
made it all in just seven days. How odd
we are, attributing power to nothing but air.
If you can’t see it, then it isn’t there.