Natalie Burris

Husbands and wives

"Where is the course for men to be better spouses and better communicators?"

The above is a quote from an EthicsDaily.com article about the homemaking concentration at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Yes, such a program really exists!

Things like this that pop up in Christian circles, and also in our society at large, make me wonder about husbands and fathers. I mean, I often hear girls comment that they would love to be a wife and mom someday. Or when my friends my age recently marry, they say, I'm just enjoying being a wife. There's a lot of emphasis on that role, which is great. It's also great that Christian women are formulating ways to manage their roles as both wives/mothers and as careerwomen.

I hear less often, if ever, a man's concern about how to balance being a father/husband and have a career. Don't you think time spent at the office away from home is damaging to a family's health? I don't think I've ever heard a guy my age say that he's just enjoying being a husband.

It's weird when you invert things. Why is the onus on women alone? Aren't we doing a disservice to both women and men when we assume that men don't need to learn ways to be better fathers and husbands?

*ETA* How could I forget about PROMISE KEEPERS? Is that still around?

Looking for an alternative...

Just a couple of hundreds yards away from where I live, what is said to be the largest abortion clinic in the nation will open in a few weeks. I was oblivious to the chaos this weekend, but evidently a group of 1,000 Christians picketed the clinic, displaying very graphic images along the busy street for all to see. Even children were holding posters of aborted fetuses. One of my supervisors at work was caught in the traffic jam caused by the protests, and she commented, “Those Christians just came across as crazy.” She spat the word “Christians”…

I feel sick to my stomach for a couple of reasons. Planned Parenthood, when they were constructing the building, did not put up any signage so that no one would know what was being built. Every time I went to the grocery store, I would drive by that building, which is next door, assuming it was going to be another bank. Having something like that so close to me is unsettling, since I’m (consistently) pro-life. However, I am certainly in favor of women gaining access to better health care and education, which is something else that the center offers.

It’s also unsettling to think of the “Christian” response to the opening of the clinic. I’d like to think that the protesters are a small percentage of Christians, and that most believers are more reasonable and wouldn’t display disturbing, graphic images like that. I wish a more thoughtful, charitable, and holistic response to abortion was the norm in the media, but of course that view isn’t as exciting.

I was involved in an anti-abortion group at a church I attended when I was at Wheaton. I eventually left the group after a few meetings because I began to feel uncomfortable. They were planning to protest and pray outside an abortion clinic. I would have been happy supporting an expectant, lower-income mom instead, or just someone of any income experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. I eventually left that church altogether since it was strongly complementarian and began to feel uncomfortable for that reason, as well.

The close proximity of all this is making me wonder what an alternative to protesting and graphic images could be…

manifest destiny...

I've enjoyed reading Abner Ramos' blog, Barrio Prophets, especially since he has great posts about something close to my heart: immigration. Yesterday's post highlighted the hypocrisy of US Americans who complain about the presence of undocumented immigrants in our country. US history does not help these people very much:

A history in which one million white illegal immigrants broke every land treaty they made with Native Americans, stole Mexican land, created laws that justified the theft, benefited for two hundred years, and now have the audacity to demand that my people to follow the rules.

I remember learning manifest destiny, and the impression that I came away with was that this doctrine was not a negative thing. That is what kids are being taught in our schools. My boyfriend is a Native American--he's from Oaxaca, Mexico, and his first language isn't even Spanish. It's ironic that European descendants, who are living on stolen land, are accusatory towards him and others like him.

Bridges and government

The bridge collapse is Minnesota is heart-breaking, and I feel for all of the families involved, especially those who haven't officially gotten word. It's very irritating to see our government fail us like this, in the richest country in the world. It's events like this that make me so angry at the Republican philosophy of government. Sure, everyone wants to get rid of waste and ridiculous spending in our government, but whittling the system down so much that it cannot protect and serve us is stupid. Do those on the right not realize how much we rely on this shared system we have? Schools, roads, fire, police, food inspection, and more VERY important things! It's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you cut off funding so that you cripple government services, of COURSE they will do a poor job. Slacktivist notes that Minnesota's Republican governor vetoed a transportation package earlier this year, based on his promise to avoid any new taxes:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's tax pledge, like all such pledges, was doomed to produce some short-sighted decisions because it prohibits consideration of a whole range of questions it ought to be Pawlenty's job to ask. When it comes to taxes, Pawlenty has pledged only to consider the question "How much?" That's a legitimate question and an important one. It is his job to ask that question. But it is also his job to ask, "What for?." A governor -- or a legislator, or a president -- who refuses to consider both questions is refusing to do the job.

Oh, mercy

The list of books I wanted to read after graduating from college is still very long, and I’m just now getting around to Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. Wish it would have been sooner! I’m about halfway through, and there are some great quotes. After reading that—plus after reading the comments at a recent post at SBCOutpost.com—I would say it could be pretty easy to get down about being a Baptist/evangelical woman. I guess I’m not involved in a Baptist church anymore, but that tradition is what has influenced and affected me the most.

photo © 2007 Andrew Kuznetsov | more info (via: Wylio)

Anyway, Kingsolver sneaks in the funniest things in her book, especially since I know some people who resemble the missionary/preacher Nathan Price in a few ways. The preacher’s wife, Orleanna, notes how she would try to turn to Scripture for solace in the midst of her marriage to a self-righteous, abusive man, with young children close in age. She would be greeted with gems like this: “Unto the woman God said: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and they desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Orleanna remarks, “Oh, mercy. If it catches you in the wrong frame of mind, the King James Bible can make you want to drink poison in no uncertain terms” (192).

I *love* it when people bring up Eve and blame her for the sin that came into this world…. To me not only does it represent a hateful attitude towards women, but also an incomplete understanding of the gospel. When those who use the fall to justify the status quo today, I wonder if they missed out on the Cross/Resurrection/New Creation story—you know, Jesus? Didn’t he come to make all things new? Why would we want to reinforce a structure that was set up pre-fall? Why are some Christian men seemingly scared of women who have leadership and academic abilities, and who are great theologians and pastors?

The author of the above-mentioned post makes a very interesting observation in the comments:

I find it a little bit strange that when a woman even hints that she doesn’t hold to the traditional view of women’s roles, she is automatically suspected of being unsubmissive to her husband and unwilling to submit to the Bible. Yet, when a man vehemently defends male headship in marriage and male leadership in the church (as some have chosen to do today), no one thinks to suspect that he is domineering to his wife and/or “lording it over” anyone in his church.

So true. If women try to break out of the male-dominated paradigm, we often have to add qualifiers and disclaimers, so that we’re not pegged a certain way. It’s quite the tightrope sometimes. It seems that Christian men have less to worry about when asserting their views. A lot of assumptions and subtle, implicit things are working against us in this conversation. I’m encouraged, though, as I come across more and more women around my age who are preparing for the ministry and aren’t affected as much by that urge to drink poison! Hopefully my generation will be able to look back to this issue the same way that we currently do with slavery. Hopefully.