natalie's narrative

Anthropology and gender

One of my anthropology professors at Wheaton, Brian Howell, has an essay in E-Quality, a journal from the Christians for Biblical Equality. Dr. Howell discusses how the discipline of anthropology can provide important insight for Christians when it comes to gender.

Many generalizations about gender exist in our culture and church (I've talked about this several times before!). For example, "men have medieval battle fantasies or that all women crave more foot wear." We mistakenly believe that many things that make us "masculine" or "feminine" are driven by biology, rather than culture. The  work of anthropologists shatters this belief. Dr. Howell points out a characteristic of Indonesian culture:

Indonesian families do not trust men with money. Men are too easily swayed by their emotions, they say. Men are full of passion and behave erratically. Women are more stable, better able to think rationally and handle money or business transactions. In this case, it would be the women of the church who are more likely to sit on the finance committee. Perhaps men would be selected for arranging the entertainment at the church’s anniversary celebration.

The whole essay is here: Beyond Damsels and White Steeds.

Oops...and The Color of Fear

Lou Dobbs made a big oopsie a few days ago...wow, did this really happen? Maybe he should stick to his favorite topic--immigration...

I think this may be discontinued now, but every entering class at Wheaton used to watched a documentary called "The Color of Fear." It really opened my eyes to what's really going on with our racialized society, and what goes on in my majority-culture head. I wish everyone were required to watch this video. Here's a clip, from the "You're not standing on your own ground" part of the dialogue:

Post-denominational?

Paul wrote about living in a post-denominational world, and I started to write a comment on his blog. Since I’m pathetically verbose, my comment evolved into a full-fledged post.

Are denominations becoming irrelevant? Do they have a future? I’m certainly no authority on this issue, but I can see a post-denominational shift at least among people my age. Based on my limited experience at Wheaton, there seemed to be little focus on denominations. Granted, I entered late and left early, and didn’t major in theology, but I came from a denomination that likes to navel-gaze. Wheaton also likes to navel-gave—err, self-reflect—so given my experience I noticed an absence of denominational talk from chapel services, classes, and late-night dorm room debates.

The school has students from all over the country, plus international students, and we had nearly every denomination represented. One semester, our chapel seating was organized by denom, and I heard that Southern Baptists were the biggest group. The lack of focus on denom issues could be a result of the school’s emphasis on being “interdenominational.”

Anyway, any divide didn’t seem to be among denominational lines. There were a couple of denoms in the Wheaton area that I had never heard of in Oklahoma, called the Evangelical Free Church and Christian and Missionary Alliance. From their names you can tell they’re on the low-church end of the spectrum. Evy Free and CMA were popular choices for Wheaton students, yet two other churches were just as popular and they were both Anglican. It is safe to say that not all of those attending the Anglican churches grew up Anglican, Episcopalian, or Lutheran; in fact, I would say that most grew up in low-church settings.

Wheaton is purported to be representative of US evangelicals. I don’t know if this is true, but I thought the lack of late-night debates in the dorm regarding denominational issues was interesting. The theological discussions my friends and I had hardly ever revolved around a specific denom (we were comprised of Lutherans, PCUSA, Catholic, CMA, Assembly of God, and one friend even grew up in a church with Quaker roots). This could be a result of our required core theology classes’ hardly discussing denoms, and for all I know students could return back to their denom-focused life after graduation. And membership in one specific denomination makes seminary a lot cheaper, doesn’t it?

Women's roles...

Paul says really well what I have wondered many times while in college when it comes to women in the church. While in school, I had the opportunity to rub elbows with some very talented people--and a lot of those people happened to be--gasp--women. Seeing such theologically astute Christian women made me ask a few questions about my views on women's roles. Why would God gift people with talent they could not use within the church?

Paul (referring to an incident at a Southern Baptist seminary) writes:

"...Paige [Patterson] goes on to say that the highest calling of a woman is as mother and grandmother. I have to say that this is quite alarming. What does that say to the many women who will never be married or to those will not ever be able to have children? What is the purpose of their lives? Better yet, what of those who are not yet mothers and grandmothers? Are they simply biding their time because they cannot know their true purpose until then? I'm sure Paige would say I'm putting words in his mouth or exaggerating his statement but what I'm doing is asking logical questions based on the statements. And I wonder where he can find the Scripture to back up what he's saying. The truth is that the New Testament is full of stories of women serving valuable roles in the ministry of Jesus and in the early church. They didn't just sit at home and raise the kids. They engaged the culture in ministry, teaching and serving for the cause of the Christ."

[...]

"I have to scratch my head in wonder at a God who empowers and equips such people and then holds back their abilities to serve because it violates the order of things. Why give them such great skills of leadership and never let them use it in the most significant entity on the planet? The truth is that the Church speaks out of both sides of her mouth on this issue. We speak of proper roles for men and women and yet seem perfectly fine to let the wives/moms wear the spiritual pants in the family. If they weren't around imagine the condition our already battered families and churches would be in."

...some also speak of "proper roles" for men and women and then let women take the lead in many churches, giving the reason that there aren't enough men. Women leaders are often considered the second, less desirable choice...

Considering some of my amazing friends who are headed for seminary, one would have to be crazy to think of them as second-rate!

Evangelical, catholic, orthodox...

When I was at Wheaton I had witnessed the exodus of students from low-church settings into less evangelical, more high-church type of settings. Many “go Catholic.” What I have seen is somewhat of a liberalizing path that leads to Rome. I’ve written about this before, wondering if it is possible to overcome Noll’s scandal of the evangelical mind and remain evangelical, but a recent article in The Christian Century explored this issue.

In the past year, six Protestant theologians have converted to Catholicism, and of the six, three are Lutheran, two Anglican, and one Mennonite:

“They more or less fit the description ‘postliberal’ in that they accept such mainline practices as historical criticism and women's ordination while wanting the church to exhibit more robust dogmatic commitments. All of them embrace what Mattox describes as an ‘evangelical, catholic and orthodox’ vision of the church. They could not see a way to be all those things within mainline denominations.”

Rusty Reno, one of the converts, had at one time held that those who are disgruntled with their faith traditions should not leave. Instead, the correct path, according to Scripture, is to follow Nehemiah, who committed to living in a devastated city. Reno maintained that “to flee institutions in search of something supposedly better elsewhere would be to simply replicate the modern tendency to favor a posture of ironic distance over one of dogged commitment.”

Reno eventually left his original faith tradition. He shares, “I may have wanted to return to the ruins of the Church with Nehemiah's devotion, but in reality I was thinking bitter thoughts as I sat in my pew.” To another convert, a Lutheran, “the pull” of the Catholic faith grew stronger than “the push” away from Lutheranism.

Gerald Schlabach, the Mennonite convert, criticizes the Protestant church for becoming an end in itself instead of being a proponent of reform. He views the Catholic Church as

“the best hope for a reunion of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative,’ ‘protestant’ and ‘catholic’ visions of the church: ‘Imagine a church . . . that could not sing without feeding the poor, nor feed the poor without nourishment from the Eucharist, nor pass the peace without living peaceably in the world, nor be peacemakers without depending on prayer, nor pray without joining in robust song.’”

The article does include arguments for staying within one’s tradition. One Episcopal priest argues that it is crucial to remain inside what he considers a tradition ridden with flaws: “God has allowed us to come to faith and to practice our faith within divided Christian communities so that, forced to follow Jesus where we have been placed, we might learn repentance.” He points to Scripture’s narrative of the Jews, who didn’t leave their community when they became disgruntled: “rather they stayed where they were and tried to help the people be more faithful to the law of the Lord.” Israel is not only a model, but Jesus is too, since he stayed put and died for his enemies.

One of the converts’ colleagues happens to be Stanley Hauerwas. He has prodded his students to explore Catholic theology. When it comes to converting to Catholicism, however, his preference is loyalty to the dissenter’s church of origin, remarking, “I feel like you need to stay with the people that harmed you.” And to those who feel the urge to make the move to Catholicism, Hauerwas says, “Don’t do it. We need you!” No matter who is converting to what or choosing to stay, I’m sure this issue will cause a stir on all sides.

Yet another thought from a class devotion

I have been turning to scripture a lot lately in light of being down about the hurricane and some other things. This nagging feeling of down-ness I have had started in Costa Rica, probably just from being my usual over-analytical self, but one of my classes is also pretty depressing. It’s Public Health and Nutrition in the “Third World,” and my professor certainly recognizes that the subject matter can be a downer. We’re learning about things like the AIDS epidemic and malaria (by the way did you know that malaria kills more people each year than AIDS?!), and their effects on societies. This is when I’m thankful that I’m at a place like Wheaton, because we try as a class to work through the overwhelming things we are learning in light of the gospel and what we can do to somehow improve the situation.

For her devotion, a student read from Isaiah 58 today, and then challenged us to join the effort to provide much-needed antiretroviral drugs to children in Africa. I have been thinking all day about this passage—longish but good…

⁶ "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

¹¹ The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

---- Here are some ways to help:

Stop Global AIDS Unicef's Campaign Against AIDS

The inerrancy of Falwell and Bush...

Sorry about the semi-long absence...school usually gives me lots to blog about, so since it’s out and finals pretty much drained my brain, I’m gonna be a little light on the blogging. But I wanted to mention my Jerry Falwell book I had to read for a class. Anthropologist Susan Harding followed him around for a few years doing an ethnography about him, his Thomas Road Baptist Church parishioners, and Liberty College. She focused on the language that fundamentalist Christians use, drawing from Foucault a lot. The way she boils everything down to language, plus her lumping together of many kinds of Christians, frankly caused me and another student in the class to have mini-faith crises! It’s okay, we have those every day at Wheaton, but it definitely made us think. Well, that’s another post for another day...

But anyway, Harding discusses how Falwell’s followers assign to him the author function, which works really well within this fundamentalist context. Falwell created and controlled an “empire of words,” built on Biblical language. This em­pire produced and dissemin­ated rhetoric to millions of people across the United States. According to Foucault, an author is not necessarily an individual that has writ­ten a work. Rather, the name of the author signifies a specific mode of discourse, and the things produced by the author, which are works, receive a certain status because of the name with which it is affiliated.

Harding’s ethnography demonstrates that Falwell’s works, wheth­er they were sermons, pamphlets, or books, automatically had a certain status because of their author. The author function in Falwell’s case is striking because fundamentalist Christians insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible, and absolute truth—as well as absolute truthfulness—exist. When Harding examines the works (not necessarily in book form) that Falwell produces, a gap exists between truth and reali­ty. Falwell’s followers, however, continue to accept him as their leader, in spite of the moral ambiguity. Harding discusses how Falwell’s autobiography requires his followers to take leaps of faith. Even beyond his childhood Falwell was embroiled in con­troversy.

How can this happen? Fundamentalists rely on a “poetics of faith,” meaning that believers place their faith in the inerrancy of the Bible, an inerrancy that extends to preachers as well. The truth that comes from Falwell is mediated, and because of his scandals and moral ambigui­ties, his truth requires harmonization on the part of believers. Falwell can, in effect, “get away” with things because he is blessed by God, because he too can assume inerran­cy. In this context, the author is privileged, that is, whatever comes from Falwell is legitimized, regardless of its ac­cur­acy. According to Harding, Falwell’s life stories, his “preacherly dis­course,” are a form of “rhetorical art” that increases his church people’s loyalty to him.

Another excellent example of the author function in Falwell’s context occurred when he claimed that he had asked then-President Jimmy Car­t­er why he had homosexuals on staff at the White House. Audiotapes proved otherwise, so Fal­well explained that he was speaking in allegorical form. This apocryphal story highlight the author function that Falwell has assumed, because his followers notice the discrepancies, yet con­tinue to be loyal to him. Because Falwell is a man of God, ordained and blessed by God, the works that he contributes to the overall discourse do not have to be literally true.

Yet another interesting event happened in the 1960’s, when Falwell distributed a sermon pamphlet titled “Ministers and Marchers” that insisted Christians be separate from the world. When his discourse started to move away from separatism and toward active poli­tical engagement, he tried to collect the pamphlets, officially rejecting his earlier position and pronouncing it “false prophecy.” None of Falwell’s sermons from the 1950’s and ‘60’s are in his archives. His staff told Harding that he did not want his words to be used against him, since his positions had certainly changed. In fact, Falwell support­ed segregation and had preached sermons in favor of it during the late 1950’s.

These incidents demonstrate the powerful author function that Falwell had through his words. He attempted to control the discourse, and in doing so fashioned a national following, rather than one that was limited to the South. He knew the power of words, carefully allowing what his community heard or read. It was not as if his community did not know of his earlier positions; rather, his followers re-construed these seemingly contrary facts to fit in with other things that Falwell had authored.

So, was anyone else thinking that President Bush has also assumed this author function? In spite of his untruthfulness, discrepancies, etc., he still has people defending him. W too can get away with things—he is blessed and ordained, right?! And as in the case with Jerry Falwell, W's followers, many holding to a literal interpretation of the Bible, ignore or harmonize his gaps between truth and reality, his “moral ambiguities.” So it seems our president too assumes inerrancy?

...neither male nor female...you are all one in Christ Jesus...

A couple of weeks ago the annual theology conference was held here at Wheaton, and it was about women in ministry. Since then, a lot of the talk around campus has been about the egalitarian and hierarchical views of gender roles in the church. I didn’t get to go to any of the sessions, but I have been able to participate in some pretty cool class discussions, at least.

One of my anthropology profs, Dr. Howell, shared with our class something from the conference: the idea that Christians in each culture designate what roles are “spiritual” and what roles are not. The roles of pastor, deacon, elder, or Bible study teacher are considered spiritual. Those having the hierarchical view want to designate many of these spiritual roles to men only, and they hold that men should be the spiritual leader of the family. Dr. Howell pointed out, though, that the roles that many women have are spiritual, too, but we often don’t recognize them as such. For example, it seems that a Christian woman who chooses to stay at home full-time to raise children certainly has a lot to do with the children’s spiritual formation.

The categories we have created get a little confusing when we look at different contexts. For example, Paul would look at what church has turned into in 21^st century North America and probably not immediately identify it as church. To him, the church was different—it met in homes, for instance. I’m not saying at all that we should “go back” to the “early church.” It’s just interesting the categories and roles that we have designated a certain way and take for granted in the context of our church today. Maybe because of our dualism, and because of our specific idea of what church is, we can more easily keep women from participating in certain roles.

I have also had the opportunity to talk with some very wise people about gender roles in the church, and have learned a lot. In one conversation, someone pointed out that the egalitarian view should not be framed as advocating equal rights for all in the church. That is, “egalitarian” is not necessarily synonymous with “feminist.” The members of the body of Christ are to submit mutually to one another, so it’s not an issue of women gaining just as much power as men, but rather, it’s about all, men and women, giving up their power. I thought that was an interesting nuance.

Another thing that was pointed out is the matter of who serves communion. I went 19 years being served communion only by men. First year of college, away from home and at a church with egalitarian views, I felt a little uncomfortable being served by women since I wasn’t used to that. Sad. So anyway, I brought up this issue in our conversation, wondering what kind of message has been sent to me and to other young women in the church who only see men serving in those capacities. I got an answer with a sorrowful shake of the head: to restrict women from serving in the church is not only a grave offense, but to do so during communion is to commit the offense at the very foot of the cross. The work of the cross was to radically bring everyone into community with one another, not to impose more hierarchy or to uphold existing ones. I’ve never thought of it that way...very compelling...

Eschatology--not a dirty word anymore...

Because of some things I learned from N.T. Wright, I have been wondering how the American evangelical emphasis on personal faith and salvation has affected our reading of scripture. We tend to apply only a personal dimension to stories like the parable of the prodigal son. It has made me wonder what other aspects we are missing as a result of our personalization of our faith and of scripture. I picked up an ethics class, and we are reading Richard Hays. He gives helpful ways of thinking about scripture in ways that are not exclusively personal. He’s pretty much redeemed, if you will, my view of the words “eschatological” and “apocalyptic.” Before reading Hays, when I thought of eschatology, I thought of fear-inducing premillennial dispensationalist types. So I viewed negatively any mention of the word eschatology. In 2 Corinthians 5, for example, many translations say, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Not only are they sexist, but they’re pretty individualistic. Hays points out that these translations distort the meaning that Paul intended. Paul is not describing only personal renewal, but also the renewal of the whole created order. According to Hays, it should read: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.” Or better yet, the more exclamatory “If anyone is in Christ—new creation!” Jesus’ death on the cross ushered in the new creation, and the church “stands at the juncture” between the old order and the new. Another reason why I dislike dispensationalism, or at least the things that result from it, is that it tends to devalue the present. So we can ignore the environment, social justice, the life of the mind, and we can be dualists because this world is passing away and a new age will be ushered in. Paul’s use of eschatological language is not the same as current-day dispensationalists’ use, according to Hays. Instead, eschatology leads not to “moral quietism (saving one’s own soul and letting the world go to hell) or to moral fanaticism,” but to engage in a transformation of lives now, actively working and loving in the context of community (Hays refers to 1 Thess., especially 3:12, 5:11). Hays says that the church’s living out of the apocalyptic gospel leads to “loving action rather than passivity.” And “the church community is a sneak preview of God’s ultimate redemption of the world.” Hays’ reconfiguring for me of things eschatological and apocalyptic was really helpful. It seems to put things in a context of, because of what God has done and has promised to do, we have a heightened, rather than dampened, and communal sense of redeeming all of creation. This, as opposed to other forms of eschatological thinking where God’s judgment is a threat, the end-times are scary, the environment is treated crappily, and pursuing peace and justice is bad and/or pointless. I likes.

Speaking of prophetic voices...

Speaking of prophetic voices, the Rev. Soong-Chan Rah has been on campus this week. I credit him as one of the people who has opened my eyes to new dimensions of the faith—incredibly important ones that are difficult to discuss and have called for much confession and repentance. Today, especially, he spoke to some things in my life that I need to change. He discussed the issue of racism as sin, not because it’s the popular thing to do nowadays, but because it’s what scripture says (resonates well with evangelicals, eh?). Rah acknowledged that “racism” is a loaded word, because everyone denies they are racist. So, he encouraged us to use the word “racialization,” which is what Emerson and Smith use in their book. Anyway, he defined racism-as-sin in a relevant context (considering not many fly the Confederate flag or use overt racial slurs). He defined it as one ethnicity having hegemony over another; or taking it further, one ethnicity representing Christianity.

Look at the demographics of American evangelicalism, in relation to the global context. Christianity as a whole is no longer one of the north and west, but rather, it is shifting south and east. In the States, there are more nonwhite Christians than there are white, and some have projected that by the year 2020, the US population will be half nonwhite, half white. Also by the year 2020, only one in five Christians on the planet will be white.

Now, looking at US churches, less than 3% of evangelical churches are integrated with even 80% of one ethnicity and 20% of another. At the same time, immigrant churches in the US are experiencing explosive growth. Rah commented that the real “emerging” church is not white postmodernists, but rather the global south and US immigrant population. America is the most diverse nation in the history of the world—why then is a church that is emerging an overwhelmingly white one? We can apply these statistics to other institutions, especially ones like Wheaton. Many Wheaton students can go through here in 4 years without ever having a nonwhite professor, and that’s not even getting into the demographics of the student body. You would be hard-pressed to find a nonwhite worship style at events on campus—the norm is a guy with a guitar and another guy with a djembe. We dim the lights, and we all raise our hands, which is a distinctive white way of worshipping, compared to other worship styles.

Rah stressed that white culture isn’t bad, it’s just that it shouldn’t be the hegemony in American (and global) Christianity. European systematic theology is an incredible contribution, but it’s not all there is to theology. We would do well to consider what “other” voices have to say, especially since the “other” is in fact the majority. The white perspective is one among many; it’s not the norm. Appearances say otherwise, though.

Jim Wallis echoed this theme when he responded to an international student who feels alone here at Wheaton since he is opposed to the war in Iraq. Wallis pointed out that if you’re against the war, looking at things in a global context, you are not alone. Every church body outside of the US is against the war: European, Asian, African, Latin American Christians. In the US, every church body except the Southern Baptists does not consider the war to be a just war. That puts things in perspective.

Well, I certainly have been guilty of not listening to perspectives outside of my own culture. If I consider who I have been having conversations with about faith lately, I realize that the vast, vast majority are white people. Pretty pathetic for someone who likes to quote Andrew Walls…