Lent, Day 2: In which the top of my head shoots off.

OK, I have to get this off my chest. Sorry it's such a long, rambling bit of nonsense. If it's too long and rambling and nonsensical, I won't be offended if you skip it. ;)

Fellas: you are misinterpreting data, to your own frustration and the frustration of many, many single women around you. In 2011, a woman who has a career and a college degree (maybe even an advanced degree) and a mortgage, who pays her bills on time and takes her own car to the mechanic and hasn't lived with her parents in ten years is not necessarily, by definition a raging feminist who thinks she needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Nope. She is NORMAL. Got that?

Tip: that's the summary. If you're sufficiently convinced, feel free to stop right here. Need more persuasion that you oughta change your mind? Read on, my friend.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, women in the business world were rare. The average age of a first marriage was still in the early-mid twenties for both men and women. And the message from Western culture was loud and clear: Sisters, get into work. You can still decide to have children later, after you've gone up the ranks in your job, after you've accomplished something "real."

Add to this the shame that generation of feminists heaped on men: you're irresponsible, power-hungry, insensitive; you're someone to be resented and competed with, boxed in, restricted, pushed aside, stepped on. Those power-suit-wearing, marriage-spurning, child-hating career girls -- even then, the stereotype was developing!

But, guys? That was thirty years ago. Somehow, it seems, too many Christian men are still being taught to see career, mortgage, and financial stability in a woman and interpret that as "feminist, not wife material, run far far away"!

I grew up being taught not to waste time or money sitting on my hands, and that it was ungodly to waste my gifts and opportunities. You know who taught me that? Not just my mother, though she certainly did. No, it was the women who had, thirty years ago, bought the lie that they could subjugate their God-given desires, that those desires were wrong, that "wife" and "mother" were not the most honorable titles they could seek, but that they were rather titles to be avoided. These women, who learned through bitter experience, taught me to cherish my God-given desire for marriage and motherhood, but also to seize whatever opportunities the Lord put before me. They passed on their experience and wisdom, and started to break down that paradigm.

In my bitter moments, I want to sock every Christian single guy who whines about modern women being overly independent, and tell them that, if they didn't propose to a girl in college, it's their own fault there are all these career women running around. But in my better moments, I just want to be helpful.  So let me help you.

Most of us, brothers, are working, paying our bills, getting promotions, working on our degrees, and all those other things, not because we  don't  want to get married and have children.  It's because we had the opportunity to use our gifts in a job, or use our finances more wisely by buying instead of renting, or develop our skills with an advanced degree, or whatever... and haven't had the opportunity to get married and start a family. Most of us would happily re-arrange any or all of those things for the right man, if given the chance.

If I have one word of caution, it's this: guys, you tiptoe toward slandering your sisters when you silently accuse them of selfishness, unhealthy independence, and unbiblical attitudes toward femininity just because they have careers and mortgages -- love, after all, believes the best about people. You are misinterpreting the data, and coming to wrong conclusions. Don't be put off by a woman who makes a decent living at a job she's good at, a woman with an advanced degree, a woman who owns a home. Don't assume the worst about her.

Thirty years ago, a power suit and a mortgage might reasonably have meant this was a woman who didn't want marriage and family. It doesn't have to mean that anymore. Got it?

A Thought Or Two On Singleness And Sanctification, Part Three

In my last post I mentioned that we really struggle to give single people a big vision for God's work of sanctification in their lives.  I was going to go on to say that it's essential that we do more to help single people really ground their identity in Christ rather than success at work, or being liked, or whatever, but then it occurred to me that that's a desperate need for everyone in the church. 

I've talked to many married folks, especially women, about "the moment" when they realized that this person they were married to was never meant to give them their identity.  For some people, that's the end of their marriage.  For others, it's the beginning of a long and difficult journey of finding their identity in Christ and resting there.

I've also had plenty of conversations with single folks (um... including myself) about the identity crisis of not having a spouse, of feeling valueless and adrift without this supposed anchor of marriage.  It's daily implied to us that marriage is not simply a good and worthy state, but one that defines us as, and makes us, mature.  (Think I'm overstating my case?  Name one unmarried ministry leader at your church.  Or consider what percentage of your congregation is single vs. what percentage of the leadership.  Now, I know... correlation and causation.  But it's something to think about.)

Who am I because of my job?  Who am I because of my marital status?  Who am I because of who I'm attracted to?  Who am I because of my income?  Who am I because of where I live?  Who am I because of my politics, or my eschatology, or my taste in music, or the food I eat or the education I have or the clothes I buy?  All those things, to the Christian, must take second place to the question, "Who am I in Christ?"

And if we spent the rest of our lives trying to work that out... Well, that would be ok.

Fiction, Truth, and the Gospel

One of my students last year wrote her final paper on why Christians should exercise discernment in their media involvement.  We had a lot of loooooong conversations about discernment, and she really had to work hard to address a common objection about fiction in general -- the "it's just a story, it's not real" objection. 

Just taking Twilight as a case study... one of my issues with Twilight is that young girls don't need someone telling them that that's how love is supposed to be -- that there's a guy out there who's perfect in every way, who's your soulmate without whom your life is utterly meaningless, and that its ok if that guy wants to hurt you as long as he has self control.  And that when a guy ignores you and barely speaks to you except with apparent hatred, it means that he's just seething with lust.  And that it's ok to string a decent guy along until you decide that you do want to be with your perfect sparkly soulmate after all. Teenage girls already are so prone to thinking all that.  It's already programmed into their little texting, MTV (do kids even watch MTV anymore?), Jersey Shore, Bieber-obsessed worldview.  They don't need an adult to confirm it, they need lots of adults to correct it!

I have some pretty big issues with the weirdo Mormon theology that's EVERYWHERE in the books, but the relationship stuff is my major practical concern.  I don't really have much of an issue with adults reading them, since they're more experienced and discerning, and can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.  But girls who are 13, 14, 15, when they're just left to read the books on their own with no one talking to them about the issues it brings up?  Not so much.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not the type to go, "ZOMG it haz teh witchez/magic/fantasy BURNNNNN IT!"  I mean, I did read all the Harry Potter books.  ;)

But I do think as Christians we have a responsibility to ask questions.  And the question isn't, "Does this movie/book/whatever depict a world without evil or darkness or moral complexity -- a nice, shiny, clean, Precious Moments world where everything turns out just dandy?"

We need to ask questions like, "Does it portray evil as evil and good as good, or does it pretty up evil or trick us into thinking something evil is really not so bad?  Does it show the reality of the battle between good and evil?  Is it realistic that sometimes evil seems to triumph?  Does it show human character honestly -- that we're all messed up by sin and make mistakes, even the heroes of the story?"  Again, that's worldview stuff we're talking about here.  "How does the author view life? humanity? love? sex? relationships? purpose?"


For example: I think American Beauty is a absolutely brilliant movie, and that Christians ought to watch it (if their consciences permit, of course).  It's rated R, it depicts adultery, drug use, deception, violence and lots of other truly evil stuff.  But it also shows, vividly and poignantly, the meaninglessness of a life apart from Christ.

Stories are powerful.  We're shaped by them and they impact us in a way that just straight teaching might not.  So we have to be discerning, even about fiction -- maybe even especially about fiction, because it can affect us without our even being aware of it.  I think about how I feel after I watch a movie -- even the fluffiest, silliest, most blatantly unrealistic romantic comedy can change my mood.  It can make me feel dissatisfied with my life, frustrated that I'm still single, annoyed that some sexy leading man hasn't come and swept me off my feet (well... yet... ;p).  Stuff like that affects our hearts.

I mentioned American Beauty.  It's really good, but what keeps it from being "capital-G Good," is that it offers a counterfeit solution to the problem it presents.  It says, "Life is ultimately meaningless.  If you can find meaning in the meaninglessness, you're one of the lucky ones."  We know as Christians that that's not true, that true meaning and purpose and hope are available, and found in Christ.  But just like American Beauty, every story -- from comic strips to epic novels to TV shows -- offers some kind of "answer" to the life's problems. 

Only Christians can offer the real solution, the Grand Story into which all of our little stories can be fitted by the Great Author of the universe.  But a book, a movie, a TV show, whatever -- all these things are only good inasmuch as they can point their readers toward God's truth.  Stories have the power to prime human hearts to see the emptiness of life apart from Christ, like American Beauty, or the reality of the battle between good and evil, like Harry Potter, or the brokenness of a fallen world and our often-futile attempts to fix it, like Sherlock Holmes, or the inherent beauty and preciousness of human life, like Children of Men. 

Ultimately, we have the freedom in Christ to read, watch, or listen to just about anything.  And we have a responsibility to use that freedom wisely.  So, read Twilight or watch Mad Men or listen to Katy Perry or whatever.  But do it with your eyes and ears wide open, and do it like a Christian.

Blergh.

I got my census form in the mail today. In the first column, they ask that you enter a phone number, so that they can call you if they "do not understand one of your responses." 

I'm strongly tempted, under "Race," to write "HUMAN" -- only because there's not enough room to write, "I categorically reject the concept of race as a genetically-derived, immutable, meaningful designation of human beings.  All humans belong to a single race.  Cultural and ethnic differences may be useful to learn about as we seek to understand one another. It is, however, utterly useless -- and, in fact, often wicked -- to attempt to construe meaningful data about the character of humans from the color of their skin, the texture of their hair, the shape of their eyes, or any other merely physical characteristic."

Do you think I'd get a phone call about that?