I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm going to talk about Rob Bell, just like every other freakin' person in the evangelical world right now. Seriously. And on a BLOG, too! Oh, the humanity! But here I go, wading into the ridiculous fray of potential quadrupling of Google hits, and trolls, and really sweet-tempered "evangelical universalists" persistently nice-ing people to death in the comments section, and whatever other nonsense has been going on in the blogosphere the last couple of weeks.
But really, I'm only going to talk about Rob Bell in a kind of broad, referential way, as a starting point for what I think is another really important discussion for modern evangelical life. (That's a hint to trolls and argumentative universalists to take a hike, and to cage-stage Calvinists that there's not gonna be any ammo for you here. Hasta luego, Blog Crazies.)
The question is this: is there a point when we stop referring to someone as a brother or sister in Christ? When? Under what circumstances? Once we've reached that point, how universal or extensive, then, do we make that declaration -- to whom else do we apply it? What's the next step in addressing that person? That group? That movement?
So, for the next few days, Lord willing, I'm going to talk about what I think is a good strategy for thinking about and addressing people whose theological positions on certain issues are problematic or borderline unorthodox, without either being a total jerk or turning what ought to be serious doctrinal discussions into sloppy hug-fests where everyone feels good but nobody knows what the devil anyone actually believes about anything or if that even matters.
Stay tuned!
Showing posts with label you're doing it wrong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label you're doing it wrong. Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
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?
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?
Saturday, November 13, 2010
School.
Among American Christians, choosing where (or IF) to send your kids to school has become this almost comically fraught decision of unparalleled theological significance. If you listen to certain folks, your children's eventual salvation basically hinges on making the right choice in this area (the huge number of publicly educated Christian adults, yours truly included, notwithstanding).
You've got a small but vocal group of Christians loudly decrying "government indoctrination facilities," people saying you don't care about the poor if you pull your kids out of public schools, anti-homeschooling blogs dedicated to making parents feel incompetent and irresponsible for daring to think they can educate their own children, Christian schools of every stripe, from Montessoris to classical schools and from public school look-alikes to ultra-rigorous mini-seminaries... all of them clamoring for parents' attention. How are we supposed to see through the confused haze of claims and caveats? Here's my little tidbit of advice as a teacher at a fantastic private school who doesn't actually really care all that much about how you educate your own children ;).
1. Chill out. Is your child's education important? Definitely. Is it THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER OH MY GOSH YOU'RE DOING IT WROOOOOOONNNG ? Um, no.
2. Remember that your identity, your hope, your salvation are in Christ, not in subscribing to a particular educational methodology, not in being "right," not in trying to create an ideal situation.
3. Then sit down, write out a pros and cons list, and make the best decision for your family. There's no need to wait for a sign or to feel God "releasing" you to do X, Y, or Z or to "have peace" about it. Your life, Christian, is spiritual. You have the Holy Spirit actually dwelling in you to guide your steps. You have a sovereign, good, and gracious Father who knows the end from the beginning and whose plans are for your good and His glory. You have a faithful Savior interceding on your behalf before God. You have nothing to worry about. Work, because God is already at work.
Just my two (or maybe four) cents.
You've got a small but vocal group of Christians loudly decrying "government indoctrination facilities," people saying you don't care about the poor if you pull your kids out of public schools, anti-homeschooling blogs dedicated to making parents feel incompetent and irresponsible for daring to think they can educate their own children, Christian schools of every stripe, from Montessoris to classical schools and from public school look-alikes to ultra-rigorous mini-seminaries... all of them clamoring for parents' attention. How are we supposed to see through the confused haze of claims and caveats? Here's my little tidbit of advice as a teacher at a fantastic private school who doesn't actually really care all that much about how you educate your own children ;).
1. Chill out. Is your child's education important? Definitely. Is it THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER OH MY GOSH YOU'RE DOING IT WROOOOOOONNNG ? Um, no.
2. Remember that your identity, your hope, your salvation are in Christ, not in subscribing to a particular educational methodology, not in being "right," not in trying to create an ideal situation.
3. Then sit down, write out a pros and cons list, and make the best decision for your family. There's no need to wait for a sign or to feel God "releasing" you to do X, Y, or Z or to "have peace" about it. Your life, Christian, is spiritual. You have the Holy Spirit actually dwelling in you to guide your steps. You have a sovereign, good, and gracious Father who knows the end from the beginning and whose plans are for your good and His glory. You have a faithful Savior interceding on your behalf before God. You have nothing to worry about. Work, because God is already at work.
Just my two (or maybe four) cents.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
In Case You Were Wondering Where That Howl Of Fury and Protest Was Coming From...
It was me. When I read this article.
What a load of utter, middle-class-guilt assuaging, white man's burden, condescending, collectivist, furrowed brow, think-of-the-little-people nonsense.
First, why is it my business to raise other people's kids? Help them, yes. Care for them, absolutely. As a Christian, reach into their problems? For sure. But consider them FIRST, over my own doggone (hypothetical, future) children? That gets a big HECK NO.
Second, why do I get to choose between 1) hurting those poor poor children, you arrogant and probably racist jerk, and 2) helping those poor poor children by sending my smarter, richer, happier, more psychologically balanced offspring (oh, the irony) to whatever public school my municipality in its infinite wisdom decides to shuttle them off to? That, boys and girls, is called a false dilemma. With just a leetle dash of straw man thrown in.
Just imagine with me for a moment that there could be -- miracle of miracles -- something like... wait for it... a third option! What? More than two options? No way, man, we're American, we can't give people more than two options! Not in public discourse! Hahahaha...
What a load of utter, middle-class-guilt assuaging, white man's burden, condescending, collectivist, furrowed brow, think-of-the-little-people nonsense.
First, why is it my business to raise other people's kids? Help them, yes. Care for them, absolutely. As a Christian, reach into their problems? For sure. But consider them FIRST, over my own doggone (hypothetical, future) children? That gets a big HECK NO.
Second, why do I get to choose between 1) hurting those poor poor children, you arrogant and probably racist jerk, and 2) helping those poor poor children by sending my smarter, richer, happier, more psychologically balanced offspring (oh, the irony) to whatever public school my municipality in its infinite wisdom decides to shuttle them off to? That, boys and girls, is called a false dilemma. With just a leetle dash of straw man thrown in.
Just imagine with me for a moment that there could be -- miracle of miracles -- something like... wait for it... a third option! What? More than two options? No way, man, we're American, we can't give people more than two options! Not in public discourse! Hahahaha...
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Chilling Out About Politics
Here's one of the major problems with the American political system. We measure a politician's pre-election success primarily by his ability to whip his listeners into an ecstasy of high-flown patriotic sentiment, to the point that we seem to vote for the most exciting candidate rather than the most qualified, or the one with the best ideas.
This is frustrating to me. Do we not understand that (soundbytes that elicit cheers from huge crowds) < (intelligent ideas skillfully presented by a qualified person)?
And here's where I love Jon Stewart, really: despite the fact that I largely don't agree with him about politics, I love that he's encouraging people to turn off the caps lock and stop trying to fit their entire political philosophy onto a t-shirt or a protest sign.
I think it's a good word for pretty much everyone, honestly. I'm not saying that you should cherish your political opinions with less fervor. I'm not saying you need to become more politically moderate. I'm just saying that, if the people you get your political news from make your blood pressure rise more than they make you think deeply and critically, you probably need to shut the TV off and read some Rousseau or something.
This is frustrating to me. Do we not understand that (soundbytes that elicit cheers from huge crowds) < (intelligent ideas skillfully presented by a qualified person)?
And here's where I love Jon Stewart, really: despite the fact that I largely don't agree with him about politics, I love that he's encouraging people to turn off the caps lock and stop trying to fit their entire political philosophy onto a t-shirt or a protest sign.
I think it's a good word for pretty much everyone, honestly. I'm not saying that you should cherish your political opinions with less fervor. I'm not saying you need to become more politically moderate. I'm just saying that, if the people you get your political news from make your blood pressure rise more than they make you think deeply and critically, you probably need to shut the TV off and read some Rousseau or something.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
I could have answered this guy's question in five words.
The highlight of Boundless, in my opinion, is the advice column, which almost always contains really straightforward, cut-the-crap, gospel-centered answers. But not this time. A fella writes in and asks, "How does a single guy pursue a godly woman in a romantic but godly way?" I could have answered in five words, but instead, the columnist gave him a manifesto of the same kind of nonsense that's kept many a young man paralyzed with indecision since we started using the word "pursue" to describe what our parents called "dating."
What's in this seemingly designed-to-confuse relationship manifesto? Stuff like, make sure you're mature enough to date (hint: if you're asking the question and you're old enough to get married, you are). Ask God to "show you" what you need to do to move forward. Figure out what your courtship/dating life should look like once you are in a relationship (uhhh... I literally have no idea what this means). Be intentional about doing covert ops on -- er, I mean getting to know the girl you're interested in, mostly in groups but then singling her out in those groups to find out what she likes (because that's not creepy at all), etc. Overuse of the word "intentional" or some variant thereof seems to be mandatory in these kinds of articles.
And of course there's no mention of, like, letting her in on this process of determining if she's The One. Just a lot of "determining" and "being intentional" and "using discernment" and "prayerfulness." No wonder we're all so confused.
Want to know my pithy, five-word response to this guy's question?
Not enough for an entire advice column? Fine.
See, friends, we have this handy-dandy cultural shorthand for discovering if someone's interested in us. Ladies, if a guy is interested in you, he will ask you out. Fellas, if a girl is interested in you, she will say yes when you ask her out. See how easy that was? Now, sometimes one party can be interested while the other isn't -- or one party might be dating someone else already. That's not so hard to handle either! Ladies, if a guy is not interested in you or is already seeing someone, he will not ask you out. Fellas, if a girl is not interested in you or is already seeing someone, she will say, "No, thanks," or, "Actually, I'm already seeing someone" when you ask her out.
I can think of so freakin' few genuine, legitimate reasons NOT to act like this, most of them involving some kind of catastrophic relationship blowout in the recent past. So, if you didn't just break off an engagement or ditch an abuser or something similarly disastrous requiring some healing time, what's the holdup? Ladies, if a godly man asks you on a date, you should probably say yes. Guys, if a godly woman has caught your eye, you should probably ask her on a date.
There now, we've got that all settled, right? RIGHT??
Sigh...
What's in this seemingly designed-to-confuse relationship manifesto? Stuff like, make sure you're mature enough to date (hint: if you're asking the question and you're old enough to get married, you are). Ask God to "show you" what you need to do to move forward. Figure out what your courtship/dating life should look like once you are in a relationship (uhhh... I literally have no idea what this means). Be intentional about doing covert ops on -- er, I mean getting to know the girl you're interested in, mostly in groups but then singling her out in those groups to find out what she likes (because that's not creepy at all), etc. Overuse of the word "intentional" or some variant thereof seems to be mandatory in these kinds of articles.
And of course there's no mention of, like, letting her in on this process of determining if she's The One. Just a lot of "determining" and "being intentional" and "using discernment" and "prayerfulness." No wonder we're all so confused.
Want to know my pithy, five-word response to this guy's question?
Dear Confused Guy:
ASK HER ON A DATE.
Love, Laura
Not enough for an entire advice column? Fine.
Dear Confused Guy:
If you find yourself attracted to (because physical attraction is OK; you don't have to confess to your accountability partner that you thought a girl was cute) or otherwise interested in a godly woman, ASK HER ON A DATE, probably within a few weeks of first realizing your interest. If she says yes, then take her on a date. And if you have a good time on that date, ask her on another date. Rinse and repeat, and remember that you're a Christian.
Love,
Laura
See, friends, we have this handy-dandy cultural shorthand for discovering if someone's interested in us. Ladies, if a guy is interested in you, he will ask you out. Fellas, if a girl is interested in you, she will say yes when you ask her out. See how easy that was? Now, sometimes one party can be interested while the other isn't -- or one party might be dating someone else already. That's not so hard to handle either! Ladies, if a guy is not interested in you or is already seeing someone, he will not ask you out. Fellas, if a girl is not interested in you or is already seeing someone, she will say, "No, thanks," or, "Actually, I'm already seeing someone" when you ask her out.
I can think of so freakin' few genuine, legitimate reasons NOT to act like this, most of them involving some kind of catastrophic relationship blowout in the recent past. So, if you didn't just break off an engagement or ditch an abuser or something similarly disastrous requiring some healing time, what's the holdup? Ladies, if a godly man asks you on a date, you should probably say yes. Guys, if a godly woman has caught your eye, you should probably ask her on a date.
There now, we've got that all settled, right? RIGHT??
Sigh...
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