A Fire in my Bones, or An Advance Apology to the Ladies in Tuesday Morning Bible Study

Last Tuesday, I joined several ladies at church in beginning a 6-week study of Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker.  Over the course of the book, Jen delves into the areas of her life and faith that were turned upside-down when she and her husband left their relatively comfortable position in a mega-church to become missional church planters.

And while I look forward to this study with the other ladies in the group, they may not feel the same way about me after tomorrow morning's meeting.  Why?  Because the session is all about the role of the church in addressing poverty and injustice.  And that's an issue about which I can sometimes be a little, well, intense. 

Don't get me wrong--I'm excited to discuss what it means for our faith to intersect with social justice.  This issue has been at the forefront of my academic and faith development for the last several years.  It's an issue through which I have wrestled and wept and been paralyzed and ignited.  It's just that what typically happens in small group settings is that I wind up sounding overly passionate, preachy and soap box-y...or I stay quiet and feel wracked by the inner turmoil of wanting to convey my passion in a way that will be beneficial and edifying and productive for everyone involved.

Hey, at least I know this about myself.

So in the interest of not bottling up everything I have to say and vomiting it all onto these unsuspecting ladies tomorrow, I thought it might be prudent to write about it.

I grew up knowing that it was important to help the poor.  I knew the passage where Jesus says that "whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me."  Yet evangelical church culture made it easy to believe that you could fully meet Scripture's mandate for caring for the poor by doing any combination of the following: donating canned goods to a food bank, sponsoring a child in the developing world, occasionally volunteering at a soup kitchen, participating in programs like Operation Christmas Child, and/or giving money to faith-based charity organizations (not people on the street, since *obviously* they would use the money for drugs or alcohol.  Don't even get me started on this.)

There also seemed to be this insidious idea floating around that these acts of charity were important insofar as they provided a gateway for sharing the gospel.  In other words, you should provide for a person's physical needs in order that they might listen to your spiritual message.

Now, to be clear, there is nothing wrong with donating to a food bank or volunteering at a soup kitchen, and I am a huge proponent of the child sponsorship programs of Compassion and World Vision. What I would like to suggest about the framework described above, however, is that it's far too limited. When we stop with mere charity, we sell ourselves short, miss the true breadth of our calling, and sometimes even wind up hurting the marginalized more than helping them.

For one thing, mere charity does very little to dismantle the wall between "us" and them, the privileged and underprivileged.  At best, it merely keeps the boundary lines intact.  At worst, it flat out objectifies the poor, using them as a prop to help us "remember how fortunate we are" or to teach us to "be more thankful for what we have."  This mentality does nothing to foster solidarity with the poor, which is vital for many reasons--not the least of which is that as the Body of Christ, we are called to unity.  And just like the population worldwide, the Body of Christ worldwide is made up mostly of the poor.

I remember the shocking mix of conviction and ephiphany I experienced when I first read Shane Claiborne's words in The Irresistible Revolution several years ago:

"...the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor."
 

This observation came after Shane conducted a survey of Christians, asking whether or not Jesus spent time with the poor (over 80% responded that he did) and whether or not they spent time with the poor (only 2% responded that they did.)

I hope to raise my son in a way that he does not see the poor as being "other," and that this informs his theology from the get-go.  This does not happen by default for most of us, my family included.   Our daily routines at work, in our neighborhoods, at the grocery store, the gym, and even church rarely bring us in proximity with the very poor.  We have to seek the poor, we have to be intentional.

In my family, we are working out what this looks like, and I assure you, we have not arrived.  Not even close.  We are shamefully far from it.

Another way that mere charity fails to fulfill our true calling is that it doesn't challenge systems of injustice.  It might help alleviate symptoms, but it doesn't snuff out the problem at its root.  We give, and then think we've done enough, absolving ourselves of any blame and continuing (sometimes unknowingly) to prop up unjust systems that leave the receipents of our charity trapped. (One example that immediately springs to mind: our consumption of chocolate.)

Can I admit the embarrassing truth that I didn't understand this, really understand this, until I was getting a master's degree in social work?

Why did it take until then for me to recognize the ways in which the poor, the marginalized, and the "other" of society are often stripped of power and voice through  structures that I participate in upholding? 

Why did it take until then for me to recognize that the church should care deeply about this?

And maybe most hauntingly of all, Why did it take so long for it to dawn on me that we take care of the poor and the oppressed not so that we can "give them Jesus, too" but rather, because He is already among them and is waiting on us to rise up and be agents of His Kingdom on earth?

I think the rising generation sees this.  That's not to say that previous generations did not, nor is it an indictment against them.  In every generation, there are those in the church who rise to fight injustice.  William Wilberforce, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr are the first, most obvious examples that spring to mind, though there are countless others whose names are not known who have acted with the same fire in their bones. 

But it seems as though the inextricable link of faith to social justice is becoming a hallmark of the rising generation's faith.

I see this in the Passion movement's devotion to end human trafficking, and in the proliferation of new monastic communities and grassroots operations like Hill Country Tribers. 

I see it in the way that many are recognizing war and education and capital punishment and healthcare and poverty itself as Kingdom issues, alongside the old-reliables of faith-motivated political debates like abortion.

And that's exciting, but also overwhelming, because again: I don't walk the walk.  I struggle daily with how to connect my life to what's happening to the "least of these."  But it is a fire that has caught in my bones, and despite my failures, I will continue to seek ways to bring about the Kingdom that Jesus came to usher in. 



A few recommended reads on this topic-

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne

God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get it by Jim Wallis (Disclaimer: When I read this in 2008, many of the examples drawn from the 2004 election year were already slightly dated . This does not, however, diminish the relevence of the principles and themes of the book.)

When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...or Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert

Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of our Everyday Choices by Julie Clawson- great for practical ways that we can "do justice" even in our everyday lives

A Place at the Table: 40 Days of Solidarity with the Poor by Chris Seay

On Gay Marriage and God...

Why 'Biblical' is a Dicey Word, How CNN Reveals the Stereotypes, and What The Civil War Has to Do With It All

On days like today when the news provokes a social media frenzy, and passionate views on controversial issues start flying, my stomach gets knotted and I wonder if it's better to keep a discerning silence or to add my voice to the din.

Today, the din has won out, and now that my boy is sleeping and the house is quiet, my mind will not settle until my fingers have had their fling on the keyboard. And the catalyst for me, as I've kept an eye on the coverage from the Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage, was reading this piece on CNN's belief blog, provocatively titled, Who is on God's Side of the Marriage Debate?

The essence of the article is that Christians on both sides of the debate see their viewpoints as aligning with the God of the Bible.  And the quotes used to portray both of these sides make me cringe.  In support of same-sex marriage, Rev. Gary Hall of the Washington National Cathedral is quoted as saying that

"I do think we are on God's side because my idea of God is someone that is loving...My understanding is that kind of God that loves everyone and wants everyone to live a joyful life." 

He goes on to admit that his argument is "...not entirely based on scripture."

Eek. To my ears, these words are shaky ground on which to build, because they imply the kind of relativism that many conservatives rail against.  At the heart of many an evangelical argument against homosexuality is something akin to, We must not compromise on absolute truth, which we get from the Bible alone.  Our own ideas of who God is and what He wants must come not from culture or our own imaginations, but from the authoritative Word of God.

And indeed, same-sex opponent Richard Land of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission calls Hall out on this very thing, saying

"The people who are religious and support same-sex marriage tend to take a Dalmatian view of scripture. They believe the Bible is divine in spots, and they think they can spot the spots."

The problem I have with Land here is that what he is describing does not apply to just those who "are religious and support same-sex marriage."  What he is describing--a "pick-and-choose" way of approaching scripture--applies to every person everywhere who reads the Bible and tries to apply it. (How many of us cover our heads when going into worship or follow the Levitical code?)

Before I lose some of you here (too late?), let me quickly qualify that I am not suggesting that we can do whatever we wish with the Bible, haphazardly using it in whatever way suits our own preference.  What I am suggesting, however, is that a serious, responsible study and application of the Bible begins with recognizing how complex and multi-layered and even contradictory it can be, and also how culturally bound we all are in approaching it.  This is not a bad thing...it is simply the truth of things.  And I believe that a true appreciation and reverence for scripture as the source of Truth takes these things into account and produces in us a posture of humility rather than a stance of brash proclamation.

And that is my other problem with Richard Land in the article.  His words about his interpretation of scripture are so self-assured that he makes the bold, sweeping generalization that "people who...believe that they are under the authority of scripture almost universally oppose same-sex marriage."

I'm not so sure that this is true, Dr. Land.

Belief in the authority of scripture does not mean that we all agree on how it is to be interpreted.

Things get dicey when assume that the Bible is unquestionably clear cut on every single issue. 

Things get dicey when we fail to recognize how our own tradition and beliefs as post-Enlightenment Westerners influences how we apply Scripture. 

Things get dicey when we stop listening and interacting with each other, because our rugged individualism often undermines the critical idea that we must read and interpret Scripture in community.

Things get dicey when we miss the forest for the trees.  And I'm afraid that when it comes to the issue of homosexuality, the Church has done exactly that, looking so long and hard and passionately at the shrub of homosexuality that we forget that we are in the redwood forest of redemption.

I know that Richard Land and Gary Hall are not representative of all who fall on their respective sides of the gay marriage debate. 

There are  opponents of same-sex marriage who in all humility and grace still cannot reconcile same-sex marriage as permissible according to Scripture. 

There are also supporters of same-sex marriage who hold Scripture in the highest regard and support the rights of homosexual men and women not despite Scripture, but because of it.

And for that reason, I cringe at the way each side is portrayed in the CNN article.  (Land's comment near the end that those who use the Bible to defend same-sex marriage are "rejecting Jesus Himself" and "might as well go and make up your own religion" makes me want to rip out my hair.)

But if we can turn our attention away from these provocative comments and come alongside  those who are earnestly and humbly seeking to know how to view this issue through the lens of Scripture with the help of the Spirit, I think there can be more to the conversation.

While the scope of answering the question of Who is on God's side of the marriage debate? lies far beyond my own ability, (and while I'm not certain that's even the right question to ask in the first place), I do offer a few resources and points to consider.

First, I highly recommend Justin Lee's book, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gay-vs.-Christian Debate. I wrote a post about it here.

Second, it is interesting to note the parallels between the Christian struggle for faithfulness to scripture on the question of gay marriage today and on the question of slavery 150 years ago.  While I am certainly not suggesting that these two issues are of equal gravity, the rhetoric used by the church in approaching these two issues is strikingly similar.

In his fascinating book The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, historian Mark Noll shows the ways in which both proponents of slavery and abolitionists alike used Scripture to justify their stances.  To me, one of the more tragic and damaging dynamics in that debate was the false dichotomy of Scripture vs. abolition that many Christians bought into.  Because some of the more vocal abolitionists publicly demeaned the Bible, many Christians thought that to support abolition was, by default, to betray a high view of Scripture. (I think many might draw the same conclusion from Rev. Hall's quote in the CNN article, and I feel saddened at the implication that support for same-sex marriage necessitates a cavalier attitude toward the Bible.)

Even once many devout Christians began supporting abolition on grounds of Scripture (rather than in spite of it), their arguments were often flippantly dismissed by those who insisted that the Bible was clear about slavery being permissible since they could point to many proof-texts that seemed on a surface reading to condone the institution.  As Noll points out,

"...nuanced biblical attacks on American slavery faced rough going precisely because it they were nuanced.  This position could not simply be read out of any one biblical text; it could not be lifted directly from the page.  Rather, it needed patient reflection on the entirety of the Scriptures; it required expert knowledge of the historical circumstances of ancient Near Eastern and Roman slave systems as well as of the actually existing conditions in the slave states; and it demanded that sophisticated interpretative practice replace a [surface] approach to the sacred text." 

Perhaps the theological struggle of the Civil War gives us a thing or two to learn (or at least ask ourselves) before dying on the hill of our own certainty when it comes to how scripture dictates culture.

Finally, I would suggest that a piece of the debate that is most tragically missing in many conservative Christian circles is the hearing of stories from men and women who identify as gay and lesbian.  How do we judge that which we do not know?  How do we have compassion for those facing personal and systematic discrimination if we keep the LGBT community as an abstraction rather than entering into the lives of our brothers and sisters? 

Listen to the stories.

Listen to the stories. 

And if you must think of the LGBT community as collective, then let that collective view be shaped by statistics like these, that LGBT youth are five times as likely to commit suicide  or that 20-40% of all homeless youth identify as gay or lesbian or that LGBT runaways are seven times as likely to be victims of a crime as are their heterosexual peers. The church is called to champion the marginalized and oppressed.  Is this not a picture of marginalization and oppression? 

While it may seem as though what's happening in the Supreme Court today has no bearing on statistics like these, I would argue that what these desperate youth need to hear is a resounding refrain of God is for you.  And it seems as though that refrain becomes somewhat hollow when we affirm it on the one hand, while angrily fighting tooth-and-nail against a secular government sanction of LGBT civil rights on the other.

 

The Darkness I Create: An Important Lesson from the Pre-Wedding Hotel Crash

I was recently reminded of Anne Lamott's witty observation,

My mind is like a bad neighborhood: I try not to go there alone.

Amen to that.
 
Particulary during times of stress or heaviness around me, I struggle with letting my mind get carried away into dark places of worry and what-if scenarios.  It's fitting, perhaps, that I find myself in the midst of that very struggle as we mark four years since the big rig crashed through the hotel room where my then husband-to-be and father-in-law-to-be were staying just two days before our wedding.  Of course, the incident turned out to be far more bizarre than it was tragic.  Yet today I needed the reminder of my own words, written three years ago today, as I reflected on the events that transpired one year prior...

"It would be easy for me to reflect on last year’s crash and conclude that I was closer than most brides to tragically and unexpectedly losing my groom just a couple of days before our wedding. But was I? Truck or no truck, losing Matt was not a horror that I had to face... 

And the same can be said for the thousand of other horror story scripts that my worry-prone mind writes every day.  

They are not real. Perhaps one day, one or even some of them will come true. But they are not true now, and so by entertaining them, part of my soul lives in a dark alternate universe that I have created in vain...

So tonight, I am thankful that rather than living in the twisted constructions of my own dark heart and mind, God mercifully allows me to live in a story graciously and providentially written by Him."

Broken, Again

Last night, while our little family of three was playing with zoo animal magnets, watching Curious George, and baking sweet orange rolls, two people lost their lives less than a half a mile away, in an intersection that we drive through on a daily basis. 

The details are still few at this point.  We know only that as a car with three people in it pulled out into the intersection, it was T-boned by a truck (whose driver and passenger were not hurt.)  Two of the three people in the car were killed, and the third is in critical condition.  (We've also heard through the grapevine that the one in critical condition is a high school student whose mother was one of the two killed.)

After we heard about the wreck a couple of hours after it happened, I crept into Reece's room as he slept and sat on the floor by his crib, my forehead pressed against the wooden slats.  It's agony--AGONY--to know I can't always protect him from the horrors of life; that I brought this precious, beautiful, beloved creature into a world that is so wrought with pain and uncertainty.

As I sat there, I wanted so desperately to pray that he would always be safe and secure and blessed and protected.  But I couldn't pray that.  I couldn't pray at all.   After all, what mother doesn't want those things for her child?  And how many mothers, even mothers who pray for those things, were, at that very moment, sitting at the bedside of sick children or starving children?  How many mothers were sick themselves, or broke, or reeling from a phone call like the ones made last night to family members of those who died in the car in our neighborhood?  It's all madness, and it makes me all the more uncertain how the redemptive purposes of God can be real.  I mean, come on.

And yet.

Yet.

Yet.

Yet.

I realized as I sat there, suffocating in darkness, that it's also somehow this same crazy, all-consuming love (which often manifests as crazy, all-consuming fear and despair in the face of suffering) that makes me believe all the more.

What other explanation for tragedy and loss and injustice is there, other than that this is not the end, and that joy and restoration and justice are still to come?  The tension must ultimately be resolved; the emptiness ultimately filled.  That is how I'm wired to understand life, and I have to believe that that's a Spirit thing.

And so yes, it is that wild, desperate, what-have-I-done-by-bringing-a-child-into-this-scary-world kind of love that makes me will God to be true and real and who Jesus said He was.  That sounds blasphemous, I know.  After all, it is not I who wills God into being, as if He is made in my image.  But it's also inaccurate to merely say that my love for & longing to protect my child (and all those who, like him, are tiny and helpless and at-risk...which, of course, is all of us) just wills me to believe. 

No, it's more than that. 

It's that desperate love and longing that spurs me to beg God, with the one and only earnest prayer I can muster,

Please be real.  Please be true.

That's all my breathless, helpless soul can cry.

Otherwise, we have no hope.
Otherwise, I'm doomed to despair.
Otherwise, it is in vain that I should have brought a child into this world.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

 

*****************************

(I realize this may sound like a bit of an overreaction, particulary as I did not experience personal loss in last night's accident.  But I am learning more and more that becoming a mother has, for me, at least, taken what I might once have considered overreaction and placed it firmly in the realm of rational response.)