The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong

A while back, way before I ever even knew what a blog was, I began to read books about the Bible.  I'm an avid reader, and usually stick to nonfiction.  I love God and the Bible, but have always felt I could learn more about both. 

In particular, I always felt ignorant about the Bible.  When I was younger, Southern Baptist churches were the ones I attended most because of my family and friends.  But I didn't attend regularly and when I did go, I always felt like I had missed some basic lessons and didn't know as much as everyone else who were memorizing Bible verses like crazy.  I've never been good at rote memorization, so that never worked for me anyhow. 

I'm also more of a big picture learner.  It is hard for me to make sense of something when all I have is information on the micro, not macro, level.  So a while back, I began to pick up books on the Bible which helped give me more of a big picture understanding of the Bible.  It was really helpful.  And I think that is a good place for us to start here, as I take a step back and ask us to consider what Christianity is.

One of the first books I read in this genre was a terrific book whose name and author I unfortunately did not take time to write down.  Urgh!  I've gotten much better about that sort of thing since then, but I vaguely recall that the book was named something like A Biography of the Bible.

I've done some internet research and am not quite sure which book it was that I read, but I think it might have been Karen Armstrong's 2007 book, The Bible: A Biography.  I found a blurb about it on the NPR website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16220762.  I encourage you to take a read.

Whether it was Ms. Armstrong's "biography" or some author's book, a couple things in particular struck me as I read this mystery book whose title and author I don't recall with precision.

First, the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament have not been the same static documents over time.  The excerpt from the link above states:

"The Jewish scriptures and the New Testament both began as oral proclamations and even after they were committed to writing, there often remained a bias towards the spoken word that is also present in other traditions. From the very beginning, people feared that a written scripture encouraged inflexibility and unrealistic, strident certainty. Religious knowledge cannot be imparted like other information, simply by scanning the sacred page. Documents became 'scripture' not, initially, because they were thought to be divinely inspired but because people started to treat them differently. This was certainly true of the early texts of the Bible, which became holy only when approached in a ritual context that set them apart from ordinary life and secular modes of thought." 

Later, the excerpt continues,

"From the very beginning, the Bible had no single message. When the editors fixed the canons of both the Jewish and Christian testaments, they included competing visions and placed them, without comment, side by side. From the first, biblical authors felt free to revise the texts they had inherited and give them entirely different meaning. Later exegetes held up the Bible as a template for the problems of their time. Sometimes they allowed it to shape their world-view but they also felt free to change it and make it speak to contemporary conditions. They were not usually interested in discovering the original meaning of a biblical passage. The Bible 'proved' that it was holy because people continually discovered fresh ways to interpret it and found that this difficult, ancient set of documents cast light on situations that their authors could never have imagined. Revelation was an ongoing process; it had not been confined to a distant theophany on Mount Sinai; exegetes continued to make the Word of God audible in each generation."

A second major point I took from the book is related to the first: judging the factual truth of the Bible is not something that has been of interest to our spiritual forbearers.  As the excerpt at the link above notes:

"When their sacred texts tell stories, people have generally believed them to be true, but until recently literal or historical accuracy has never been the point.  The truth of scripture cannot be assessed unless it is--ritually or ethically--put into practice." 

The excerpt goes on to state,

"It is, for example, crucial to note that an exclusively literal interpretation of the Bible is a recent development. Until the nineteenth century, very few people imagined that the first chapter of Genesis was a factual account of the origins of life. For centuries, Jews and Christians relished highly allegorical and inventive exegesis, insisting that a wholly literal reading of the Bible was neither possible nor desirable. They have rewritten biblical history, replaced Bible stories with new myths, and interpreted the first chapter of Genesis in surprisingly different ways." 

Aren't these points fascinating?  That blew my mind that the Bible was written and frequently rewritten as new understandings arose.  Wow.

We fight so much about literalism these days.  It impacts bitter theological arguments, as well as legal and political battles over school curriculum, foreign policy, and the rights of women, sexual minorities and others.  But maybe this focus on literalism misses the point. 

Maybe when we insist on literal interpretations we are copping out and looking for easy answers.  However, no one said being a person of faith--or a Christ follower in particular--was easy. 

I believe that Jesus came to earth in part to put into human language important teachings our Heavenly Father wanted us to learn.  Human language is an important tool to impart information and meaning.  But it is imperfect.  Whenever I read the Gospels in the New Testament, I am continually amazed--and frankly comforted--at how even Jesus's closest disciples who lived with, worked alongside and learned from him directly did not understand his words. 

This is not easy stuff.  I wish I had a magic wand to make it all crystal clear, but I don't.  I don't think anyone does.  However, I can appreciate wishing that literal interpretations make it all clear.  Based on my study--which I'll explain more in future posts--I don't think literalism makes everything clear and simple.  It leads to plenty of contradictions that then require lots of creativity to resolve.  More on that later.

But a second thought concerns me about this apparent modern focus on literalism.  Perhaps when we insist on literal interpretations of Scripture, we are not just being lazy and refusing to do the heavy lifting necessary to find the truth of God's Word.  Maybe we insist on literal interpretations--at least in part--to justify our own prejudices and hardened hearts.  After all, if we assert that God is on our side in verbally condemning, systematically oppressing, or outright physically harming people, that can seem to give legitimacy to actions that otherwise might seem clearly wrong and cruel, or even outright un-Christian. 

I don't like to think the worst of people, but the more I study, the more I worry that this type of justification is one reason for the insistence on Bible literalism.  This is frankly a scary thought to me.  I find it horrifying to think that people might distort the gift of Scripture to serve ungodly and even evil ends. 

But maybe if that is what is going on, it is not done consciously.  Perhaps no one goes around thinking, "I know that God loves all his children equally, but I'm going to come up with arguments based on literal interpretations of passages taken out of context to justify finger wagging and discriminatory policy."  I suspect that people who insist on literalism in ways that harm others do so earnestly believing that is God's will. 

In life, I find we mere mortals are often not fully aware of our own motivations in how we react to different situations.  As a result, I think it is important for us to focus on examining our own lives.  I think that was one reason at least for Jesus's teaching on the Mote and the Beam in Matthew 7:1-5 and Luke 6:37-42.  Terrific food for thought.

I also find the following passage from the above excerpt fascinating and relevant to today's debates:

"Some of the most important biblical authorities insisted that charity must be the guiding principle of exegesis: any interpretation that spread hatred or disdain was illegitimate. All the world faiths claim that compassion is not only the prime virtue and the test of true religiosity but that it actually introduces us to Nirvana, God or the Dao. But sadly the biography of the Bible represents the failures as well as the triumphs of the religious quest. The biblical authors and their interpreters have all too often succumbed to the violence, unkindness and exclusivity that is rife in their societies."

"i repent" Post From "Our Exceeding Joy" Blog

I love blogs.  I love writing them.  And I love reading them.  I've got a list of a few I like on the right side of this page.  But it is certainly not an exhaustive list.  Time is limited.  I don't have time to read 100% of each blog that piques my interest.  I don't have time to read any on a regular basis.  From time to time, if I have a few minutes, I go to one of the blogs I've bookmarked to catch up.

This morning I had such a little break in my day and wandered over to "Our Exceeding Joy."  It is a blog by a woman named Sarah in Austin, Texas.  I went to college and met my husband in Austin.  I know first hand what a great town that is.  But what initially got my attention is that Sarah is an adoptive mom like me. 

I love the description of her blog.  She describes herself first and foremost as "an avid reader and writer."  She says her blog is an outlet where she writes "about the things that stir my soul" such as "Jesus, adoption, or human-trafficking."  What a woman! 

I read a lovely post that Sarah wrote earlier this summer on June 8th.  It was entitled "i repent."  Take a read of what she wrote.  I wanted to share it because it is beautiful and inspiring.  But I also thought it was very apropos of the new focus of my own blog.

In this post, Sarah explored her former hard-heartedness and judgmental tendencies towards people unlike her.  I particularly loved the following passages:

It never crossed my mind that I could be wrong.
 

Maybe this response is because I grew up in a culture where there was this prevalent fear of being invaded by the homosexuals and the abortionists. We talked a big game, but when it actually came to believing that God could love all these sinners, we battened down the hatches and only let in like-minded people.
 

Maybe it’s because I was taught that it was more important to be right than to love.
 

Or maybe it’s just a symptom of being a fallen, broken person.

 

Sarah really hits the nail on the head.  In our modern culture, it seems like everyone is yelling at everyone who disagrees with them.  We don't listen to others who are different.  We are not open to learning.  We think we're always right, like we have a monopoly on truth.  How arrogant.  Even the disciples were continually misunderstanding Jesus's teachings though they were with him 24/7 for several years.

And as Sarah points out so eloquently, we've tragically adopted the attitude that being right is more important than loving.  What a powerful statement.  As Christ followers, we can't fault nonbelievers from embracing and living that attitude.  But those of us who purport to have read and accepted the Gospels, we should know better.  Being right is NOT more important than loving God's people, whomever they might be.

Take a read of the whole blog post, which is available at the link below.  Meditate on it and keep it in your heart as you go through the day.  Beautiful sentiments.  Yeah, Sarah!

http://www.sarahdrinka.com/?p=572

It Is Not Just the Politicians

In the last blog post, I described the exploitation of Jesus Christ by politicians to secure electoral advantage.  I wanted to be fair and note that I don't by any means believe only politicians exploit the Son of Man for earthly gain.  I'm a former corporate lawyer and professor of business law.  One of my points of consternation is when Jesus's name is exploited in the marketplace.

Sometimes it is subtle.  Maybe someone uses the ichthys (or "Christian fish") symbol in their marketing.  I did not used to think that was too bad.  But I began to ponder what they were really trying to communicate with such marketing.  I believe it is something along the lines of "I'm a Christian, so buy from me."  In other words, they are trying to gain an advantage in the marketplace through invocation of Jesus.

The advantage chiefly comes through one of two main forms.  On the one hand, it appeals to other Christians to do business within the community: "You're like me, so I'll buy from you."  But that is not appropriate.  Christianity is not a ticket to an elite country club.  The salt of the earth is not supposed to just hang out with other salt.  We're charged to go out into the world. 

Further, the appeal to stick within the community can have bigoted overtones.  Historically, it has been charged that such appeals are anti-Semitic.  As our Lord was Jewish, and as there is a long, violent history of Christian anti-Semitism, we need to be particularly wary of that.  But in the modern era, encouragement to give preferential business treatment to other Christians can be seen as bigotry against entrepreneurs of different faiths--Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, etc.  We're to be known by our love, not our bigotry and exclusion.

The other way entrepreneurs try to gain an advantage through invocation of the ichthys or other Christian references is to use it as a means to vouch for their business scruples.  In other words, "I'm a Christian, so you can trust me."  In general, my husband is a lot more skeptical and less trusting than I am.  When someone uses symbols or words to express their Christian faith in order to gain someone's trust, alarm bells go off in his brain.  Over the years, I've come to respect this hesitancy of his. 

Some good friends of ours seem to put great emphasis on the Christian label in the way that my husband never would.  That label seems to be one of the reasons they first were drawn to be our friends because at first blush we don't actually have all that much in common.  Though they put a lot of emphasis on the Christian label, I am often puzzled by their faith.  They go to church only very sporadically and never pray before meals, their home doesn't seem to have any evidence of faith, and they often say things that seem to express deeply held secular values in conflict with the Gospel.  Yet, the Christian label means a lot to them.  So much that a while back they entered into a business deal with a man largely based on his representation that he was a Christian.  To them, this meant trustworthiness.  Invoking the label "Christian" was a like a code for "I'm the right kind of person to do business with."  Had my husband been in their shoes, such a representation in that context would have been a huge red flag.  And it turns out, for good reason.  The business deal quickly went bad.  The man had hidden the fact that he was a wanted felon.  There was evidence of illegal drug use, domestic violence and other awful things.  Eventually the man skipped town to evade the police, leaving our friends with a horrible mess to clean up.

Beyond such subtle use of symbols, these days other businesses may use their faith in perhaps more obvious ways.

Chick-fil-A is a high profile example.  The private corporation's CEO, S. Truett Cathy, is a Southern Baptist and that faith has been important in the corporate culture.  Their official statement of corporate purpose includes the goal: "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.  To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A."  In line with his faith, Mr. Cathy has made sure that the company's restaurants are closed on Sundays, which is unusual in the American market place.  To be clear, I personally don't believe the decision was made in order to exploit Jesus to gain an advantage in the marketplace.  However, I do believe that an advantage is nonetheless achieved in this way.  I myself know a lot of folks who favor the restaurant for this business decision, as well as other indicia of being a "Christian business."

Another high profile example is Hobby Lobby, whose website describes the business with a lot of religious references: http://www.hobbylobby.com/our_company/our_company.cfm.  Of four commitments listed, the first is "[h]onoring the Lord in all we do by operating in a manner consistent with biblical principles."  The website also indicates it is closed on Sundays.  However, the business has gain attention recently because it has sued over regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. "Obamacare").  Specifically, the company objects to required coverage of emergency contraceptives (a.k.a. the "morning after-pill"). 

Personally, I respect very much those who value the sanctity of life, and I deeply admire those who would potentially sacrifice financially to be true to their deepest values.  However, the pragmatic attorney side of me is skeptical about this particular lawsuit. 

The reality is that the "morning after pill" is used in just a small number of cases.  Unlike birth control pills or condoms, most women will never use the "morning after pill" because it only works in limited contexts.  It can be taken up to five days after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy from happening.  Specifically, the pill prevents ovaries from releasing an egg.  If it does not leave the ovary, an egg cannot be fertilized by sperm.  The "morning after pill" is thus appropriately labeled "contraception," and not "abortion." Unlike the former, the latter removes a fertilized egg from a woman's body.  Although there is disagreement over when human life begins, the earliest definition is fertilization of an egg by a sperm.  No one asserts that an unfertilized egg or a solo sperm is equivalent to a human being.

Further, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, most Christians would not assert that there is a moral imperative to allow an egg to be released from an ovary such that fertilization might occur.  As a former Catholic, I can vouch that even most practicing Catholics disagree with this official teaching.  Indeed, when my husband and I went through the church's marriage preparation classes, the couple teaching the course professed bewilderment over that teaching and indicated they had not followed it in planning their own family.  This was quite telling as the wife taught in the church's parochial school, the couple were active and well-respected in the church, and they were close friends with the pastor.  These were not casual mass attenders, but the lay backbone of the church.

It is important to note that because of its limited utility, the "morning after pill" is typically intended to be used when a woman's primary contraceptive fails (e.g., a condom breaks) or in the case of rape.  Even many people who are opposed to abortion would allow an exception in the case of rape. 

Due to these circumstances, I myself wonder about the sincerity of the Hobby Lobby lawsuit over the Affordable Care Act.  Perhaps I am wrong, but my suspicion is that the company is raising the issue of religious freedom as a ruse to avoid having to provide costly health insurance to its employees.  Indeed, I've known a number of fans of the store who've been sympathetic to the corporation's position because of the invocation of religious freedom.  These same folks would likely not be as sympathetic if the issue were framed in a different way, e.g., eating into corporate profits to provide health care to workers.

More on Shopping Addiction

There was a particular aspect of the Diane Rehm show on shopping addiction that got my attention.  The discussion included the concept that a person’s worth as a human being is reflected by their possessions.

At one point, one of the guests said: “We may feel not very good about ourselves and not very self-accepting, but we want to feel differently and we want the world to think of us differently. So if we dress to look that part, if we buy cars to look that part, then we think that we'll become that part.”

A different guest commented, “Yes, and that's exactly why somebody who knew better than I suggested I come to Debtors Anonymous and find a spiritual solution because the gap that April talked about between who I wanted to be and who I thought I somehow could get to be could never be filled with a purchase. But that was what I was thinking would work.”

One guest spoke of shopping addiction as involving “[i]nstant gratification surrounded by a profound sense of emptiness.”

From a Christian world view, these comments describe a deeply distressing perspective. 

In the Old Testament, there was not a correlation between one’s inherent worth to God and one’s place in human society.  Over and over, the Old Testament describes ordinary, even lowly folks that society dismissed, but whom God treasured.  Joseph, Samuel, David, Ruth and Esther are examples.  God blesses those whom human beings overlook.  God’s priorities are not those of human society. 

In the New Testament, this same pattern emerges even more prominently.  God chooses Mary of Nazareth, a poor young girl, a real nobody in her culture, to bring the Son of God into this world.  God’s only son is born in a barn for animals, never has any material wealth or earthly power.  He apparently led a pretty quiet life as a poor carpenter for the first few decades of his life, then began his ministry not in a place of honor but by roaming the countryside ministering to people his culture thought were losers.  Jesus chooses Peter, a blowhard fisherman with little education, to become the “rock” of his ministry. 

Mary Magdalene was not only a woman, which meant she was pretty low in the pecking order in the base case, but she was also an outcast for other reasons.  In the Gospels of Mark and Luke, it is described that Jesus cleansed her of “demons.”  There is debate about what this means; some modern scholars believe this is a reference to a healing from some sort of serious physical ailment like epilepsy or schizophrenia.   Regardless of the meaning of “demons,” it seems a safe bet she was not welcomed in elite social circles.  Yet Mary Magdalene was apparently a very close friend and devoted follower of Jesus to the end of his life.  She stayed with him though his crucifixion, and in three of the four Gospels she is said to have been chosen as the first person to witness Jesus in his resurrected form.  That is quite amazing because women in that society were not considered to even be reliable enough to give witness in legal proceedings.  Again, Jesus chose whom humankind rejected.

So, to me, as a Christ follower, it is so abundantly clear that what one owns or possesses does not reflect one’s worth to God.  When the Prodigal Son returned home, his father ran to him rejoicing though he no longer owned anything and was in rags.

I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years now.  So this understanding is pretty deeply ingrained.  On one level, it is hard for me to conceptualize that people would feel better about themselves—even briefly—because of possessions.  To my mind, that is as nutty and nonsensical as saying bananas are purple and llamas are scaly. 

Yet, on another level, I can understand a bit what these folks have experienced.  Consider the following quote from the same show:

“It's just being able to walk into a store -- I see this a lot with lower income folks who then start to attain some level of financial stability. Now they can go out and do things that they weren't able to do before in many cases. And so there's a lot of different things that go into this and I don't believe that there's any one right answer. But certainly what the emailer conveyed is something that we see at all income levels. It has, again, nothing to do with that. And I think it's very similar to what Bill was describing as far as that emotional gap, wanting to be able to have the things that you want to feel the way that you want to feel.”

 

My husband and I did not grow up with a lot of money, but we did not suffer extreme poverty.  I have known people, however, that did grow up with great material deprivation.  Vicariously, I have come to know that was very difficult for them on many levels.  Beyond not having basic needs met, e.g., suffering hunger, not having heat in the winter, sleeping on the floor, seemingly less dire things are endured.  I’ve heard many people who grew up in poverty talk about the shame they felt amongst their peers.  What would the neighbors think of the family with no curtains on the windows and no car in the driveway?  What would the kids at school say about the high water pants, the patched dress, the lack of a winter coat? 

 

Oprah Winfrey has spoken publicly about such matters, e.g., how she dreaded going back to school after Christmas because everyone else would be bragging about their presents when she had not received any.  Ms. Winfrey is one of the richest women in the world and she has been on this planet for over half a century, but she still remembers the pain of such experiences vividly. 

 

The late Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes describes growing up in poverty in Ireland.  Though everyone around him was poor, he too describes the shame of having even less than some of those around him.  Though everyone in his social circle experienced material deprivation to some degree, those who went without food or shoes also felt the added pain of shame from others’ judgment.

 

I have personally known other adults who also still carry that sort of pain with them despite having climbed out of poverty and attained a measure of financial comfort.  I hurt for folks who’ve known such pain.  I think that pain is caused by destructive societal attitudes, to which we’re all susceptible. 

 

My husband and I really try to raise our children in a way that they will understand what is lasting and important in this world, while not getting seduced by the shallow consumer culture all around us.  It is so hard!  Regardless of their parents' jobs, their friends seem to all have handheld gaming devices, cell phones, TVs and computers in their rooms.  At Girl Scouts, the troop leader has to tell the girls to put away their smart phones before each meeting starts.  Our daughters do not have these things, are unlikely to have them for many years.  It is difficult for them to wrap their minds around that when their peers seem to have an abundance of electronics so early.  My husband and I talk with our kids all the time about the choices we have when it comes to money. We discuss how indulging now can have repercussions later on.  We talk about using our money for fun things v. sharing our blessings with others. 

 

Yet even though I’ve been a Christ follower a long time and I’m trying to raise my kids to reject the empty values of a consumer society, I too am not immune to the destructiveness of that culture.  Recently, my older daughter has started participating in a local basketball league for the first time.  We had to get her new shoes for this sport, but my husband bargain hunted and got some good shoes that weren’t overpriced.  Though I was grateful for his frugality, I have found myself at basketball games noting the shoes that these ten and eleven-year olds are wearing on the court.  Most are very expensive brands, some with three digit price tags.  And though I know better and should be unconcerned, I sometimes find myself worrying at the games if people will look down on our family—or worse, on my daughter—because she doesn’t have expensive shoes on her feet.  Will they think poorly of my husband and me because they think we’re not “providing” for my daughter?  Will the other kids look down on my daughter for having non-flashy shoes?  In my head, I know I shouldn’t care.  I know it is absolutely absurd to worry about being accepted for what one has on one’s feet.  I know it is pathetic to worry about social judgment when we should just be tremendously grateful for the abundant blessings and material luxuries that God has provided.  I know people go to bed hungry at night in Uganda, Thailand and in our own community.  Yet these thoughts pop into my head at every basketball game. 

 

It is tough.  We all want to be accepted by other people.  If society says that having certain stuff makes us worthy or important, then even if our faith tells us that is nonsense, it is hard to fully reject those societal values.  It is hard to be different and walk to the beat of a different drummer.  So, I can in some small way understand what the guests quoted above are describing.  There but for the grace of God go I.

 

 

James 2:1-13

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.  Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

 

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

 

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom,  because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Jesus and Gender Roles

This is a blog about the intersection of secular law and Christianity.  Over the past several months, I’ve spent a lot of time on gender issues.  Gender issues in our culture (whether shaped by religion or secular influences) are reflected in our nation’s laws.  So the relevance of gender issues to secular law is pretty obvious, but the relevance to Christianity may not be.

Indeed, many believe Christianity to be a sexist religion.  Some even believe it to be patriarchal and misogynist.  I can understand why that might be the case.  Jesus lived at a time and in a culture, in which women were very low on the totem pole.  Some Christians incorporate to varying degrees the attitudes of Jesus’s culture in their understanding of his message.

But it is important to remember that Christianity is not a homogenous faith.  The meaning of Christ’s life and teachings are interpreted differently by various groups.  From Roman Catholics to Mennonites, from Appalachian snake handlers to Christian Scientists, from Eastern Orthodox to Southern Baptists, not to mention the growing movement of independent, unaffiliated, Evangelical-leaning Christian churches.  We Christians have different understandings of what it is to “follow Jesus.”

I come from a family that was composed of people from a variety of different Protestant sects, as well as non-believers.  When I became a Christian, the Roman Catholic church was the right fit.  We were active, ardent Catholics for most of our adult years, but eventually my husband and I grew spiritually to a point that that church was no longer a good home for us.  We spent several years as regular attenders at different independent Evangelical churches.  But we eventually settled down and became members of an Episcopalian church. 

I mention this faith journey briefly because it has taught me to be humble and open in the discernment of Christ’s message.  I deeply believe faith is a journey and that we humans must constantly be seeking a fuller understanding of God’s truth.  My own journey and study has given me a better appreciation for Jesus’s attitude on gender issues.  This was not something I had as a child.  It is not something I appreciated immediately when I became a Christian.  It is something I’ve come to understand better over time with much study.  But I would certainly never claim to be an expert or to have a complete understanding of the issue.

Last summer I read a book called Living In Sin? By John Shelby Spong, which explores Christian sexual ethics.  Bishop Spong deals with the church’s attitudes towards homosexuality and premarital sex.  With a deep, scholarly understanding of the Bible and the cultures that shaped that tome, he explains in detail how the role of women was much maligned.  Reading that book has been very eye-opening.

But even before reading that book, I myself did not really understand how Jesus could be viewed as supportive of patriarchy or as being misogynist.  Those words were descriptive of his culture for sure.  But not the Jesus described in the New Testament.

My savior was not a big tough manly man.  In our gendered cultural perspective, one might say he was in touch with his feminine side.  I’m not sure that is quite how I’d put it.  To me, Jesus was simply fully human in every sense.  He did not hide behind a cloak of machismo. 

For example, we know that Jesus had female friends.  We have every reason to understand these were Platonic friends and not lovers.  He hung out with Mary and Martha in their home.  Moreover, he thought highly enough of them that he took time to teach them about the Kingdom of God.  When he traveled, there were women in his group.  At the end of his earthly life, only the women remained.  He was executed as a common criminal and seemingly exposed as a fraud.  But those ladies stuck by him and ministered to him until the end.  In my opinion, that demonstrated a deep love.  One would not have stuck by him like that unless such love was there.  Finally, he was close enough to Mary Magdalene that she became the first person to whom Jesus revealed his resurrection. 

I think it is important to take these facts in context.  It is remarkable that Jesus had such female friends at all.  That just wasn’t done in those days.  Women were reviled nobodies.  The men who wrote the Gospels didn’t even feel the need to tell us the names of some of these women.  But Jesus not only believed women worthy of his teaching and healing, he apparently had deep personal relationships with them as well.  Amazing.

Beyond the esteem he had for women, Jesus was notably not afraid to show what some might call his “softer side.”  He demonstrated emotion and tenderness.  He was not a stoic guy who never flinched.  When he arrived after Lazarus’s death, he cried.  Moreover, he did so publicly.  He didn’t try to hide it.  He was not ashamed.  Because Jesus then raised Lazarus from the dead, my interpretation of the crying is that Jesus was not weeping because Lazarus was gone.  He had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead, so Jesus had no reason to mourn his passing.  Instead, I believe that Jesus was deeply moved by the grief and sorrow his friends Mary and Martha were experiencing.  He loved them so much that he felt their pain, shared it and expressed it through tears.  In our culture, many people look down on men who express their feelings, who cry or who are empathetic.  Why on earth?  With Jesus as a role model, those are perfectly acceptable things for us to do—regardless of gender.

In reading the Gospels, I also see Jesus as a caregiver of sorts.  When I read about his interaction with the twelve, it strikes me as very parental.  Time after time, those dear fellas just didn’t get it.  They literalized figurative language, and they missed his central points.  He taught that the world’s values were the opposite of God’s, yet they still made dumb requests like having honored places above the other disciples in heaven.  Yet, Jesus kept teaching.  He didn’t give up on them.  Like a good parent doesn’t kick their kid to the curb when they have trouble committing their times tables to memory, Jesus didn’t kick any of the twelve out of the group for asking dumb questions and not understanding his teachings.  He loved them and kept on teaching.

After he was risen, Jesus cooked a meal for his disciples.  Cooking was lowly woman’s work.  But Jesus didn’t care.  His friends needed food, he prepared it for them.  He was concerned about their needs.  Jesus had just overcome the grave and changed human history.  But he then made time to fix breakfast for his friends.

I don’t intend for this post to be an exhaustive explanation of the relevance of gender issues to Christianity.  Whole books have been written on the subject.  But I note these few examples from Jesus’s life because some might argue that my blog’s focus last summer on fathering de-masculized men.  The same people might also argue the more recent focus on gender equality and “feminist” issues are misplaced in a Christian blog. 

Last summer I emphasized examples of men displaying traits that our culture through its gendered lens calls “feminine”: encouragement, devotion, vulnerability and caregiving.  But I think that gendered lens is simply an outdated cultural relic.  It prevents men from being fully human and engaged in their families. 

More recently, I’ve focused on cultural and structural issues that prevent women from succeeding in the work place.  Those issues impede women from fully utilizing all their God-given talents and from achieving a level of economic security for themselves and their families.

Per my reading and understanding of the New Testament, neither of those situations is desirable if one attempts to follow Jesus’s teachings.

 

 

1 Corinthians 12:17-26

If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell?  But as it is, God has placed each one of the parts in the body just like he wanted. If all were one and the same body part, what would happen to the body? But as it is, there are many parts but one body. So the eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” Instead, the parts of the body that people think are the weakest are the most necessary.  The parts of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we honor the most. The private parts of our body that aren’t presentable are the ones that are given the most dignity. The parts of our body that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor so that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might have mutual concern for each other.  If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it.

The Wage Gap and the Presidential Campaign

The article at the link below describes the continuing wage gap between men and women. 

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/wage-inequality-u-persists-181752413.html

On average, women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.  As the article explains, this gap persists despite the rise in women as a segment of the American work force, and women’s “dominance in both the undergraduate and graduate degree arena.”  According to the article, if we keep the current pace of narrowing the wage gap, it will be closed by 2056.  That is not an encouraging pace.  2056 is around the time my young daughters are likely to retire.

The election is mercifully over, but during the campaign President Obama tried to appeal to women on the wage gap issue.  He often touted his support of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.  He also frequently noted that the continuing wage gap was not merely a women’s issue, but was a family issue since many families are now supported in whole or in large part by female breadwinners. 

I appreciate the president’s support of that legislation and he made a good point about the impact of the wage gap on families.  However, I was dismayed because when he spoke of these issues on the campaign trail, President Obama frankly seemed to think this was breaking news.  He also seemed to not be terribly savvy about structural issues leading to the wage gap.  Perhaps I am wrong, but this is the impression I got when I listened to the president speak.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was the congressional reaction to an egregious Supreme Court opinion in 2007 that prevented a woman named Lilly Ledbetter from seeking redress from her employer after decades of covert sexist pay discrimination.  The legislation simply made a change to the statute of limitations that had barred Ms. Ledbetter’s case.  Form had triumphed over substance in Ms. Ledbetter’s case, so Congress made a small tweak to correct one procedural hurdle that had doomed her case.  The 180 day statute of limitations for an equal-pay lawsuit is now reset with each new paycheck impacted by the gender based discrimination.  The result is that there is a longer timeframe to bring suit. 

Certainly, I agree with this legislation, but it is no panacea to workplace gender discrimination or the persistent wage gap.  It is a mere band-aid on a much deeper wound.  Women still face all kinds of hurdles in even discovering such pay discrimination or bringing suit.  Indeed, what a world that such lawsuits are even necessary to right discriminatory practices.  I appreciate President Obama’s support of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, but that is not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wage gap issues.

I was particularly disappointed with my perception of President Obama’s attitude on this issue due to his own life experiences.  He of all people should be more sensitive and knowledgeable about the wage gap and issues impacting women in the work place.  As a child, Mr. Obama was raised and supported financially primarily by two women who balanced paid work and raising children:  his mother and his grandmother.  As an adult, by his own account in his memoir The Audacity of Hope, his brilliant wife was the primary breadwinner for most of their marriage to-date.  Michelle Obama supported the family as an incredibly successful lawyer and corporate executive.  Moreover, again according to Mr. Obama’s own memoir, Mrs. Obama brought home the proverbial bacon while she was also shouldering most of the caregiving responsibilities for their young children.  As Mr. Obama admits in Audacity of Hope,  when his daughters were young, he participated in parenting only when it suited his schedule as he dabbled in politics and worked a bit as an adjunct professor.  Not until he became a national political star--and his book sales rose--did Mr. Obama significantly contribute to his family’s finances. 

Of all people, our current president should be more evolved on the wage gap issue.  Throughout his life, he has been supported financially by women who were juggling family responsibilities and paid employment.  Further, both his children are female.  This issue is one that his own daughters are likely to face as adults.

By contrast, I was actually pleasantly surprised by Governor Romney’s approach to this same issue. 

During the campaign, there was a lot of hoopla over his “binders full of women” comment.  Frankly, I thought that was silly and a colossal waste of time.  Perhaps “binders full of women” was an odd word choice.  But that happens when human beings speak spontaneously and don’t have prepared statements to follow.  We Americans whine that politicians rarely speak candidly or stray from tightly scripted stump speeches.  But the circus over Governor Romney’s “binders” comment is what happens when politicians speak in an unscripted fashion.  They get ridiculed if their wording is not perfect or even a bit goofy.  People get caught up myopically focusing on wording and ignore substance.  And we wonder why politicians don’t focus on substance in their campaigns.

Beyond the odd word choice, some also panned Governor Romney that he needed “binders” to be prepared for him and did not have a ready supply of female candidates in his social or professional circles.  Again, that is ridiculous.  There is a noticeable dearth of women in leadership positions that might be a logical stepping stone for serving in a governor’s administration.  I myself am a professional woman, and I know a lot of talented professional women.  But if I were on my own governor’s staff and looking to add women to the administration, I certainly wouldn’t have a ready list of candidates I could just whip out.  It is nuts to expect Governor Romney to have had such a list in his back pocket. 

Bravo that Governor Romney did something to increase the number of women in his administration and to get a broader cross-section of perspectives amongst his advisors.  Binders of resumes seem to me to be a rational way to go about such a hiring decision.  I’ve participated in hiring decisions at different organizations.  Putting resumes and other application materials in binders, folders or the electronic equivalent is an acceptable, routine approach. 

Beyond the asinine focus on the “binders of women” comment, I did not hear many others pick up on the substance of Governor Romney’s answer to that one town hall participant’s question.  He acknowledged the need for women to have flexibility to meet demands of both their paid work and their family responsibilities.  I thought this demonstrated a lot of sensitivity and savvy on Governor Romney’s part.  Yet, that part of his answer got ignored by most. 

Those in the media who did pay attention to it often panned it.  The article below from CNN.com is typical.  

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/17/politics/debate-women/index.html

Only at the very end of the article does it reference Governor Romney’s attention to workplace flexibility.  In that context, the article states “And though Romney sought to highlight his support of flexible work schedules for women, his reference to women who need such schedules to race home to make dinner for their families may have ruffled some female voters the wrong way.”  The article then quotes Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University, who comments, “His discussion of work-life balance appeared condescending to some because of the reference to women cooking dinner.”  That was the sum total of the attention paid in this article to the substance of Governor Romney’s comment.

Personally, I thought that sort of reaction by Professor Gillespie was overly sensitive and prideful.  It was also out of touch with reality.  Families need to eat.  That is just a reality, no sense denying it.  Eating out on a frequent basis or relying on take-on meals is a waste of money and typically not good for one’s health.  So, someone in the family has to cook.  And there is a ton of empirical evidence that even today women disproportionately shoulder the burden of most caregiving responsibilities—including meal planning and food preparation.  To deny that reality because it hurts our egos is not productive. 

Over the years, my husband and I have traded cooking responsibilities in our family.  I know some families where the husband does most of the cooking.  But anecdotally, such approaches seem to be rather unusual.  I’ve had numerous fellow working moms respond with stunned awe when they hear my husband cooks and feeds our children on a regular basis.  Apparently this is not their reality. 

Perhaps I am wrong, but I suspect that most of the women who panned Governor Romney’s comment about cooking dinner are not parents.  A dear friend of mine and I had a spirited disagreement over the governor’s comment.  Like Professor Gillespie, my friend thought it was patronizing and it really annoyed her.  My response to my friend was, “Welcome to my world!”  This friend of mine is married, but she and her husband do not have children. 

Children do not raise themselves.  There is a lot of on-going work that has to get done to take care of them.  It takes considerable time, effort and financial resources.  In my experience, people who are not parents do not always seem to realize this.  I often hear comments in casual conversation and in the media that suggest that childrearing is some sort of cute little hobby.  It is not.  It is a serious, long-term responsibility.  Unfortunately, I discern that in the media we frequently do not hear enough from people who actually bear such responsibilities.  They are probably too busy cooking dinner, checking homework and making sure people are bathed and in bed at a decent hour.

This point gets back to the workplace inhospitableness towards caregivers.  Such caregivers (who are disproportionately women) leave the professional world altogether or remain but are relegated to a disrespected “mommy track” because of the difficulty in juggling paid work and family responsibilities.  But it is a vicious cycle.  Because they leave or are relegated to a lower caste at work, the perspective of such people are rarely heard in the media or behind closed doors when employment policies are decided.  Until their perspective is heard, I am pessimistic things will improve.

 

 

1 Corinthians 12:14-17

Certainly the body isn’t one part but many.  If the foot says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that mean it’s not part of the body?  If the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of the body?  If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell?

Supporting Women in the Workplace…from an Economic Perspective

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, in the United States, people are often not sympathetic to issues involving the challenges of parenting.  At least in the red states where I’ve lived, people reject the notion that “it takes a village” to raise a child.  Instead, the attitude is that if one brings a child into this world, one is on one’s own to raise that child.  When this attitude is expressed, there is usually a failure to account for the harm to the child when parents get no support.  Christian concerns about family values and the vulnerability of children often fall on deaf ears in this context.

And many people are also unsympathetic to the notion that the juggling of paid work and family responsibilities disproportionately fall on women in our society.  Many people of both genders simply want to ignore any inequality between men and women.  There is a tendency to want to view everyone as on equal footing: we’re all the same.  I disagree with that attitude.  It is equivalent to the tendency to want to be colorblind to the extent it permits glossing over racial injustices that continue in our society.  Perhaps it is easier to think we’re all getting the same opportunities and being judged equitably than to acknowledge difficult problems without simple solutions.

Last year I had an interesting experience with this tendency to want to gloss over issues impacting women’s advancement in the professional world.  I wrote an article touching upon this issue specifically in the legal profession.  Prior to publication, I asked a dear friend of mine to review it to give me feedback.  She is a talented lawyer who was a bit of a mentor of mine when I was in practice; she juggled a demanding career while raising her kids, who are now young adults.  I asked her to review the article because I thought she would have some unique insight since she had faced the issues described. 

Her reaction surprised and saddened me.  Though she agreed with the premise of the article, she urged me to re-write the article from a completely different perspective to ignore the gender impact of the issue.  She explained that as a working mom of nearly two decades, she knew first-hand that people didn’t want to hear about such gender issues. 

I was shocked to hear this advice from this particular friend.  She is a compassionate human being and a brilliant professional.  She is also a feminist.  But she was adamant that raising the concern in gendered terms would not be well-received.  She did not for a minute dispute the premise of the article that women disproportionately bear family responsibilities, which forces many to leave the legal profession if that is economically viable for them.  However, my friend knew the hornet’s nest that would be stirred to challenge the status quo.  She probably has a point.

For folks who aren’t inherently concerned about family values or gender equality, I have a third reason why you should care about the difficulty of women with families to participate in paid employment: the health of our nation’s economy. 

The health of our economy is dependent on productivity and growth.  Women make up more than half of the adults in our society.  Over 90% of women will be mothers at some point in their lives.  If the workplace is inhospitable to women with family responsibilities, then many women will either not work in paid employment or they will work just part-time.  That is a significant loss of productivity in our economy.  Making the workplace more hospitable to women can be a source of economic growth.

In support of this third rationale for policies that empower women to more successfully balance paid work and family responsibilities, I offer three articles of relevance.

 

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/creating-economic-opportunities-women

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/16/hillary-clinton-s-apec-speech-women-are-key-to-global-economy.html

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/job-growth-has-been-increasing-faster-men-women

 

1 Corinthians 12:12

We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink.