The Show Must Go On

I've been in Israel for the past ten days with hardly even a moment to jot down notes about my time there. In the meantime, all sorts of people were publishing words and phrases I put together anyway. The show runs fine without me. What a relief, right? Screen Shot 2014-12-02 at 1.25.49 PM

If you're a Christianity Today subscriber, you can read my short piece from the magazine online:

For most of us today, the endgame is simply to survive. Survive the family dynamics, the financial constraints, the season, and then sweep up the wads of wrapping paper, tear down the tree, and sit down with a glass of wine and declare Christmas “Finished!”

I was interviewed by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood on singleness in the church:

It isn’t that he’s given the gift of marriage to others, and I’m the giftless kid in the corner. Today my gift is singleness. There’s a rhetoric in Church culture that assumes every single is waiting to be married, which may be true in some respects, but it doesn’t help us to treasure these days as the gift they are. In order for us to know these days are a gift, though, we have to see singles being utilized as they are, not waiting for a future version of them to materialize through marriage.

The Gospel Coalition reprinted this on ways to encourage your pastors (and families):

Not only will you never hear me say anything bad about one of my pastors (a single honor), I labor to speak well of them and to them every chance I get (a double honor). I want them to know I appreciate their investment in me, our church, the Word, and gospel initiatives.

. . .

Hope something from one of them encourages you. After this week I plan to land at home for the foreseeable future (this fall has had me gone more than I've been home), and hopefully that means I'll be writing with more regularity (or at least better quality...).

 

Humanum, at Vatican City

Religious leaders (including Russel Moore, N.T. Wright, and Rick Warren) are at the Vatican City this week for Humanum. Here's the first of a six part piece on The Complementarity of Men and Women. Don't miss it.

Also, if you're interested, here is Russel Moore's address (which opens with Wendell Berry, so you know it's good).

To Whom Else Would We Go?

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Almost four years ago I sat in the front row of what we at my church call "the HV campus," listening to Jen Wilkin spend an hour on the first verse of the bible, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." It was the first time in my life each word in a verse made sense to me. But even more than that, it was the first time I began to understand that God was not just a man in the sky with a check-list a mile long. He was a creator. He had attributes, character, a job. He was not a genie in a bottle, nor was he the jailer of the unrighteous. He was a creator.

Over the past four years I've had the blessing of sitting at the feet of some brilliant expositors of the word. Pastors, teachers, elders, and friends. The bible has become more than a rule book or tool book, a handy guide to living—it has become living water and I its thirsty recipient. I know I must have been taught to think this way before, but for some reason it didn't click in my brain until the fall of 2010.

Yesterday a modern father of preaching announced a new endeavor and I can't stop thinking about it. Every time I see another tweet or mention of it, I get more excited. It is not enough to feed a man a fish, we must teach him to fish, and this is what John Piper and his team will be putting their hands and minds to in the autumn of his life. I could not be more grateful.

If you are daily reader of the word, checking a quiet time off the list because you grudgingly know you ought to, or if you are a weak-faithed believer, one whose constant prayer is "Help my unbelief," or if you are a student of the word, but constantly feeling somehow short-changed in your study of it, Look at the Book is for you. Look at the Book is for me. It is for all of us.

I've grown more and more weary of blogs and articles and tweets and opinions on every matter, more and more thirsty for the words of life. The bible contains those words of life and, friend, they are good. They are eternally good. They are trustworthy sayings. They are, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, proclaiming the gospel and the Kingdom of God.

Let's be like the disciples in our study of God, "To whom else would we go? You have the words of eternal life?" Why would we forsake the living water and return to broken cisterns of blogs and other books to get Living Water?

Giving Singles Land to Till

unmarried Church, wo[men] are staying single longer and longer, remember to include singles in your 'biblical [wo]manhood' narrative. It's not a mark of deficiency or a blemish to be single—but it can feel like it in the somewhat glaring omissions. Paul said singleness was good. I think singleness is good. Many singles LOVE their singleness. Give us land to till. —Thoughts tweeted by me this morning.

Church, here's how you can give singles land to till:

1. Stop expecting them to have more time/money than marrieds. I understand we often do, but if we're taking seriously the radical gift of singleness today, we're going to have less, not more. We're going to be crafting a lifestyle that isn't making the stuff of earth our great treasure. Stop giving big discounts to married couples for conferences and leaving the singles to pay more. It legitimizes the feeling that we're less, not more and yet have more, not less. An unmarried person who truly is caring for the things of the Lord will have pockets inside out spending their time and finances on Kingdom things.

2. Don't assume that because we haven't experienced marriage we don't have good things to teach married persons. The true aim of a disciple is to live a life submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Though submission for a married person looks different than an unmarried person, trust me here, unmarried persons should be (and are) practicing submission in a more universal way. That's a pulpit worth sharing. While we in the modern Church spend most of our listening time hearing from marrieds, it's worth noting that Christ was single, and Paul seemed to have been. Be careful to not equate marriage with maturity.

3. Do you know unmarried people who want to be married? Who feel their ministry would be strengthened and better within the context of marriage? Help them. Help them, Church. In the absence of singles ministries or a place for singles to meet and mingle, they're going to go outside the Church to find partners. God help us, and they do. Nearly every one of my single friends is on some online dating service. I'm not knocking the tool, but it seems to me that we are doing singles a great disservice to not provide a context for singles to meet one another. Small groups don't work because by their very nature, they're small and the pool is usually limited to less than five other singles. Don't be afraid of matchmaking or thinking strategically about potential couples. Help them.

4. Reframe your idea of biblical womanhood and manhood again and again and again until what you actually have is a biblical believer in Christ Jesus. Until we have human flourishing at the base of our teachings on roles, we will bang our heads against this wall. The aim is never to be a biblical woman or man, it is to preach Christ crucified by living a life fully crucified to our flesh, submitting all rights, nailing autonomy to the Cross: that is the true role of biblical men and women, married or unmarried.

A Seat at the Pulpit

pulpit The popular euphemism for "can't we all just be friends" is to give folks "a seat at the table." I've used it. It's helpful. It reminds me that people are people and everyone around the table is coming with different presuppositions, stories, layers, and theologies. It evens the playing field.

More and more, though, what is communicated is that everyone gets a seat at the table and the table is a pulpit for everyone to preach their message. It's the church of all peoples and thoughts and ideas—and it's a veritable mess.

Paul warned the Corinthians that hanging with those intentionally sinning was corrupting the purity of the gospel. Here's what's interesting though: he used the words of one of their own to deliver the warning. The Greek poet Menander first used the words, "Bad company corrupts good morals." Paul contextualized the line for gospel purposes.

What often happens with all these seats at the table is we end up attempting to fit the gospel to sinners, instead of fitting sinners to the gospel.

Bad company does corrupt good morals, and one of those morals is that the gospel cannot be so contextualized that everyone at the table agrees.

If that is difficult for us to swallow in an age where everyone wants meritorious rightness, we're in good company, the disciples once grumbled to themselves, "This is a difficult thing, who can believe it?"

And Jesus, sweet Jesus, gives that wide berth and narrow path: It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.

Sit with sinners, eat with everybody, welcome all to the table—but remember Jesus is the only one who offers words of spirit and life.

Mark Driscoll is Not My Pastor, but I Have One(and other uncool things to say online)

I'm a church girl, capital C and lowercase c, cosmic Church and local church. I love the Church and I love my church. This is why I've stayed silent on most controversies within the church and Church. More of us need to really read I Corinthians 13 when Paul said Love doesn't delight in wrongdoing, and fewer of us need to skim over the cliche oft cross-stitched words. The other night my weary and hardworking pastor sat down with me at church. After talking about what God is doing in Europe through the church planting network he leads, we chatted for a few minutes about the work still ahead. There are so many who need to hear (and see) Christ. Nothing excites me more than endeavoring toward that. I'm a Church girl.

And then I asked him: Matt, talk to me for a few minutes about the most recent Driscoll dust up; as my pastor, I want to take your lead on this, happy and joyfully, knowing you take pastoring us seriously.

Nearly the first words out of his mouth were scripture:

I Corinthians 4:3-5 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This past weekend Driscoll issued an apology to those who call him pastor, friend, and family. It was not an "open letter" as many are asserting that it is. It was family business, not public business. But sure enough, I scrolled through twitter this morning and the finger-pointing had already begun. People are out for blood and nothing Driscoll does or says at this point will be enough. Follow every possible route this could go, and someone, somewhere, will still be out for blood.

I did not read his apology, because he does not owe me one, nor will I comment on it. First, because I trust Driscoll has elders around him who will stand before the Lord for their actions; second, because Driscoll himself will stand before the Lord for his actions.

What I will comment on is the lack of ecclesiological understanding within the Church today—which is ironic if you give it a few minutes of thought.

Everyone wants to BE the church and not GO to church these days. Everyone wants to LEAVE the church that doesn't make them FEEL like they're the church. Everyone wants to SAMPLE the church in various ways and means and SHRUG OFF the church when it presses in too uncomfortably. And everyone wants theorize and strategize and commentate on the Church and no one wants to sit and understand some pretty rudimentary things about the Church.

Namely that there are three things more of us should understand and practice:

Understanding and practicing biblical eldership.

Understanding and practicing biblical discipline within the local church.

Understanding and practicing the One Anothers of the New Testament.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Less and less am I interested in what self-proclaimed journalists, bloggers, social media experts, and "church survivors" are saying about the Church because I don't see them actually practicing church.

I am not saying they're not. What I'm saying is I don't see them practicing it. They might be practicing it, but I can't see it with my own two eyes.

Beneath the layers of apologies and acts of repentance, beneath the acts of submission to authority or acts of subordination, beneath the unjust actions and the loving ones—there are real people living real lives in front of real people who see them with their own two eyes. As it was designed to be.

If you do not have a biblical understanding and practice of the three things I mentioned above, you absolutely do not have any authority to speak on things in other churches.

And if you do have an understanding and practice of them: trust God is on His throne, building His Kingdom, and the gates of hell won't prevail against it. He has won this and there are far better, greater, and more worthwhile things for your energy and biblical understanding of ecclesiology to be spent on. Namely, teaching those who don't know—which are many and gaining in number.

Go and be the church if you will. Be it to your neighbors and friends and pastors and the people you sit beside week after week after week. Do it well, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, not as unto the twittersphere or blogosphere or whatever platform you have toppling beneath you.

Moth and rust destroy those things, and if you think they won't you are more a fool than you realize. Step down before you're standing in front of millions and it topples in front of them all.

topples

I anticipate plenty of pushback on this namely in these areas:

1. My use of the word biblical, which many progressives seem to think is manipulative and heavy-handed, and which, to me, simply means: the Bible says it and if we're children of God, we ought to abide by it.

2. A perceived victim-shaming for all those who've experience pain related to the church. I hope you'll understand if I'm saying anything here, I'm saying your greatest place of healing could come within good, healthy, biblical church order as God designed it.

3. An accusation that I'm protecting my pastor, leaders, church network, etc. To which I say, first, they don't need my protection. I am a lowly blogger. Moth and rust will destroy my words, and sooner rather than later. And second, to me covenant means mutual trust. I am in covenant with my church which means I trust them and they trust me. If you expect me to break that trust, then you do not understand two things: covenant and being in covenant in a place you trust. Call it protection or naivety if you wish. They will stand accountable for my soul someday and I don't envy that place at all.

Christian Caricatures

caricature The thing about caricatures is you always know who it is just by looking at it, and yet, you know you can't trust the likeness.

Right?

A caricaturist zeros in on several points on a person's face. Maybe it's a slightly larger nose, or a bit of a crooked smile, or maybe something as pedestrian as deeply blue eyes or a natural blush. The caricaturist's aim is to exaggerate and minimize what sets the face apart. His aim is not to make ugly, but often times a caricature looks ugly. If you've ever had one done you know the righteous indignation that accompanies first sight,

"I don't really look like that!" you say, and of course you don't.

But you kind of do. Not really. But sort of. Enough that you're recognizable, not enough that anyone who knows your face well would say it's an exact likeness.

Within culture at large, and Church culture especially, caricaturists abound. In some ways, they're the comedians of the inner circle; the Jon Acuff and Jen Hatmakers. They zone in on the ridiculous and ludicrous parts of the Christian life and family and help us all laugh at ourselves. They satire, and they're good at it, and we laugh at them because they're helping us laugh at ourselves.

When Caricature goes badly is when a sly artist studies a theology or movement solely to find the weak or shallow parts. Then they pound out a blog post heard round the world for a split second and then life goes on as normal. A moment of fame while everyone points and laughs at the funny man in the picture, asks how could he be so silly and stupid and ugly, and how could he not know he's so silly and stupid and ugly.

Ha ha.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Here's the other thing about caricatures: we know the elongated nose or tiny eyes or stout neck are true about us; in fact, nobody sees our face in the mirror, under such a microscope as we do.

But when the caricature is passed around as truth for long enough, everyone starts to believe that's our real face. That's who we really are. But it's not.

That's not the person who wakes up in the morning, drinks their coffee while they read the bible, who packs lunch for her kids or drops the shampoo in the shower, who can't find their keys where they left them, who buys coffee for the person behind them in line, who killed it at the meeting with his coworkers, who meets weekly with a guy who just needs prayer and a friend, who forgot to put gas in the car, who falls into bed every night exhausted and confident that they are doing exactly what God designed them to do and be and look like.

Who cares about a caricature when there are real people to be seen?

If you are tempted to zero in on a particular face of a movement and draw for the world a caricature they won't forget, what you need to remember is at the end of the day we throw those caricatures in the garbage. Nobody really wants to look at them, and especially not the subject of the drawing. Why? Because it's not true. It's partially true, which makes it not true.

If you want people to listen to what you have to say, really listen, not just rally around you, or press like on your Facebook post, you have to sit with them and be true with them, and be truthful about them.

I asked an artist one time, a man who paints likenesses that almost breathe with life, how he made the paintings.

"Do you take a photo and paint from that?" I asked him.

"Oh, no," he said, "I make the subject sit in front of me, hours and hours and hours. How could I paint them life-like if I did not see them living?"

Church Girls

Every time I've heard Christine Caine speak, she has said one phrase that sticks to my gut like peanut butter on wonder bread: I'm a church girl. She says it with confidence, more confidence than everything else she says, and I believe her. I believe her because I think when you love the Church, you've caught just a tiny glimpse of what God meant in the very beginning when He said, "It is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper fit for Him." And then the Helper bent low, thrust into the side of man, and drew out of man, the helper fit for him. And the man said, "At last."

I like to think that when Christine says, "I'm a church girl," what she means is that she is beholding the Church in that moment in the same way Adam beheld Eve: At last. 

She is seeing something in her mind's eye, something few see. She sees the bride of Christ in all her splendor, gloriously robed, fully functioning, and she loves her.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the local church and whether we feel comfortable or at home in a place of worship. What kind of music resonates with us, whether the sermon sits well with us. When discussions like these rise, I feel the sort of defense mechanism in me rising, the same sort I feel when someone takes issue with one of my brothers. It's a blood kinship I feel there, not because I think they are perfect, but because I belong to them and they belong to me. I see their foibles and falls, their brokenness, their spotted and blemished reputations—and I love them not for who they are, but who I know they are, by the grace of God, becoming.

In short bursts of expectation I say with Adam, "At last!" not because what is broken has come untrue, but because I know it will be.

I am a church girl because Lord knows, I need all the help I can get and God provided that. He made me that. He made my brothers and sisters that. He knew we'd all be wandering aimlessly without the construct of a miracle made from flesh and bone. This mix of broken and beautiful. We are not saved by the church, but we are saved with her, thank God. We are all saved with her.

This weekend I am in Austin, in body with a part of the body, but I'll be honest, my heart has been with the IF:Local groups of women gathering all over the world. I wonder how their small groups are going and their discussions. I am praying that some broken feelings about church and belonging are coming untrue, healed by the Helper, and administered by the helpers, the local churches.

Let's be church girls. Let's be about what God is about.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. John 14:26

Who God Is

If there is any question I am asked most about the IF:Gathering, it has been this: What is IF? We know the question we're asking is if God is real (and He is), what does that mean for all of life and godliness?

Let me just tell you about the last hour: Before I had time to register, meet with other women I've come to know and love, or even eat lunch, I had to be somewhere for a taping. On camera. With lights. And I have the pallid skin of someone who woke up at 5am this morning.

I met a woman I'd never met before, we sat across from one another in front of those cameras, asking one another questions about God, His character, His children, and what several passages from scripture teach us about these things. We explored not only who we think God is, but how He has revealed Himself in His word.

The truth is, whatever IF:Gathering is, the most important thing about us, as A.W. Tozer said, is what we think about when we think about God.

If you're at an IF Local, gathering with women in your hometowns, or if you're at IF Austin, gathering with more than 1000 of us, the most important thing about you and for you, is what you think about when you think about God. This weekend, I beg you, think about God. Meditate on Him. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you—even for just a glimpse. In the faces of women across tables, on couches, in hotel rooms, and in vehicles—He is revealing Himself, His character, and He longs to draw near to you.

Welcome to IF, sisters. I'm so glad you've gathered.

 

Wipe that Glass

The first thing we know about God is He is Creator. He takes nothing and makes something. He makes many somethings. More somethings than any one of us will ever see in our entire lifetime. Staggering.

I understand God as Creator, but if He is Creator, that means He is infinitely creative—and that is something I will never be able to grasp or understand.

He is involved in every iota, every molecule, every atom, every gene, every thought, every action—and He is infinitely creative, which means He never stops creating.

Just thinking about that for three minutes staggers me.

But it becomes so real, so personal, when I think about all the ways He has been creative with me—and the accompanying realization that He isn't finished with me yet. He is still creating, still teaching, still growing, still perfecting, still forming.

So an infinitely creative God, constantly creating and recreating His people, is a God who can be trusted to not make mistakes. Every scrap of my spectacular story, every rag of my richest rich, every moment of my mind—these form who I am and who I am becoming. He knew the washed up, backwards, inside-out, upside-down story He'd bring me through and He knew that through the mess I'd see Him.

And I'd see Him through a glass dimly, but that dirt and grime, that's mine. I own that grime. God let me have that grime because otherwise I'd never understand His holiness, His set-apartness. Now all I can do is never stop asking Him to wipe that glass clean.

I love that.

I really love that.

I love it because it's my hope, more than anything, that we'd spend our lives helping others to clean that grime. To take a rag and say, "You too? Me too. Let's clean it together. Let's see Him more clearly, love Him more for Who He truly is."

I don't know what your grime is, but I know God knows it. He made it, every atom and molecule. He knows your issues with fundamentalism, gender roles, abuse, theology, culture, suffering, depression, death, divorce, fear. He knows it all. And He's so creative that He knows how to draw you in, grime covered you, and show you Himself, holy and splendid, majestic and clean.

It's spectacular.

Fallen

I had a conversation a few months ago around my kitchen table. We were two kids washed up and battered around by a legalistic ministry in our teens. Both of us had stories, neither of us trying to outdo one another, but just sharing, "You too? I thought I was the only one." Of course we didn't think we were the only one, but isn't that one of the enemy's favorite ploys? To isolate and make us feel as though what we have experienced or will experience is singular to us?

The point of our conversation was to talk about leadership, charisma, the difference between preaching and shepherding, and I hope I was some encouragement to my brother.

This morning I read of the resignation of a man who was in leadership of a similar ministry. He admitted his failures, took responsibility, stepped down, and yet the consequences are still rife for him—and us, the Church. Even if I did not prescribe to his particular brand of faith or practice, the ache of a fallen brother sits deep in my stomach this morning. I did not celebrate him or his ministry, nor do I cast a judgmental finger in his direction. His sin was taking his eyes off Christ—for one moment or one month, it matters not. My sin is a constant same.

There will be three responses to his sin:

1. Some will call attention to it and cackle something like, "See? This man who espoused these doctrines with which I disagreed fell, therefore everything he espoused is wrong." The bible has something to say about this: "[Love] does not rejoice with wrongdoing (either the doctrine or the sin), but rejoices with the truth."

The truth is this man confessed and repented. We rejoice at that. His sin is not related to his doctrine except that anything can become an ultimate thing—and something did in his case. Something other than Christ.

2. Some who should say something will not say anything. There is this strange phenomenon within the Church. When someone falls on the other side of the fence, we write blogs, we tweet, we caution, we make a fuss—we are the pharisees who thank God we are not like those people. But when someone nearer to us theologically or ideologically falls or fails, we keep our mouth tightly shut. I think that closed-mouth tendency is good in some ways. Love covers a multitude of sins and all that. But what love does not do is ignore the level ground before the cross. Love acknowledges that none of us are exempt from taking our eyes off Christ. Love says, "He failed, yes. But for the grace of God, here go I..."

3. The third response, and I think the one we ought to do first and foremost, is to pray. If we are in a local church we have a pastor or more than one, and our minds ought to first go to them. Men who are in leadership are not exempt from failing, struggling, or fearing. I have written about this before, but more than opinions on how to handle this particular fallout, we ought to pray for our pastors and leaders. They are mere men. Real men, if you will. Made from flesh and blood and all the same things we are. You can cognitively believe any doctrine you want, but at the end of the day you are still a man or woman with a propensity toward sinfulness.

Pray for your leaders. In times like this when they watch a brother fall, they are praying more deeply and fervently that they would not fall, that they would stand accountable for us with clean hands and a pure heart.

Pray the same for them.

Review of Jesus Feminist

jesusfeminist Sarah Bessey has done a unique thing in her book and it's something the whole Church should try a bit more. Interwoven with thoughts on theology, history, and her vision for the future of the Church, Sarah told her story.

Raised in Canada, educated in the Bible Belt, on staff at a church in Texas, and then relocating back to Canada gave Sarah a bit of a unique story. Though she grew up in the Church, she did not grow up in the kitschy church-culture so many of our contemporary couch theologians did. Her experience is not one of "I was this but now I'm enlightened, so now I'm this," but instead it is a story of roots and wings in healthy ways.

Jesus Feminist is not the tired story of a woman raised in patriarchy and conservative theology who threw off her shackles after a theological awakening. That story is all too familiar and, unfortunately, so often riddled with grinding axes that it is difficult to see the trees for the forest. Sarah grinds no axes, points no fingers, and brings every point of her story to the beautiful complexity that is faith in Christ Jesus.

She has woven the gospel through her story and her theology, and this is why I do recommend Jesus Feminist.

Primarily I recommend Jesus Feminist to pastors and teachers, men and women who are in positions of influence and whose duties including shepherding people. I recommend it for the sole reason that Sarah's story is the story of every-woman in some way. Perhaps not the same path or set of experiences, but it tells the journey of a woman who lands on her theology through the lens of both experience and the word of God.

These days many words are spoken, preached, or written in pragmatic ways—I often wonder if some of our modern theologians have walked through difficult things because it doesn't seem to come through in their message. Sermons neatly packaged with four points and a promise—even in the gospel-centered crowd. I do not doubt they have experienced difficulties, but we need to hear it said explicitly. If true shepherding is to be done, we need to sit at the table with the people and their stories.

I recommend Jesus Feminist next to women in the Church who come from a more conservative position on gender roles, but who have wrestled with their current roles as women.

Serving in ministry, I see two main types of women in the Church. The first is a woman who has no construct for theology or Church history but feels the constraints of both. Without having a robust theology or prescriptive design for their role, those constructs can feel suffocating and I see women leaving good, healthy churches in search of churches more accommodating to their personal story. The second is a woman who has a deep theological grasp on complementary gender roles, but who may struggle to feel her ministry as a woman is valid. Jesus Feminist spends copious amounts of time on the descriptive role of women in the Bible and the roles of women in our present lives. I was personally encouraged to engage more fully as a woman, to bring my femininity to the table along with my theology.

Jesus Feminist, contrary to its provocative title and subtitle, does not seem to be a book meant to convince the reader of a radical position on gender roles. Instead it seems to be a book intended to point to the character of God, the purpose of His creation, and the journey He takes His children on toward the fullness of His kingdom. Is there a theological bias in the book? Yes, absolutely. Sarah is an egalitarian and believes in roles for men and women without distinction in the Church. But the book does not terminate on her bias, because her true bias is the name and renown of Christ, and a robust Church filled with all kinds of people fully used by Christ.

If there is a caution to potential readers, particularly ones from a more conservative perspective, it is this: let us not be so quick to ascribe definitions to words and catch phrases that we miss the deep complexity behind them. Feminism has brought with her many good and right things; she may have left the back door open too long, letting in the draft of culture's sway, but I think we can agree we are grateful for the breeze of freedom, equality, and voice.

What Jesus Feminist does not do is explore the ways in which modern feminism has taken its toll on the people of Jesus. This could be because Sarah doesn't believe it has, or it could be because Sarah believes to do much good there has to be an uncomfortable itch under the hem of the Church's robes. I think Jesus Feminist is a fair handling of feminism in the Church, but I think to properly discuss what a Jesus Feminist is, we have to wrestle with feminism's origins. This is my only critique of the book. I think if you're going to title a book thus, the subject at hand should be handled in its own respect, historical and modern implications. Otherwise, if what Sarah espouses to be feminism is this Jesus Feminism, count me [nearly] all in. There's a lot more to it, though, but I'm grateful she set the table and invited us in for discussion.

Acknowledging

Before beginning a book I read the acknowledgements. Not every book has them, but the ones that do hold a litany of treasure. Here, at the end of a book or at the beginning, you have the list of people who made the work possible. While it is a personal touch, I think it can hold the potential for much more meaning if we readers will give it a thorough look. When I opened my advance copy of Sarah Bessey's debut work, before reading the table of contents or back cover, I paged through to those acknowledgements. I knew within them there would be some men and women whose names I do not only recognize, but whose lives and words have touched my life in impacting ways. As I read the last words of her acknowledgements, I felt the tears rise in my eyes: here was a woman whose heart beats as strongly for Jesus as mine does. In that alone, she is kindred, and I need nothing more to reach across the table of friendship.

Why am I telling you this? Because Sarah's book is titled Jesus Feminist, and it already has some people around the table rearing back their heads and huddling together with a rebuttal after a mere glance at the subtitle (an invitation to revisit the Bible's view of women). I am telling you about Sarah's acknowledgement because the blurb on the heading of the book is an important one for all of us: Exploring God's radical notion that women are people too.

So before you read any further, stop. Just think about that. We are all people. Women are people. Men are people. We, the collective, are a people. And we are persons. And that is a beautiful thing. Feminists, even Christian ones, are people. Those acknowledgements of Sarah's hold a hundred names who are not just names or bloggers or agents or friends, but people.

I asked Sarah if she would allow me the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of her book because I think there's a better way we can have the conversation about things of this nature. I don't think it has to be enemies pitted against one another furiously writing blog rebuttals to rebuttals to rebuttals. Sarah has been nothing but gracious to me in the past—even in areas where we are diametrically opposed theologically. Why? Because Sarah understands that behind avatars and platforms and theology and -isms and -ists, there are people. And that is a beautifully rare thing.

Tomorrow I will post my review of Jesus Feminist.

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Discerning Disciples

David Murray is posing a good question over on his blog. I'd encourage you to read it, but not get lost in the names or issue he has with the book or author, and instead think about the heart of the question. I left a comment there, but haven't stopped thinking about his question and just thought I'd flesh out my comment a bit more here. His questions had to do with reading/reviewing/recommending a book he liked, by an author who he feels is in serious error in other areas. The questions:

1. Don’t read anything by [this author] on any subject because he’s in such error in a central Christian doctrine.

2. Read the book and learn from it, but don’t tell anyone, share anything from it, or review it favorably.

3. Read, review, and even recommend the book but point out that [this author] is in error on [another subject].

My thoughts:

One of the greatest problems in the Church today is, I believe, a lack of discernment. My generation absorbs and then spews out soundbites. I read so many blogs by my counterparts in which they will quote one line from someone and spend a whole post ranting on the out of context line. I've talked before about the importance of context when writing or responding, and maintain context to be my growing concern among my generation.

Because of this, it is not enough have men and women in leadership simply reading, but not helping us parse the material at hand, and especially not modeling what a discerning reader does. A truly discerning person does their absolute best to gain a full picture of the idea, person, or theology at hand.

We need men and women to teach us to parse material and model that for us. My testimony is in part the result of learning to parse information discerningly, to be set before a smorgasbord of theological views and have to wrestle with all of them before I could see the gospel plainly.

The wise man built on the rock, but he didn’t just set his house on a big boulder—it would have been just as shaky as a house built on sand. A wise man digs down deep until he hits rock. A discerning reader does the same.

We don’t want to make little parrots, we want to make disciples who dig down deep. Part of discipleship is discernment.

Read on, I say, and review on. And warn on too.

Broken Bodies and Victorious Limps

window It is raining when I wake. I stretch my legs, hooking my toes over the end of my bed. I have not been able to shake the brokenness I feel these days. There is good news and bad and it comes simultaneously. The world is broken and we are in the world, and sometimes of it too. A new niece was born yesterday and a man who is like a father to my brothers died last night.

I was brought forth in iniquity.

There are those who excuse those words as poetry. But what is poetry if not man's attempt to make sense of what seems senseless or too mysterious for simple words? What is poetry but God's way of making beautiful what seems ugly? When science fails me and theology is too wondrous for me, I take comfort in mystery, in poetry.

An unsettling verdict, a drug overdose—"this world breaks every one of us, and later we are strong at those broken places." Hemingway did not believe in original sin, I don't think, but even the best and worst of us knows the cracked and creviced face staring back at us from the mirror. Are any of us whole? Really whole?

A week of conversations on brokenness, where baggage on original sin and depravity and hope circle and devour—it leaves me feeling brokenness more acutely. No one is unscathed, and especially not the one who thinks he is. We all walk with a limp and better that we acknowledge it than try to hide it. You're broken? Me too. Let us walk more slowly beside one another then, the journey toward the kingdom is not a sprint or a race, there are no winners—or losers. His glory is our collective trophy.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, you will not despise.

Brought forth in brokenness, brought forth in wholeness—either way, what He desires is the cracked and creviced child. The one who knows her sin and her faults, her needs and her Savior. The one who knows his helplessness and his fears, his limps and his Healer.

What need have we for a Savior if we can find a scrap of wholeness on our own?

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 15:51-57