In Genesis 32, Jacob has just left his uncle Laban’s house where tensions were very high. He heads out and goes to meet his brother, Esau, who may very well kill him and take everything he owns. After sending gifts as well as all his family, servants, and possessions to meet Esau across the river, Jacob remains alone and terrified on the other side. That night, he wrestles with God until the sun comes up – refusing to let go until he is blessed. The man he is wrestling says,
“Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
And then it’s written,
Jacob called the placePeniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
Israel, the new name given to Jacob, means struggles or wrestles with God. So then the Israelites (or the children of Israel) are the ones who wrestle with God, or children of the one who wrestled with God. This name and a blessing are given after getting down in the dirt with God. I love that.
Yesterday, I turned 25. I would like to write 7 reflections detailing my own wrestling. They’ll serve to help me understand what I’m thinking through, perhaps be helpful or at least amusing to someone else, but mostly they’ll be a landmark. When I look back in another 25 years, I may just laugh – that’s what I have to do when I read myself from 10 years ago. Still, it helps to remember and honor the present struggle with God which I think is the task of the believer. In 25 years, these questions may seem insignifcant, or maybe not. But I won’t be able to look back unless I record them.
One of my heros wrote a song on his 25th birthday called “24,” and he’s still playing it now 20 years later. This is my own attempt at something like that. They will be published…soon.
The seven topics are (probaby) as follows:
Difficulty of Hell & Ease of the Spiel
Within Tradition
(Too) Quick to Think, Slow to Dance
Slipperiness of the Kingdom of Heaven
The World in a Grain of Sand
The Faith Required
The Necessity of Struggling
I wanna see miracles,see the world change,
I wrestled the angel for more than a name,
More than a feeling, more than a cause,
Still I’m sining, Spririt take me up in arms with you,
In February, I published a comic strip. It was a satire project – this strip is what I imagine a conversation around gender roles might look like if the ideas we hold internally spoke to each other openly.
In this piece I would like to look for answers to two questions:
1. Why write a comic strip like Fundamentals?
2. What is a better way forward for the church?
[First Question: Why writea sattire strip like Fundamentals?]
Ian Crohn suggested if you distilled the writings of the desert fathers down to one phrase, it would be “Wake up!” Satire overstates its point for exactly that reason. It calls to attention, shakes, says “wake up!”
I don’t have a long career of writing, but I’ve published enough to know that gender issues and politics are two of the diciest subjects. If you enter these spaces, you will probably get a lot of views, but it will get uncomfortable pretty fast.
You might get called a heretic by your pastor, asked to meet for breakfast to discuss your work and encouraged to stop. Your best friends might be encouraged to disassociate with you. I’ve had the privilege of each of those. What I’ve found is that these conversations tend to only happen behind closed doors. I hate awkward tension, and I don’t want to stir up strife; however, I do think there’s some truth in Gloria Steinem’s words, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
So why write a daily comic strip? Why raise a gender issue for 28 days in a row? Because we need to wake up. David Dark likes to say, we become what we’re willing to sit still for. Speaking only behind closed doors is to say; yes, there are problems, but it would cost me (or us) too much to tell the truth about them. Our Southern Baptist brothers and sisters have recently found out just how much it may cost not to say anything.
There are those (even now reading this) who simply cannot speak up. It would be their ruin if they spoke out. But for me, it’s just uncomfortable. That is something of a privilege I recognize.
[Second: What is a better way forward?]
I’m a long time fan of The Holy Postpodcast (hosted by Phil Visher, the Veggie Tales guy, and Skye Jethani). They’re often criticized for holding conservatives accountable and not saying much about liberals. Their response, and I think it’s a good one, is that these are our people. Sure, there’s a heck of a lot wrong with the left wing and liberal Christians, but that isn’t the Evangelical crowd – that’s not who we rub shoulders with on Sunday. That isn’t where we come from.
After writing this piece about gender roles in the Mennonite church, I received something of the same critique from a friend: you’re not really Mennonite anymore, so why does it matter what you have to say? Another friend, a pastor, responded, yes there are problems here, but so what? What do you suggest we do? I don’t attend a Mennonite church on Sundays. But that is where I was raised and spent my childhood. Those are my people. And maybe it doesn’t matter much what I have to say, but I know there are people asking these questions, even if only behind closed doors or in closed Facebook groups. My comic strip, and the five claims below are my attempt to open the conversation. It’s one I wish I could’ve had a long time before today. I would like to propose some ideas and offer another vision.
*if you’re reading this and have no idea what any of it means, then these aren’t your people 🙂
(1.) Women must be allowed to worship in freedom
Women are gifted by God (and who would say otherwise?!) But they must be allowed to fully exercise those gifts. As it stands in many church communities, only women with certain gifts are able to use them to worship freely. We should work toward an environment where women (married or not) are empowered to work, think, teach, lead, and follow as God has so called them. We should leave behind the days where women with the gifting to lead and teach are faced with the choice of stifling their calling or walking away from their local church family.
Some men will likely feel uncomfortable and threatened (pissed off even). In the Greco-Roman world where Jesus grew up, women were seen as impure, deformed males. Yet even here, a New Testament church emerges where women host church their homes, contribute from their businesses, teach, and prophecy. If this kind of freedom could exist among an oppressive and deeply sexist culture such as first century Rome, we in 21st century America have no excuse for operating as a church family in ways that keep women afraid of fulfilling their calling. I agree that some New Testament texts about women and their roles are difficult, and I don’t know what is meant at all places. Still, I don’t think there is any excuse for a church culture where women are afraid of fulfilling their potential because it will upset men of the church.
Many will agree with me here, but they will balk at action. They’ll take the stance of those who said in hushed tones that all people were equal but opposed integration because everyone else isn’t ready for it yet. I guess I’m tired of that kind of balking. I’m tired of women having to be afraid of upsetting men, of hesitantly asking permission to teach Sunday school or to say a few words between songs lest they step out of line.
(2.) We must share the load and the reward
I demonstrated at length in a piece how in conservative church communities there is often the desire to remain separate from secular culture in visible ways (like clothing). If a church sees this as a good goal, men and women must share in this together. What often happens is that men put this responsibility solely on women. While women wear clothes that distinguish them from “the world,” such as dresses, skirts, head coverings, etc., men enjoy the comfort of blending in. Men are permitted to dress exactly like those outside the church while women alone bear the responsibility of maintaining the difference. Either the goal of dressing to separate is abolished, or men must participate. In this way, I think the Amish community holds a better standard – men and women share the task. Men wear suspenders and straw hats so they too are separate from the world. I think the reason why we separate this task and give it to women is because of the following point below.
(3.) We must resist the sexualization of women’s bodies
The primary resistance to my position above will undoubtedly be “modesty.” In the name of modesty, women are asked to hide their bodies. Cape dresses are designed to de-form the female body. Why? So that it doesn’t serve as a temptation to men. It is because we have so sexualized the bodies of our sistersthat we require them to design special clothes to hide their form. I am not an expert in this area, but I could go on. Perhaps it’s sufficient to say we should learn from what we’ve done: by requiring women to go above and beyond to hide their bodies (never wear hair down, never wear legged pants, never show belly/back even when swimming), we have created the reality where these things are “sexy.”
Men of conservative churches often sexualize women’s bodies (and are taught to do so from a young age). If you don’t believe me, read a book like Every Young Man’s Battle where women are described as temptations to male purity and the satisfaction to men’s lust. Ironically, conservative Christianity often sexualizes women’s bodies even in ways secular culture does not. I have attended exactly three college/universities, and trust me when I say no one is blushing over seeing someone’s knees. Seeing a girl’s kneecaps or, God forbid, stomach is only perceived as “immodest” or “sexy” if we’ve created an environment where it’s forbidden. Hypermodesty creates the sexualization of women’s bodies. To get beyond this would require recognizing the female form as God-given and something that neither men nor women need to be ashamed of. The requirements imposed by so many churches have no scriptural basis, but they have huge implications about how boys are taught to view girls, and how women are told to view themselves.
(4.) Women must be invited into decision making spaces
While it may be argued from some scriptures that women are not permitted to serve as a lead pastor, there is no legitimate scriptural precedent for excluding women from committees, boards, or other gatherings of decision making. In churches where decisions are made by casting votes, women must be invited to participate in day to day decisions. Similarly, in deciding church will require, women must be part of the conversation. It is simply inexcusable that in many churches decisions about what women will do/wear do not even include women! The result is not husbands leading their wives in a familial setting. The result is men being more important than women. In conversations about finances, the vision of the church, ministry strategies, mission boards, church policy, teaching plans, etc., women must be invited to lend their gifts.
Listen, daughter and pay careful attention: Forget your people and your father’s house. Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your Lord. (Psalm 45: 10-11).
(5.) Women must be allowd to live as to the Lord and not to men.
For too long, to be faithful has meant to live up to the measuring rod laid out by men of the church. Women must be allowed to set their eyes higher, on pleasing their Lord. Their worth, their bodies, their gifts, their place – these do not belong to the men of the church. They are holy and to be offered to their true, good king.
Conclusion
As discussed, if you want to get in trouble, raise gender issues. And after reading, some may say: He has a point, but I’m not ready to step on any toes.
It’s is an important issue, but we’ve got to go slow – we’ve got to avoid upsetting people.
This just isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on.
On the other hand, maybe you agree with me – this is a hill worth dying on. This is half the church we’re talking about. This is about who our sisters and daughters and mothers are told they’re supposed to be. For a long time, I was too afraid to say anything. I figured if this is the way things are, there must be a good reason. Or even if it isn’t ideal, it isn’t so bad. Or if it is bad, it isn’t that bad for me.
I guess I’m done with all those answers. This is not a tertiary issue. I’d say it’s a fundamental.
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May 16th was our two year anniversary! We planned to take a road trip to southern California and sleep in our car for about four days. In the weeks leading up to leaving, we found and ordered what we thought we’d need (car tent, power supply, air mattress, cooler, gas stove, etc.) and then took off hoping for the best. It was an incredible trip that we’ll remember for long time – and things went surprisingly well.
The Route
(Wednesday) Phoenix to Santa Barbara
(Thursday) Malibu, Laguna Beach, Ventura
(Friday) Oceanside, Encinitas, Del Mar, La Jolla
(Saturday) La Jolla, San Diego
(Sunday) Phoenix
The Ride
I found a Hasika “Tailgate Shade Awning Tent” on Amazon for about $80 which made sleeping in the our Toyota Venza pretty pleasant. At night, we put a few of the larger items outside (cooler, beach chair) and laid our back seats down. This left enough room for an air matress, and when the back gate was up with the awning attached, I could completely stretch out. It was actually really fun.
The Food
We bought a two burner, propane camp stove from some friends so we could cook at the beach. We only ended up doing this a couple times, but it worked super well! We took a cooler and ate most of our meals from there. We figured we ate out about five times in five days. Between sleeping in the car and taking our own food, we kept the expenses pretty low (except for gas – gas was high).
We ate at a great little place in Little Italy in downtown San Diego.
The Beach Towns
We’d been to Del Mar before and definitely want to return. This is such a great beach spot with both a nice town and a beautiful beach. The photo above of me with the grill is at Del Mar.
Aleisha and I agreed that Laguna Beach was the place we’d move if we were going to southern California – for sure a favorite. La Jolla also turned about to be a ton of fun (although finding a place to park for the night was really hard).
Before we left I bought a wetsuit. And a few years back, Aleisha and Luke bought me a surfboard. It was great to not have to rent anything anywhere we went. I did a lot of surfing. It made me realize though that west coast waves are harder than east coast waves, and I’m a bit out of practice.
Overall, we had a blast! It was kind of surprising how smoothly the whole trip went. We decided that next time we’ll plan ahead a bit more about where to park overnight as finding a place to sleep can be challenging. This was a lovely way to experience the coast of California.
Teddy
The day we got back to Phoenix was the day my mom flew in with our new puppy, Teddy. We got him from my aunt Thersea who raises beautiful little dogs (Palmetto Upstate Puppies)! He is so far a great addition to the Bear family. Teddy sleeps well at night, mostly, and is very chill overall. He sometimes complains about having to go on walks. We love him.
In Other News
Aleisha is the program and intern Director at Aim Right Ministries and has recently also taken a job with City of Joy. They’re an incredible organization in Rwanda, and Aleisha manages their online store. I’m still working as an admissions counselor at Grand Canyon University where I’m also in my third class towards being licensed as a mental health counselor.
In the last strip on the month we see Jimothy touting an old argument which holds that since men were created first, they are more important than women. Beth shows how the logic doesn’t really hold up if you carry it through the rest of the creation narrative.
The creation narrative of Genesis 1 has humankind being created last, a sort of grand finale in God’s creative work. God says creation is good, and then humankind is very good. There is significance and meaning in the order of events – humankind being created last is a sort of stamp on their specialness (in this story man and woman are created at the same time). In Genesis 2 (the second of the two creation accounts) it’s interesting to note that Adam is made first and then Eve. If we use the framework of the first account, it would imply that the woman is the finale of creation since she is made last. I don’t know that’s what the author is implying, but it is interesting to consider.
When we don’t even consider hiring men for positions we’d prefer to fill with women because a man would find it demeaning, all we have to do is take a small step back to see how low of a view of women we have. Jimothy’s argument here is that a man would be insulted by the notion of taking a position traditionally filled by women. What’s implied (if not said outright) is that women can expect less because they are capable of less. Men can expect more because they are capable of more.
What does it say when we deem work to demeaning for men and perfectly suitable for women?
How are stereotypes around “male” and “female” work engrained in my community?
Do I encourage people to use their gifts or just steer them toward gender stereotypical work?
So much of the reality we live in is culturally constructed. Simply, things are the way they are because we have decided to make them so. In Communication as Culture, James Carey says it this way.
“Reality is not given, not humanly existent, independent of language and toward which language stands as a pale refraction. Rather, reality is brought into existence, is produced, by communication–by, in short, the construction, apprehension, and utilization of symbolic forms.
Under the sway of realism we ordinarily assume there is an order to existence that the human mind through some faculty may discover and describe. I am suggesting that reality is not there to discover in any significant detail…To put it colloquially, there are no lines of latitude and longitude in nature, but by overlaying the globe with this particular, though not exclusively correct, symbolic organization, order is imposed on spatial organization and certain, limited human purposes served.“
This particular miracle we perform daily and hourly–the miracle of producing reality and then living within and under the fact of our own productions–rests upon a particular quality of symbols: their ability to be both representations “of” and “for” reality.
– James Carey
God created us to build reality. In Genesis 2 we read,
“Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.“
God not only gave Adam a task, he actually waited “to see what (Adam) would name them.” And whatever decision Adam made was how the world was built: that was it’s name. The task for humankind in the garden is still our task today – to make order in the world, to co-create with God. I believe God is still looking on with anticipation, to see what they will make of the world.
We may disagree on the best way forward. In fact, we will most certainly disagree. Yet I believe we are one step ahead if can realize that what we decide is largely of our own making, that the world we inhabit is one we’re building. We decide, over time, what will be considered normal, what is required, who is in and who is out, what is liked and what is shunned. Our decisions, our actions, and even our silence contribute to constructing the reality we share. As much as we might like to think we’re just taking all our cues from scripture, even a simply analysis reveals we are so often just making it up as we go.
And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Scripture isn’t a textbook with an index of answers and procedures – though some try to force it to be. Whether we admit it or not, much of our world (the rules, the norms, the ways of life, the traditions, the expectations) is of our own making. This is true in church as much as outside it. Once we acknowledge that, we can move beyond Jimothy’s ignorant insistence that everything we’re doing is taken right from scripture.
Perhaps God has made us to choose and to build and construct our worlds. And that is an incredible responsibility with huge implications. We’re farther ahead if we can recognize that we are indeed choosing and building and then evaluate what we’ve made.
Is it scary to think that much of reality is built by human choices?
How does claiming a scriptural basis for human-made rules give power to those in charge?
What ways might we have decided to make reality other than what we’re living in?
“The best marketing scheme in history is men successfully getting away with calling women the “more emotional gender” … because they’ve successfully rebranded anger as not an emotion”
Jimothy here reiterates the old argument some folks like to level – women are too emotional to be trusted with leadership. I, like dear Tim, often don’t even know what to say when this claim is made. It’s ridiculous, unfair, and lazy. Not only is it scientifically unsound, it’s also not been my experience. I’ve had female professors, worked under a female manager in a corporate setting, and watched my own wife lead a team of people. The “too emotional” argument is absurd at the familial, church, corporate, and national level. But it’s a powerful argument and has been used to keep men in charge for a very long time.
If we include anger as an emotion, are women still “more emotional”?
Do I speak with lazy generalizations about how women are made or behave?
How are both men and women damaged by lazy speech like Jimothy’s?
While single men are empowered and encouraged to build a career or get an education or start a business or get a job and move up the chain, single women are stuck in limbo. The ultimate (even if unspoken) goal is marriage, but while they wait for a man to approach them, they have to do something. If they take a job, they have to make sure not to move up the chain and gain authority over a man. If they expect marriage in their future, they know that as soon as they are married, they’ll need to give up their career.
What an impossible situation this puts so many young ladies in. Here is an entry point into the discussion about ideals. Some may argue that marriage isn’t necessarily required or even expected. Yet when we consider the norms, the unspoken expectation, the way social power is gained, it seems clear marriage is of high priority. So Beth’s question in a pertinent one – what’s the holy call for single women?
What does my community expect of single ladies?
Is it realistic to be a full member of the community while remaining single?
How can single women thrive if Jimothy’s goals for them are in place?
Jimothy’s answer suggests a sharp divide between the culture and way of living inside the church and out there in the world. I think we do well to seriously consider the implications of such an understanding of the kingdom of God. If the kingdom and its ways are only applicable inside the walls of the church, how exactly can we continue to build it on earth? Build more churches?
The second thing Jimothy’s answer suggests is that women may have useful insight (and the ability to wield it) in the world, just not in sacred (church) spaces. But isn’t it also interesting that women are also often discouraged from building careers in this outside world, the space where they may be allowed to become experts.
If we take Jimothy’s position, I think we miss out on two incredible things. (1.) We lose the ability to experience the presence of God in culture*1. When “spiritual matters” like singing in church are separated from “worldly matters” like working in a pharmacy, what does this say about where we believe God is operating? (2.) We lose the gift of beautiful service the women in our communities can offer. We miss out on their insight and full expression of God’s grace when they aren’t permitted to lean into their gifts inside the church.
We can chuckle, but we must admire Jimothy for his honesty in the third frame. If he is so much as alone for a few minutes with a woman, he has no confidence his purity will survive the encounter. This is familiar talk given to young men in many churches.
Consider the view of women displayed here. When a man cannot be alone with a woman for fear of becoming tarnished, defiled, made impure – women are seen as agents of impurity, they are dirty and dangerous.
I remember hearing a man teach this rule. He said he had to call or message his wife anytime a woman entered the room where he was working as an act of accountability. This kind of behavior communicated two things: (1) Men are completely out of control when it comes to temptation and desire. Their sexual impulses are so strong and raging that the mere one-on-one encounter is to be avoided. (2) Women are tempters. They are out to seduce men. They cannot be trusted. In reality, the danger of a man raping a women is much more real when alone in a room (more likely than a woman seducing a man). Yet what is often taught to young men is to never be alone with a woman…or else. The message to women is to dress as modestly as possible lest they awaken these insatiable, uncontrollable desires and cause their brothers to stumble. That women are dirty and dangerous and that men need to remain pure and safe.
We may not be saying it out loud like Jimothy, but we’re saying it.
Do I communicate harmful views in the name of purity?
Have I unintentionally accepted or taught views of sexuality which cast woman as temptresses?
javen.bear. 