Category Archives: Issues

We are all a bunch of hypocrites

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OK, maybe not all of us, but far too many of us. The internet is full of our hypocrisy.

We preach conservative family values and wave our brand of Christianity like a triumphant banner guaranteeing success — and, when caught actively pursuing adulterous affairs and paying for sex, we cry that we are poor, helpless addicts in need of rehab.

We amass a following and enjoy our status as theologians — and, when our names are found listed on a website of those seeking adulterous affairs, we cry that we are lonely widowers, overcome with curiousity, and that we stopped short of physically fulfilling our lusts.

We preach grace and, when forced to admit our adulterous affairs, blame our wives for being unfaithful first, and thus forcing us to find solace in the arms of other women.

But it’s not a new thing, this hypocrisy. It’s ongoing.

We preach against homosexuality while frequenting homosexual prostitutes.

We proclaim the importance of the family while tearing ours apart.

And it’s not just the celebrity Christians who are hypocrites.

We criticize those discovered committing the very sins we engage in, because we are arrogant enough to assume we are too clever to be exposed.

We denounce feminists as home-wreckers, elevate the domestic arts, teach the necessity of a servant heart and meek spirit for women, exhort wives to submit to their husbands in even the most difficult situations — and then we leave our husbands to run off with other men who promise us a different lifestyle.

We decry the church leaders who rent porn movies in their hotel rooms at Christian conferences. But we justify doing the same at our secular conferences: after all, we were curious…we were lonely…we were sexually unfulfilled…we had good reason to be angry at our spouses…and besides, at least we weren’t being “poor testimonies” by being openly Christian.

We encourage and live the ultimate in conservative, wholesome lifestyles, criticizing those with “lesser standards”, only to engage in secret flirtations that we justify as “harmless friendships” — and then pretend surprise at finding ourselves in the midst of sordid affairs.

We preach repentance but excuse, justify, and minimize our sins. We didn’t actually do x, y, z…we stopped short…what that other person did was far worse…we couldn’t help it…we can explain…we were hurting at the time…we were lonely…our spouses were making us suffer…we were addicted…there were extenuating circumstances…it sounds worse than it really was…don’t judge…what about you?…let the one who is without sin cast the first stone…stop making such a big deal of this…get over it already!

We preach morality — and practice immorality.

We preach truth — and practice lies and deception.

We preach love — and practice hate.

We preach the gospel — and trample it under foot.

Yes, not all of us. Not all Christians. I know, I know. Not every one of us hides secret sin, and not every one of us is a hypocrite and a phony. But far too many of us are. We have only ourselves to blame that our reputation, as followers of Jesus, has become synonymous with full of hypocrites rather than full of love.

That’s why many of us have felt forced to have discussions of late, trying to figure out how to respond to, how to process, this latest round of public exposures and scandals. There are those who choose to minimize these egregious sins, excuse them — or blame them on extenuating circumstances, faulty theology, poor upbringings, human frailty, and wives who aren’t sexy or eager enough. Others propose all sorts of remedies against sin. On one extreme are those who seem to want to toss up their hands and give up — admit we are all vile sinners, pretend no sin is worse than another, talk about grace, and hope for the best in the end. On the other extreme are those who demand more rules and safeguards, higher standards, and an all-out, never ceasing, full scale war against any and all sin.

Then there is me…author of a blog titled “Prone to wander”…former prodigal daughter dragged/carried back home by a loving Father…what about me?

In one of those recent discussions, I wrote this:

I have tried the legalistic approach, erecting rules and structures designed to keep me from what I determined were the most egregious sins. That reduced me to battling against sin with my own strength and wisdom — or attempting to apply what I thought was wisdom from others.

I have tried the “we are all vile sinners so let us thank God for His grace” approach.

The end result? I am not strong enough or wise enough or good enough for either approach.

These days my heart’s cry is that I might know Jesus, truly KNOW Him, both through the pages of Scripture and through time spent in His Presence, and that I might be transformed through His indwelling presence…that I might become holy as He is holy. I desperately need and desire that intimacy and unity with Him, because He is both my greatest reward and my only true hope. 

If we love Him, we will obey His commandments. We will find His yoke easy and His burden light. My biggest prayer is that I might love Him more, not just to keep me from sin, but because He is worthy of a far greater love than that which flies from my puny, selfish, stingy little heart.

[In my opinion], we cannot spend time — prayerful, reflective time in which we ask the Holy Spirit for illumination — in the epistles and come away with an attitude of “we all sin so adultery and murder is no big deal”.

But I think it is important that, in our personal lives, we spend far more time focused on pursuing Christ than on fighting sin. Silly example: I could spend all day battling fiercely against any temptation to adultery or murder, and find myself feeling quite victorious at day’s end. But I would be no closer to my Savior and no more like Him. 

I begin to hate sin when I ask Him to turn me into the sort of person who hates what He hates and loves what He loves.

There is so little of Jesus in all too much of what I read these days about how we should respond to sin.

It’s not just religious talk: Jesus really is my greatest reward and my only true hope. The sad truth of my nature and character is something I blurted out to my parents during one of my wandering prodigal phases, “I am not cut out for Christianity!” (My father tried to tell me that was the very point: none of us are. But I found that hard to believe coming from him, the man whose life makes me almost believe in the doctrine of sinless perfection.)

Ah, so your Christianity is just a crutch?

Yes..and no. Honestly, Christianity has not served me well as a crutch — because my problem is much deeper and more serious than a lame or gimpy leg. I need a Savior, a Healer, a Rescuer, a Friend. In short, I need Jesus.

He doesn’t beat me up when He shows me the enormity and ugliness of my sins in comparison to His goodness. He doesn’t condemn me when He reminds me what those hideous sins of mine cost Him. But being forced to face my sins without excuse— even the little, seemingly inconsequential ones — does break my heart…and that’s a good thing. On its own, my heart has a tendency to grow callous, hard, and unloving. It is His love for me, His friendship with me, that brings me to life.

So the answer to this whole mess of hypocritical Christians behaving abysmally? It’s more Jesus.  He offers the only lasting cure for those of us with a bent towards hypocrisy, or whatever other sins happen to be the ones that plague and entice us.

More of Him, less of me.

That may sound like a pious platitude, but I mean it profoundly, in a way that is both desperate and practical. Finally, after all these years, I am getting to know Him in a deeper and more real sense than ever before, and my entire life is being turned upside down. His love is changing me, at the very core of my being, more than I ever thought possible. I’m still not cut out for Christianity. But, with His help, I hope to follow Jesus anywhere He takes me. After all, why wouldn’t I want to follow the One who lavishes and inundates me with a greater love than I ever thought possible, the One who died to win my heart?

Difficult to watch, difficult to face

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I recognize that abortion a difficult, difficult subject…a polarizing one…and a deeply personal one. But I can’t turn the other way and — no matter what your beliefs on the subject — I hope you can’t either.

That’s why I hope, if you haven’t watched this particular video already, that you watch the video I am embedding below.

Yes, I know that the Center for Medical Progress has come under fire from those who disagree with how they have edited the videos they are releasing about Planned Parenthood. But this latest one…is there really a context in which what is depicted and described could be seen as a good thing? Is there a context in which this is something that we as Americans should not even feel the slightest twinge of guilt or unease about? Is this really something we should all support?

If you are pro-choice and you were in the place of the Procurement Technician on the video, would your compassion for women seeking abortions and your desire not to thwart medical research make you react differently? Would you be less willing to walk away from her job? Would you be more comfortable with cutting open the face of a fetus whose heart you had just seen beating — all in the name of medical science, of course? Would you think it all right to be pulling the brains out of babies that might possibly still be alive?

I will be honest. I cannot imagine any context whatsoever that would make what I saw and heard in this video any less hideous or disturbing.

Holly O’Donnell admitted that she started crying when holding the fetus she describes on the video. She said, no matter what benefits there might come from the role she played in procuring the brain from this unborn baby, “I don’t want to be that person”.

Can we honestly say she is wrong, misguided, too sensitive, too sentimental, too squeamish? Is she not advanced enough in her thinking? Are we to conclude that she is anti-woman and anti-science?

Or could the practices these videos are exposing possibly be wrong and barbaric? Are we willing to admit that Planned Parenthood might not be the paragon of virtue, compassion, and morality so many believe this organization to be? Could our culture have gone too far in embracing any and all abortions? Could our medical ethics be flawed? Could it be time for us to face the truth of what we are allowing ourselves to become as a people — no matter how uncomfortable and disturbing that truth might be?

Over the years, I have read and heard many eloquent defenses of the pro-choice position. It is not my intention to turn the his blog post into argument or debate about whether to not abortion should be legal. However, I cannot help but wonder — does being pro-choice require one to embrace everything that is in the above video, and to defend even the most barbaric practices surrounding abortion? Are there no limits to the pro-choice position? Are there no abortions that are morally wrong?

I might as well admit it: I am pro-life. There was a time when, as a rape trauma survivor, I was unsure about whether or not abortion in the case of rape or incest was morally defensible. My position has become more firm as I’ve listened to the stories of those who have been conceived by rape and incest, as well as those who have conceived children under the same conditions. We extinguish the wrong life, in my opinion, when we abort the innocent child resulting from sexual trauma. While I know that nothing can undo the unspeakably damaging and painful trauma of rape or incest, I cannot dismiss the compelling stories of girls and women who view their children as redemptive…even life-saving…after the worst trauma of their lives.

Mine is not a popular position, to say the least. I have been reluctant to state it publicly, not wanting to offend people I care for and respect, some of whom who view the pro-life position as hateful, ignorant, backwards, intolerant, and anti-woman. To be honest, I fear being painted with that same brush by speaking up.

A dear friend of mine, who travels the world over on missions of mercy and compassion –because she has one of the biggest, most loving hearts of anyone I’ve ever met — insists that it is her love for women that has caused her to be even more strongly anti-abortion. Women from vastly different cultures and religious backgrounds have opened up to her when she requests, without a hint of coercion or condemnation, “Tell me about your abortion.” She has heard the stories most of us never hear, because — even if we ask — our agendas and opinions tend to get in the way of our compassion. (I’ve told her my deepest darkest secrets, so I know how gently she receives women’s experiences and truths, receiving them as a sacred trust.) She used to be pro-life because of the babies. Now it is the women, the mothers, who have convinced her even more. She wants to spare women from having to live out the abortion experiences, and their aftermaths, that she keeps hearing about, over and over and over again…

Nature, nurture, or both: what makes me a “real woman”?

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I was born a girl. And except for some long ago summer days at the age of 11, when my too-short haircut and my play clothes of blue jean cut offs and a white t-shirt made me appear confusingly gender-ambiguous, I have always presented as female.

As a teenager and fledgling woman, I often felt inadequate. Even now, as a supposedly fully matured woman, I sometimes struggle. I’ve never been especially girly. I lack many of the talents, skills, and interests associated with femininity in our culture. According to what many teach regarding “Biblical womanhood”, I fail miserably. I’m not domestic enough. I’m not sweet enough, soft-spoken enough, gentle enough, or submissive enough. Instead of finding fulfillment among the pots and pans, I’d rather be teaching kids to hit and kick each other in the dojo. Instead of urging girls, “Stay sweet”, I’m more often heard urging them to “Be fierce!” Instead of going into raptures of delight over cleaning products, make-up, cute shoes, or whatever it is we women are supposed to get all giddy with excitement over, I’m far more likely to get excited about my favorite hike, a good cup of coffee, some techno-toy, or sensible shoes. (Although I do own a few cute pairs for when I want to clean up, put on a dress, and look semi-presentable.)

I didn’t fit in as a girl. I often don’t fit in now.

But I’m a real woman.

Only I’m not. Because, after all, “real women have curves”, and I’ve always been sorely lacking in the curves department…well, except for the more recent “curves” of added fat in all the wrong places.

Then again, there’s my trump card. The fact that I’ve had six kids should grant me entry without question into the ranks of “real women”.

Except that men can supposedly give birth. Or at least women who decide to have partial sex reassignment surgery so that they can live as men, claim they are men, but still get pregnant and have babies. So now, someone recently informed me rather heatedly, giving birth is not just a “woman thing”. Men can do it too. So there.

So what makes me a woman?

I think genetics and biology are not meaningless. Yes, I know that “Biology is not destiny!” was a rallying cry in the 1960’s. I don’t believe that our biology, as women, should be viewed as a limitation, prison or trap, any more than the same should be true for a man. I would never tell any man that he is good for little else besides sex and fathering babies, and therefore he should not trouble his handsome little head over important things, nor should he do anything dangerous, given how delicate and vulnerable his reproductive organs are. The truth is that, as both men and women, humans are far more than our reproductive systems. But those very systems are an important part of us, whether they function properly or not, whether we delight in them or not, whether they cause us grief or pleasure.

I was born a girl. My parents raised me as a girl who would grow up to be a woman. I went to school and took part in communities where I was treated as were girls in my day and time — for good and for bad. My experiences shaped me.

Even the common, shared experiences of childhood were not exactly the same for me as for my brothers. For instance, when teachers would say, “Boys will be boys!” to a classroom full of children, it meant something entirely different for us girls than it did for the boys. We were being told we were being overly-sensitive tattle-tales and needed to stop; the boys were being given permission to go right on doing whatever it was that had upset us so much. Sometimes it felt like we were being raised in parallel universes.

Puberty was, to vastly understate the obvious, very different for me than for my brothers.

I could go on and on… Nature and nurture, my biology and my life experiences, have molded me, shaped me, formed me, given me identity. I am a woman. I am more than a collection of body parts, more than a shape, more than my appearance, more than my sexuality, more than my talents or lack thereof, more than a social construct.

It cost me to become a woman. I have literally bled. The transition from girlhood to womanhood was not easy for me, not physically, not emotionally, not spiritually, not mentally. There were times when I feared I would not arrive, whole and happy, on the other side. Not every girl’s adolescence is so tortured or troubled, nor do boys sail into manhood without a worry or problem. However, the worst pains of my teen years were suffered because I was a girl.

There was not one experience that made me a woman. It was not my first menses, nor did a sex act “turn me into a woman”. It wasn’t even when I had my first baby. Being a woman is the sum total of my mind, body, memories, and experiences. I’ve spent my entire life being female, and it’s the only life I know.

At the same time that I love being a woman — it has been the source of some of my deepest joys — I can also enjoy, perhaps a little too much, ignoring or overturning what I regard as silly cultural stereotypes and expectations. I may not measure up to your idea of a “real woman”, but I’ve put in the time and I’ve definitely earned the stripes, even if I don’t look as decorative or act as demurely/sexily as you think I should.

Putting on a dress and high heels doesn’t make me more of a woman. Neither does cooking a delicious meal, or keeping silent in a church meeting, or crying at sappy movies. I don’t become less of a woman when I’m in my sweat-soaked gi, pounding the heavy bag with all I’ve got. Adding or subtracting body parts would not make me any more or less a woman than I already am. Womanhood is not something you wear, something you put on and off, some set of actions you do or don’t do. Womanhood is who you are, all of it.

I was born a girl, with female chromosomes and body parts. I grew up as a girl. I was taught how to be a girl…and how not to be a girl. I’ve lived as a woman all my adult life. It is the sum total of my existence and the very essence — inside and out — of who I am. You don’t get much more real than that.

I refuse to trivialize womanhood, refuse to reduce it down to outward appearance, refuse to suggest that it is a commodity than can be bought or sold, refuse to believe that surgery can make or undo it. I’ve had friends and loved ones who have lost breasts, uterus, and ovaries to cancer — but they were still very much women, no matter what our culture might say.

Womanhood is worth celebrating. Worth honoring. Worth valuing. Worth respecting.

Even if I just started laughing over my sudden urge to start belting out, “I am woman, hear me roar!”

“Purity Culture” doesn’t really understand purity

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This is an addendum to my previous post, The problem with “purity culture” is not purity.

“Purity Culture” doesn’t really understand purity — at least not from a Biblical perspective.

Those who teach from a “purity culture” perspective treat purity as almost exactly equivalent to female virginity — as something girls are born with but then have the potential of losing forever. While there is some lip service paid to male purity, the emphasis is on females.

Recently I was reminded of one of my favorite passages:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. [1 John 3:2,3]

This reminded me that purity is not something we have and then lose; it is something we need to seek after. It also reminds me that purity is not gender-specific. We all need to purify ourselves, just as Christ is pure.

Preaching to the choir: gender confusion

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Read the first post in this series: Redefining marriage

This is another call to repentance, another call that is not for those outside the Church. I’m not even sure it’s for everyone inside the Church. In fact, it may not even make sense to anyone but me. That’s because, more than anything else, I am “preaching” to an audience of one. Any finger-pointing is directed first and foremost back at myself.

This post, and any others in the series, are a reflection of some of my ongoing thoughts and concerns about marriage in general. At this point, I freely admit to being more short on answers than I’d like.

We have confused stereotypes and prejudices about gender with how God created men and women — and have dared slapped the label “God-ordained gender roles” on the resultant mess and nonsense.

We have searched out Scriptures to find “evidence” for our own pre-conceived notions about gender roles. We have twisted Scripture into convoluted evidence, and attacked anyone as “less than Christian” who called our carelessness and lack of logic into question.

We have attached gender to the evidences of the Holy Spirit’s work in a person’s life, even though Scripture does no such thing. The truth is that there are no male or female “fruit”, no male or female “gifts”.

We have confused cultural norms and practices with God’s will for men and women.

We have confused our own opinions and experiences, our own hopes and desires, with what God requires of us. (“I like men to be like this…I’m sure God feels the same.” “All the women in my family don’t do this, so no Christian woman should.” “I’m uncomfortable with this, so it must be wrong.”)

We have seen gender where there is no gender. Like the three year old boy I knew who insisted on drinking only from a “boy cup” and using only a “boy spoon”, we too often claim certain things are masculine or feminine, when they are neither. Courage is not a “masculine virtue”, nor is gentleness a “feminine virtue”. The Bible does not speak of gender-specific virtues or character traits.

Furthermore, God does not give either sex a free pass on certain sins because some people of our gender may find them especially easy to commit, or overwhelmingly tempting. Nor do we get to opt out of obeying God in those instances when to do so might cause our same-sex peers to look askance at us and call our gender identity into question. Too bad. Following Christ is not without cost.

Side note: if you are a woman, please don’t whine about “persecution” just because you are being accused of “acting like a man” when you don’t shrink back with fear or don’t insist with feigned helplessness that a man do something that you are capable of doing for yourself. If you are a man, please don’t whine you are being “persecuted” just because one of your buddies makes a joke about you being “whipped” when you try to love your wife as much as you love yourself.

We allow our culture to define masculinity and femininity for us. Oh, sure, we deny this, but the truth is that we merely tweak and attempt to “Christianize” the current cultural definitions. Thus, the red-blooded American Christian husband should be having all the mind-blowing sex he wants whenever he wants it — but only with his wife. Of course, she should be the Christian version of a “real woman”: voluptuous and sexy, wildly uninhibited during sex, but soft-spoken and gentle in every other setting. The truly godly wife should be her husband’s very own private porn star — incredibly skilled at performing every sex act he can imagine without him even having to ask — yet so innocent and pure that she not only never kissed another man, but never had a remotely sexual thought prior to marriage. But there is more. Men like sports; women like Pinterest. Men are from Mars; women are from Venus. Men are initiators; women are responders. Men need respect; women need love. We just recycle our cultural messages and repackage them with the “Christian” label.

We bludgeon one another with ungodly measuring sticks of what we claim is true masculinity and femininity. Those that do not measure up to our arbitrary standards are left feeling bewildered, emotionally battered, and inadequate — often with deep aching wounds at the very core of our being. I have experienced what a terrible thing it is to be convinced, by fellow Christians, that I fail to measure up as a woman, as a human being. Men who have been similarly bludgeoned insist that their wounds are even more devastating.

We tell each other lies about gender. We place burdens on ourselves and others that God never intended. We accuse. We condemn.

We allow gender to separate us when our very own Scripture teaches us that there is neither male nor female in Christ. Instead of focusing on Him, we prefer to focus on sex and gender. We prefer to divide rather than unite.

Instead of embracing the beauty of God’s creation, instead of seeing His image in every man and woman, we pit one sex against the other, shove each other into boxes, tear each other down, exalt ourselves, demean each other, insult each other, exploit each other, abuse each other.

We need to repent. We need to read the Bible without our lenses of prejudice. We need healing. We need to seek the Father’s heart about men and women, male and female. We need to reflect Him, instead of cultural stereotypes, even Christianized ones. There is a lot that needs repenting.

May God have mercy.