Preaching to the choir: Redefining marriage

Posted on Monday, June 29, 2015 by Rebecca

This is a call to repentance, but it 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 myself. Any finger-pointing is directed first and foremost back at myself.

The Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage did not take me at all by surprise. My only surprise is that so many in the Church seem to be reeling in shock, as if the decision was unexpected and caught them by surprise. This post is not just what may be the first one in a semi-planned series about my reaction to this ruling, but it reflects some ongoing thoughts and concerns about marriage in general. At this point, I freely admit to being more short on answers than I’d like.

Redefining marriage

Before any of us ever utter the words “redefining marriage” ever again, perhaps we should admit that most of have been guilty of doing that very same thing for a long time. Yes, we — the ‘choir’ — have been guilty of redefining marriage.

We have redefined marriage by comparing it to authority structures that are the very antithesis of the loving, intimate, one-flesh, procreative union God defines marriage as being. How often have you read books or heard sermons claiming the husband is the captain and the wife is the first mate, or the husband is the CEO and the wife is the plant manager? Yet, if people who occupy these positions in real life treated each other like husband and wife, it would be considered a scandal and most would agree that everyone involved should lose their positions immediately! Worse than that, theses definitions and descriptions are found nowhere in Scripture.
We have redefined marriage as being mostly about personal happiness and fulfillment. We love to go on about about “finding true love”. We want to marry someone who will “meet our needs”, “speak our love language”, and “make us happy”.
We have redefined marriage as a right, and as the default setting for adult heterosexuals. We view singleness as a problem that needs to be puzzled out and solved (“I can’t figure out why she isn’t married yet”; “Why are men in our church so unwilling to get married?”) and we view single adults as not quite as adult as the rest of us — and therefore best shuttled off to singles ministries, where they will hopefully all marry each other, so that they can come back and be part of the normal folk.
We have redefined marriage as the happy ending in a romantic movie. Then, when it doesn’t live up to our unrealistic, Hollywood-fueled expectations, we cynically redefine it as the source of our unhappiness and lack of fulfillment.
We have redefined marriage by claiming that “wives submit” is the aspect most needing to be taught and emphasized, and that “husbands love” really means that husbands shouldn’t be physically abusive when they exercise their authority over their wives.
We have redefined marriage as a pragmatic, human-centered, and rather immature arrangement requiring one person (the husband) to have the “final say” or the “tie-breaker vote”. We assume disagreement is inevitable, and reaching mutual agreement is impractical or doomed to failure. Even worse, we act as if it is impossible for two people, both led by the same God, to reach the same decision.
We have redefined marriage as exempt from many of the Scriptural commands and teachings regarding how Believers are to treat one another. Many of us are more loving and kind-hearted to strangers next to us in the pew than to our spouses. We are willing to bear one others’ burdens, pray for others, weep with them, rejoice with them, treat them with preference and respect, mutually submit to them, encourage them, build them up, etc. — as long as the “others” are not married to us. We pretend that Christ’s high priestly prayer, and most of the epistles, doesn’t really apply to marriage, and that husbands and wives don’t need to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
We have redefined marriage as a lack of unity, and insist that being “of one mind and one accord” is impossible for a man and a woman. After all, supposedly men and women are from different planets (Mars vs. Venus), resemble totally dissimilar foods that no sane person would serve together at the same meal (waffles vs. spaghetti) and have entirely different needs (respect vs. love).
We have redefined marriage as being centered on pleasurable sex. I have encountered countless Christian books, articles, speakers, and counselors full of advice for how I could — and should —become more like the “smokin’ hot wife” of my husbands’ fantasies/needs, but can’t recall one Christian source of information about healthy, natural ways to increase fertility. I’ve also encountered numerous articles championing “purity” before marriage followed by lifelong monogamy because these practices supposedly guarantee a more pleasurable sex life.
We have redefined marriage as being far more about roles rather than about relationship.
We have redefined marriage by claiming that it turns any man into a “priest, prophet, and king”. (Of course, no one I’ve ever encountered claims that marriage turns a woman into a “priestess, prophetess, and queen”.)
We have redefined marriage in terms of culture, whether our current culture, some bygone culture, or some nostalgic, romanticized culture that exists only in books, old TV sitcoms, and our over-wrought imaginations.
We have redefined marriage by turning the covenant relationship God Himself created into an institution defined by the whims of human law. We have handed our marriages over to our governments to regulate, encourage, discourage, define, institute, and dissolve. Then we accuse those same governments of usurping the very authority we not only freely gave them, but insisted that they exercise over us.
We have redefined marriage by claiming that its most important aspect is that it is “traditional”, and between one man and one woman.
We have redefined marriage by not being far more concerned about whether our marriages reflect the extreme, sacrificial love Christ has for His Bride…whether our marriages reflect the radical unity and one-ness God requires of us…whether we are becoming more like Him…whether we are obeying Him with and in our marriages…whether our marriages really and truly honor Him. Marrying someone of the opposite sex is easy. Mimicking stereotypical gender roles isn’t all that difficult. (Doing it successfully — at least for me — is a different matter.) But having a marriage that glorifies God requires supernatural assistance.

I don’t know about you, but I have failed. As the Bible says of all of us, I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is a serious matter. It is, in fact, deadly serious — no matter how much I try to deny and pretend away the gravity of sin.

Repentance is what I need. The grace of God — and His daily assistance — is my only hope.

If any of the choir made it all the way to the end of this post…are you willing to join me in asking God to show us even more areas in which we need to repent? Are you willing to pray the following prayer with me, no matter how painful the result?

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! [Psalm 139:23,24]

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me. [Psalm 51:10]

I don’t know about you, but I definitely know that I need to be searched, known, cleansed, and renewed.

May God have mercy.

“We” did not “create” a racist mass murderer

Posted on Thursday, June 25, 2015 by Rebecca

“We created Dylann Roof,” insists the Huffington Post.

To which I reply, “No, I didn’t. I didn’t even know the guy.” Yes, I am part of a culture that has a disturbing, terrible, racist past. I am part of a culture that includes, to this day, racists. I am part of a culture that has a painful racial divide that needs healing. There is plenty to indict us.

Zeba Blay asks, “So who should we blame for Dylann Roof?” and answers, “We should blame ourselves.”

I’m not going to blame myself. I am not even going to point blame at the culture, Dylann Roof’s parents, his family and friends, his schools, or the books he read and websites he visited. Those may or may not have been contributing factors, but they are not to blame.

It is Dylann Roof alone who is to blame because he was acting alone when he walked into a church building, spent an hour with people he admitted treated him very nicely — people that have left huge vacancies behind in the hearts of their families and community — and gunned them down. To insist that “It must be acknowledged that there are more Dylann Roofs out there, and they exist because we let them” is not just to point the blame at white Americans but at the very ones — the Mother Emanuel Nine — that he killed.

Some may say that I am merely voicing my unwillingness to look at my own white privilege or my own covert racism. To which I say, You obviously don’t know me and you have no idea of my state of mind since I first learned of the terrible killings. I didn’t just watch the service being live streamed from Emanuel AME Church on Sunday, or the rally held Tuesday at the South Carolina Capitol. I have spent much time soul-searching, and in prayer. Trust me; I am not holding myself up as a paragon of justice and righteousness, or as one who perfectly reflects God the Father’s heart on the issue of race. I am not trying to deflect any blame that I deserve.

Here is why I take issue.

Each of us is responsible for our own actions, for our own attitudes, for our own choices. Blame-shifting began with the very first sin — God didn’t buy it then, and He isn’t buying it now. We need to examine our own hearts and lives for real sins we are committing, not embrace some vague and foggy sense of guilt because we supposedly “let” a racist commit heinous acts clear across the country from us.

Those of you who have read this know that, at the age of 23, I was raped by two of my neighbors. While I have encountered, since then, some compelling and convincing arguments about “rape culture”, I do not blame the culture for my rape. I do not blame you, even if you were alive then. I do not blame the friend who knocked on the locked door behind which I was being held prisoner and, not getting an answer, walked away. I do not even blame myself. I blame those men, not their parents or their friends or the other men who laughed at their rape jokes or even those who taught them to rape. I blame the men who raped me.

No one “let” those men rape me. No one turned them into rapists. We did not create Lou and Carl. I certainly didn’t. No one held a gun to their heads and forced them to rape me. No one brainwashed them into thinking that raping me was a good, moral deed and a great kindness.

No one held a gun to Dylann Roof’s head. No one brainwashed him. He knew full well what he was doing, and why he was doing it. He told them and he told us.

So did my rapists. They told me.

Evil exists. If a culture is mostly evil, it is because it is full of people with evil lurking in their hearts. We didn’t put the evil into other people’s minds and hearts. We need to look at our own hearts, at our own evil — the stuff we really don’t want to face. We need to stop giving murderers and rapists ways to weasel out of taking full responsibility for their despicable acts: oh, it wasn’t really you, it was the culture…it was us…we let you commit these horrible crimes…we created you… We need to stop blaming society and laws and the educational system — even while we should work diligently to reform those very things and bring about more justice and equality.

Yes, the culture needs changing. But that means people have to change. We can’t force that on others. We can only change ourselves, and pray for and influence others. It’s time we faced that.

So who should we blame for Dylann Roof? He alone is to blame for his actions.

So who should we blame for Lou and Carl? They alone are to blame for their actions.

So who should we blame for Rebecca Prewett? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could blame culture, nature, and nurture for every sin I’ve ever committed? If I could blame you for “creating” me and “letting” me? When I stand before God some day, I won’t be able to blame-shift, not even a little bit. I’ll have to own up to it all…and throw myself on the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.

Why I changed my mind about the confederate flag

Posted on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 by Rebecca

I was going to stay out of this whole hooplah. It hits close to home, and I didn’t want to offend people that I love and care for on either side of the debate. At the same time, I decided I should, at the very least, show respect to both sides by listening. I read articles online. I watched, while it was being live-streamed, the rally held recently in South Carolina, demanding that the flag be removed from the state capital. I realized that I had never really listened so carefully before, and that I had only heard misrepresentations of the “anti-flag” arguments.

After that, I thought I understood. Now I realize that, because of the huge holes in my education — especially about the Civil War — I really didn’t understand the half of it. It was time for me to hear from the leaders and founders of the Confederacy, rather than from its modern-day spokespeople. It was time that I allowed history to speak for itself.

From the “Corner-stone” Speech delivered by Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.

I felt it only proper to quote in its context the part that was enough to convince me:

I don’t know about you, but I’m not proud of that.

When leaders fall

Posted on Monday, June 22, 2015 by Rebecca

Sometimes we gloat: Aha, I knew it! He was always a phony-baloney and now it’s about time that his sins were exposed!

Other times we reel in shock and grief: No…not him too…

And sometimes our reactions are somewhere in between.

Last night the internet informed me of yet another prominent pastor. This morning I needed to read these words from Trudy Metzler:

I only hope that men and women of God who fall into adultery and sin, rise up again, like King David, to serve God with greater vision and passion… and broken. Because broken men and women are of far greater service to the Kingdom of God than great, strong, unbroken leaders. Our sins do not disqualify us from serving God, if we repent and fall harder on grace than we ever fell into sin. The grace of God is enough, whether alcoholism, gossip, adultery, gluttony, homosexuality, arrogance, or any other sin….

Because Jesus didn’t die for nothing.

Sexual abusers as “ambassadors”

Posted on Thursday, June 4, 2015 by Rebecca

Redemption is not just one of my life themes; it’s something I consider the greatest theme through all of the Bible and all of history. It’s huge and sweeping…and deeply, intimately personal. That’s why this article caught me eye in a sea of articles about the Duggar mess: Finding Redemption in the Josh Duggar Story. Up until now, I’ve avoided the temptation to add a blog post to the many words already out there on the internet about this tragic situation. But then this troubling statement in Michael Brown’s article popped out at me:

“Josh can be an ambassador on behalf of the abused…”

Here is the context:

Josh can be an ambassador on behalf of the abused, even helping the abusers as well. While it can feel like your life is over when your past, largely private sins become public (how many of us would like for that to happen?), the fact is that Josh’s future can be bright in the Lord.

He can call on others who are sinning to come clean and get help, using his own example redemptively. And he can encourage those who have been abused to realize that they are not guilty and should not feel shame, also encouraging churches to embrace those who come for help rather than making them feel as if there is something wrong with them.

Why should those who have suffered abuse be stigmatized? They should be our priority for healing and restoration.

I’m all for redemption, and I’m sure the author of this article means well, but this is not what redemption looks like. It does not consist of sexual abusers, no matter how repentant, being allowed to do anything that might even remotely further traumatize victims of abuse.

Just to be sure, I looked up definitions for “ambassador”. Let’s all assume Michael Brown means “unofficial representative” and not “a person who acts as a representative or promoter of a specified activity”. Even so, his word choice, and the idea behind it, is both troubling and problematic.

As a victim of rape and multiple instances of sexual abuse ranging in severity, I would like to emphasize the following:

Sexual abusers do not and cannot represent me. I do not want them speaking on my behalf. The audacity behind such a statement is appalling to me. We don’t need people speaking for us or usurping our voice and our agency. We need people to encourage and empower us to speak for ourselves. Sexual abusers — no matter how repentant — are not the people to take on that role. They have not earned that right; in fact, they have disqualified themselves completely. Even if it turns out that a sexual abuser was previously victimized himself, he still does not speak for me, nor for most sexual trauma survivors, nor should he attempt to act as my “ally”.
I don’t need sexual abusers telling me what I should or should not feel. The sexual abusers and rapists in my life already did exactly that. I don’t want or need another one presuming to tell me, yet again, how I should react to the crimes and sins perpetrated against me by people like him.
I have no interest in anything an ambassador from the “sexual abuser community” might have to say to me as a sexual trauma survivor. By the grace of God, I have done the near impossible and have forgiven those who have perpetrated sexual sins and crimes against me. I do not want to hear any more excuses, justifications, pity parties, blame-shifting, minimizing, denial, or explanations. I’ve already heard far more than I ever wanted to hear. If you are a sexual abuser, I don’t want to understand how or why you did what you did. I’m sorry if that hurts anyone’s feelings, but I really do not want to comprehend the thinking and attitudes of the men who raped me, or the males who have wounded me sexually. There are things I never want to understand. I refuse to be dragged into such cesspools of evil thoughts and selfish, twisted desires. A truly repentant sexual abuser would not want to inflict that on survivors. We already had to deal with the abuse and trauma; don’t make things worse.
Sexual abusers and sexual abuse survivors are not two “communities” that need to make peace with each other or bridge some gap of misunderstanding. Anyone who thinks that there is even a role for “ambassadors” is woefully ignorant of the very nature of sexual trauma. This isn’t a “but can’t we all just get along?” situation. As individual survivors, we may choose to forgive our abusers, but that doesn’t mean it would necessarily be wise to reconcile with them or to enter into relationships with other abusers, no matter how wholesome or contrite their “ambassadors” might appear to be.

Josh Duggar and others like him have nothing to say on my behalf, and little or nothing that I need to hear. They should never attempt to be ambassadors to or from survivors. Sexual abusers like him do not possess wonderful, compassionate insights that would aid me in walking out my healing. At this point, there is no need for apologies or forgiveness, because his sins and crimes were against his sisters and another unnamed victim, not me. However, should he take Michael Brown’s article to heart and try to usurp some sort of “ambassador” role that is not his to take, I think he will owe a major apology to many, if not all, survivors.