What Do a Coward's Bullet and the Complementarian Ideology Have in Common?

This morning, good decent people around the world are reeling in shock over the cowardly act of a religious and militant extremist member who walked onto a schoolbus and shot a 14 year old little girl in the head, because she dared to speak out for girls rights to education. Many are praying, some are protesting, others simply shaking their heads in sadness and unbelief at the profound barbarism of this act.

As horrific as it is, what makes Malala's attempted assasination so shocking is that this 14 year old was actually on the Taliban's hitlist. She was shot because of what she believed in and dared to speak out about - that girls are entitled to an education and a future of their own choosing without limitations imposed on them by a cruel and misogynistic religious extremist group. Malala wants to become a doctor.

As I found my thoughts and prayers going to this bright and courageous young woman repeatedly throughout the day, I also found myself thinking about something I had just read on-line. It was a position paper featuring the content of the keynote address for the 2012 EFCA Theology Conference, the topic was: "Understanding the Complementarian Position: Considering Implications and Exploring Practices in the Home and the Local Church" The address was given by Don Carson, currently at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Bob Yarbrough, now at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, before some 265 attendees.

As I went about the busyness of my day, both these events kept coming to my mind, like a pesky mosquito looking for his next meal. I would pray for Malala and then simply dismiss my thoughts on the Complementarian Position paper as I focused on the work I had to get done. It wasn't until much later that evening, when the pesky mosquito linking these two scenarios was still buzzing about, that I finally sat down to try and sort through it. That's when I realized why I was unconsciously linking these two seemingly disparate events together; they shared a great deal in common.

The barbaric coward who shot Malala was created by a religious ideology which teaches that the oppression of women is mandated by God. The literal translation for "Taliban" is "religious students." This Frankenstein was created not in a science fiction laboratory, but in a mosque filled with religious devotees who supposedly want to please God. The history books are filled with atrocities of mindblowing proportions carried out in the name of obeying God. From the religious crusades, to the burning of Joan of Arc, to the Salem Witch Trials (for some reason, women seem to often be the target of religious based cruelty and oppression).

While in the Western World, we are protected from the barbaric atrocities of religious ideologies which would justify the oppression of women by means of physical abuse and torture, we are not protected from religious ideologies which advocate the oppression of women as being mandated by God. In the United States, these heinous ideologies are slickly wrapped in packages designed to conceal their true intent, words like "complementarian", phrases like "equally valued, equally loved" are connected to an ideology which would tell women that God does not allow them to teach or preach or lead under the shadow of the church steeple. Anyone who dares to disagree with this ideology is dismissed as simply not wanting to obey God.
The reasons for justifying this oppressively misogynistic interpretation of Scripture are many, some of them based on an attempt at scholarly exegesis of Scripture and others on blatantly misogynistic and oppressive personal bias. For example, in defending the complementarian position from a sociological perspective, Robert Yarborough had this to say: (Ladies, just a warning, fasten your seatbelts, these are direct quotes from the EFCA position paper)

"To ordain women is ultimately to alienate many if not most unchurched men…To put the matter bluntly: in many marriages, wives try to control or at least change their husbands, and men refuse to be bossed."

"...numerous social indicators in the West point to disastrous results for large numbers of women and children since the 1960s when social mores began an aggressive departure from biblical teaching in areas like sexuality, divorce, and abortion, and as women’s ordination became more acceptable with the rise of feminism. Since that time, in the U.S. at least, rates of female poverty, female imprisonment and recidivism, child neglect or endangerment, sex crimes (particularly against children), internet pornography, and sexually-transmitted diseases have increased dramatically. "

I don't know where to begin. Just the simple fact that this barbaric level of reasoning is being put forth by a seminary professor at a theological conference is mindblowing. Really Professor Yarborough?! "men refuse to be bossed?!"  Are you truly inferring that internet pornography and sex crimes against children and STDs are directly attributable to women being allowed to teach and preach the gospel?! Perhaps, you are not familiar with the well known statistics:

*Men perpetrate the majority of violent acts against women (DeLahunta 1997).

*22 million women in the United States have been raped in their lifetime. 63.84% of women who reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked since age 18 were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, boyfriend, or date. (National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010)

*Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds. (UN Study On The Status of Women, Year 2000)

*Thirty percent of women watch Internet porn, according to a new study. The number is higher for men - 70 percent - in research conducted at the University of Sydney's Graduate Program in Sexual Health, reports Australia's Courier-Mail.

And as for crimes against children, the sexual trafficking of women and children is now the second largest criminal industry in the world and it is an industry run and financed by men.

But facts aside, Professor Yarborough is teaching and preaching that one of the primary factors for these atrocities is the ordination of women who want to serve God with their gifts of teaching and leading. There is the bullet. Instead of a gun, the weapon (method of delivery) is the EFCA (Evangelical Free Church of America).

While there is no comparison between an ideological debate and the suffering and agony of Malala, fighting for her life in a Pakistani hospital, we kid ourselves if we fail to recognize that the spirit behind both is an extremist belief that God mandates the oppression of women, whether it's a courageous 14 year old Pakistani girl wanting to become a doctor, or a 14 year old American girl who wants to serve others as an ordained member of the clergy.

Finding God In A Kayak

As I stood on the edge of the dirt road leading to the boat rental office, watching the parade of people coming to rent canoes or kayaks, I remember feeling a bit like the ugly duckling.  "You don't belong here."  the voice inside my head shouted.  "Look at these people, they are nature types, berkenstocks, and khaki shorts, water bottles and no make-up; they are the kind of people who kayak, not you."  While I stood off to the side of the dirt road in my white shorts with my designer flip flops from Newport, RI and my knock-off designer sun glasses, drinking a diet pepsi; I had to agree with the voice inside my head:  I didn't belong here.  I was an imposter, posing as a back to nature lover.  However, the man I adored and was married to had been asking me to go kayaking for weeks and so today, I was going to kayak regardless of how painful it would surely prove to be.  So I told the voice inside my head to shut up and went to grab our paddles and life vests.

On the way back to the car, one of my designer flip flops broke.  "See, this is an omen, this is not going to be a good thing." The voice taunted me.  "Shut up!" I replied, as I limped back to the car, with the paddles and vests, dragging one leg so as not to loose the now useless flip flop.  I tried to feign excitement as my husband drove us down miles of dirt roads in Southern Vermont to get to our destination.  We were not going kayaking in any of the typical tourist spots, where there were lots of people and civilization.  No, we were going kayaking on some remote lake up in the mountains of Vermont far out of range of cell phone service and indoor bathrooms. "What if you have an emergency? How will you get help? You could be stranded out here in the wilderness fighting for your life, worse yet, what if you have to go to the bathroom??" the voice in my head shouted. I silently began trying to remember all of the first-aid skills I had learned decades ago in the girl scout classes my mom had forced me to go to.  All I could remember was something about a tourniquet and how ugly the macrame vests were that they forced us to make.

As we carried our kayaks to the edge of the lake, there was a mother and young son peering intently into the water and pointing.  The mother was saying something about how she thought they were salamanders and she didn't like them.  "There's tons of 'em"  the little boy shouted excitedly.  "Run now!" the voice inside my head shouted.  Momentary panic set in as I thought about having to wade barefoot into salamander infested waters. What if I step on them? Do they bite?  I resolutely determined not to look down at the water as I pushed my kayak into the lake and climbed in.

With my husband, and his fishing gear, safely in his kayak behind me, I started paddling out towards the middle of the lake.  I was pretty oblivious to the beauty and grandeur that surrounded me because I was intently experimenting with the best way to paddle in order to get the most speed.  I like to drive fast, even in a kayak.  After about 5 minutes of getting myself soaked with fresh lake water as well as working up a sweat, my husband called out to me:  "Honey, I think you are holding your paddles backwards, turn them around."  I did.  It worked much better that way and I was soon pleased with myself as I set out to break the world's speed record for kayaking. 

As I looked back, I realized I was putting quite a bit of distance between my husband (who was busy baiting his fishing line) and myself.  I pulled my paddle out of the water and looked up.  That was when I lost my breath.  I was surrounded by nothing other than nature, in all its early Summer grandeur.  The robin's egg blue sky, the sun dancing off the water, all framed with varying shades of green, the mountains rising up in the background and the sounds, that was the most breathtaking of all, it was absolutely silent.  No cars buzzing past, no cell phones ringing, or radios blasting, just silence and the occasional melancholy call of the loons who shared this remote spot.

Suddenly, I felt a peace like a giant, hand-made quilt, wrap itself around me.  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as if to breathe it into my soul.  "Be still and know that I am God." The voice inside my head was suddenly silenced as the word of God spoke deep into my heart.  I leaned into this incredible peace and allowed it to wash over me, to flow through me.  My muscles and mind relaxed and I breathed deeply and easily.  As I lay there in the middle of that remote lake, with the sunlight warming my face, I realized what a stranger to my life this visitor called peace had been.  I knew I needed more of this.

Almost three hours later, my husband and I reluctantly paddled back towards the shore.  Two of the protected loons who lived on the lake, had decided to accompany me.  They paddled almost within reach of my kayak the entire way back as I, of course, talked to them. 

 As we drove home tired and happy, I realized that I no longer felt like the ugly duckling, in a world where I didn't fit in. I had made two new friends on the lake that day: the loons and a welcome visitor called peace. I silently resolved that I would see them both again soon.

Mega-Churches: Time to Roll Up the Red Carpet Approach to Worship?

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions."
 (The Wisdom of Heschel,  Abraham Joshua Heschel)

In a culture where church sanctuarys look more like the latest stage set for the Academy Awards, complete with floor to ceiling projection screens,  multi-million dollar sound and theatrical lighting, and multiple television cameras strategically positioned to capture the on-stage talent and leading  personalities, is it any wonder that more and more people are growing disillusioned, disappointed and disenfranchised with our Westernized version of "church?" The mega-church phenomenon, grew out of the soil of a 1980's American culture where materialism and consumerism were the cultural deitiies worshipped by a generation of baby boomers who had not yet lived through an economic crisis.  The American dollar was the global King of the Mountain and everyone was determined to stake their claim.


Under the guise of becoming "seeker-friendly" church culture morphed into a consumer driven, mass-marketed machine with Starbucks coffee shops in the lobby, entertaining infomercials appearing on giant screens in the sanctuary and church worship leaders vying for the next major recording label contract.  While there is much that is wonderful, relevant and worthy of applause in the mega-church model, perhaps the latest statistics on church growth are reason enough to step back and ask ourselves if it may be time to roll up the red carpet approach to worship.


While mega-church culture has much to offer, it unfortunately comes with "side effects" that we need to be aware of.  Like the commercials we are all tired of seeing heralding the latest wonder drug and then ending with an announcer speedtalking their way through an alarming list of side effects that are perhaps worse than the ailment we are looking to treat, so too  mega-church culture has left us with an alarming list of side effects that are unfortunately causing many people to change the channel in their search for genuine spirituality.


In this blog series:  "Finding God In..." we will take a look at the many different and perhaps surprising, places where we come in contact with that presence which overwhelms us and speaks to a place deep within our soul that lets us know there is a presence so much greater than our ability to understand or comprehend, that reassures us of our connection to the eternal, that somehow communicates that we are not alone down here in the "muck and the mire" of our lives and that there is a meaning to our stories, to our suffering, to our triumphs and our tragedies that perhaps transcends our ability to neatly categorize or label.  God's presence extends far beyond the sound-insulated ceilings of our contemporary mega-churches and the spired ceilings of our historic cathedrals.  It will not be contained, yet it beckons us to be found.

Next blog in this series: "Finding God In A Kayak"
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Where have you felt God's presence outside of a church building?

Broom Fight In Bethlehem?

Monks battling it out with brooms at the birthplace of Christ?  Sounds like the opening for a bad joke, but it was actually a headlining story in last weeks news.  Apparently the "Church of the Nativity" built over 1500 years ago, at the site history claims to be the birthplace of Jesus, is maintained by monks and priests from the Catholic, Greek and Armenian churches.  Apparently, the arrangement for this historic landmark is that whatever space you clean, is the space you own. (Not a bad idea for those of us raising teenagers!).  The news story is that a fight of tremendous proportions broke out among the Greek and Armenian monks who began beating each other with the brooms they were using.  Palestinian security forces were called in to settle the dispute.  The irony of the story is that this historic landmark suffers a leaking roof which has been in disrepair for years and as a result has ruined much of the priceless artwork inside the church.  The reason the roof has not been repaired?  The three churches have been fighting over who will pay for it!  (According to the newstory I read, a deal has finally been brokered to address this).

Perhaps what this story illustrates best is what religion void of spirit will ultimately devolve into: broom fights over territorial rights.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer perhaps said it best when he wrote: "Christianity conceals within itself a germ hostile to the church.  It is far too easy for us to base our claims to God on our own Christian religiosity and our church commitment, and in doing so utterly to misunderstand and distort the Christian idea." While the ridiculousness of this story is apparent on many levels, it may hold the key to understanding why so many mainline denominational churches today are being forced to close their doors and turn their historic spaces into condominiums or posh restaurants. 

Churches have forgotten how to feed the soul.  In a culture that is perhaps the most spiritually hungry in centuries, the church is in danger of becoming the last place people will look for a spiritual meal.  The church has allowed political platforms, marketing gimmicks, and territorialism to replace that which originally gave it life: the Spirit of God setting hearts on fire with a revolutionary message of God's kingdom flourishing "on earth as it is in heaven;" a kingdom that transcends denominational boundaries, ethnic/cultural differences, gender bias, and most importantly of all, a kingdom that is not limited by the shortcomings and imperfections of each one of us. When we allow our focus to become territorial and political it is at the expense of that which is truly priceless: the artwork of the church - the spiritual choreography that orders our steps into a thing of beauty which dances hope and inspiration to a hurting humanity.

While it may be easy to throw stones at the men of God involved in this news story, weilding brooms for battles; perhaps we need to search our own hearts and ask where we have perhaps been fighting for territorial rights rather than surrendering to the Spirit.  Perhaps it's time for each of us to allow the Spirit to clean house and to lay down the broomstick battles we have been waging for an open heart of surrender to the Spirit which brings life and healing and which is the only thing able to transform the brokenness of each of us into a thing of beauty, a priceless work of art.

Wrestling With Angels - The Second Act

There are times when life demands that we change - profoundly change. Moments that demand of us the courage to face our failures, our fears, our betrayals. Moments when we can see the vision on the horizon that beckons us with an inner longing to journey forward and yet paralyzes us with a profound dread as we realize that all that has brought us to this place is insufficient to move us into our destiny.

It may be the reality of crossing the threshold from mid-life into our Senior years, it may be the milestone of having to deal with the loss of a spouse or the horror of losing a child, it may be the triumph of having survived cancer, it may be the brutal adjustment of divorce or the hopeful anticipation of re-marriage.   This is not the milestone of the young, filled with the optimistic idealism of youth.  This is the milestone for those of us who have already lived a great deal of our lives, who have a history to look back on and come to grips with, for those of us who have experienced both the triumphs and the tragedies of life and who want to move into the next part of our journey somehow changed and prepared to build a future that transcends the mistakes and shortcomings of our past.

This is the second act.  The place where the stage has been set, the conflict has been revealed and we move forward into the hopeful resolution.  It is a place where we must wrestle with angels in order to see the face of God.  It is the place where, if we refuse to let go; we will leave with a blessing and yet we will walk with a limp, for dust can not look on the face of divinity without being forever marked by it. 

This is perhaps, the most difficult place to be in. That place where we know we must relinquish what has brought us to this point in order to move beyond it into the place that the Spirit is calling us to.  It is these places where, like Jacob, we need to see the face of God, for what is required is more transformation than change.  It is a place where our souls are marked with the fingerprint of the transcendent and we exchange the name our past has given us for the name our future destiny demands.  It is these places where we must face the terrifying beauty of the divine, and refuse to let go until we have received our blessing.  It is these places where our broken humanity wrestles with the angelic. 

If life finds you at one of these places, that Jacob called "Penial" "for I have seen God face to face and my life is preseved," may you be encouraged to refuse to let go until you have received your blessing. May you have the courage to come face to face with the terrifying truth and be set free to move forward into a future filled with promise, grace and magnificent wonder.  May you begin the "Second Act" from a place of transcendent transformation that has wrought beauty from ashes, turned your mourning into dancing and with face to the horizon, may you move forward into your unique destiny.

Would Jesus Go To an Ugly Sweater Party?

I realize Apple is making the news with it's new version of ipad textbook apps that has everyone clamoring to voice an opinion or get on board the financial bandwagon of profiting from this technogical innovation, but I'd like to shine the social media spotlight on an equally culture changing innovation that has been in the closet for far too long.  By in the closet, I'm speaking literally.  Who would have thought that finally, we would have a purpose for that one thing we all keep hidden, relegated to the depths of our closets, embarrassed to bring out into the light of day,  yet unwilling to relinquish to the Good Will Bin or the trash can - the ubiquitous ugly sweater.

We all have our rationalizations for hanging onto them: they were a gift from a family member, they were handmade for us by a friend, they're too comfortable to get rid of.  Perhaps we should start a support group for those of us struggling to justify why we hold onto these items, that simply take up needed closet space, and that we keep buried like ugly secrets in the depths of our wardrobes. Judging from the social media invites, ugly Christmas sweater parties were all the rage this year.  Just the invitation alone brings a smile to your face.  Why is that?  Perhaps because ugly sweaters are something we all have in common and something we all feel just a bit foolish for admitting we have.  Maybe because it's therapeutic to confess and to realize that we are not alone, apparently ugly sweaters are a mass pandemic.

The question remains however, what would Jesus do?  Would we find him at an ugly sweater party?  Having recently hosted an ugly sweater party, I can speak from personal experience.  I hosted my ugly sweater party in a part of the country that is statistically the least "churched" state in the nation and where believers are referred to as the "frozen chosen."  With very little promotion, no marketing campaign, and no arm twisting,we had a terrific turn out of people, young and old, children, teenagers, adults and seniors.  Everyone showed up on a cold New England winter night with a hot meal to contribute to the potluck dinner, a smile and an ugly sweater.


 As I sat, proudly wearing my ugly sweater and looked around the room, I realized that the question of would Jesus go to an ugly sweater party was irrelevant.  He was already here.  In our midst.  Emmanuel - God With Us. I saw Him as I watched teenagers talking with seniors and laughing as they swapped stories of their ugly sweaters and compared stories of their lives.  I saw Him in the reminiscent smiles on the Seniors faces as they delighted in the young children dashing under folding tables, giggling as they chased each other around the room.  I heard Him as I listened to the conversations of parents with young children sharing empathetic laughter with parents from a by-gone era the trials of child-rearing and laughing together at the tragedies and the triumphs that come with parenting.

Perhaps finding the courage to bring our ugly sweaters into the light of day, laugh together and realize that we are not alone - is a step towards recognizing that all of us have broken humanity in common and that the same God who wrapped divinity in swaddling clothes in order to reach out to us, is smiling with us as we dare to don our ugly sweaters and share the joys and journeys of our lives.

How Not Enough Money Could Be All You Need to Succeed

It was a disaster. The production was scheduled to go in two days.  When I walked into the auditorium to check on the set design - I felt the panic rise in my throat.  It was a nightmare.  The artistic team who had assured me they "had it all under control" had done the best they could to design a set that went with our dramatic theme of overcoming the hardships of life - but the stage looked like someone's living room the morning after a big party - not an artistic representation of a battlefield. We had no time to start over, we had no budget to purchase anything, and we were expecting hundreds to come to the debut  in 48 hours. I collapsed into a seat in the front row of the gothic cathedral auditorium, put my head in my hands, took a deep breath, whispered a silent prayer of "HELP!" and did what years of experience had taught me to do: looked for a creative solution.

Too often we admit defeat because we "don't have enough money." We put our dreams in a straitjacket due to the limitations of a restricted budget, but we sell ourselves short if we allow our goals to be limited by a dollar sign.  Perhaps the issue is not a lack of money, but a lack of creativity.  Years of successfully leading non-profits with very limited budgets, have shown me that there is always a way around not having enough money, but it will require thinking outside the box, being flexible, and being willing to work up a sweat.

If you find yourself in a situation where you have a fantastic idea, but not enough money to carry it out; perhaps it is a blessing in disguise.  You may simply need to develop a more creative approach to bring it into reality.  Here are some of the steps in the process that may help you unlock a more creative solution.

1.  Start by looking at the resources you HAVE (not what you don't have).  Be creative with this - you may be overlooking some key resources.  Example:  We didn't have any budget for marketing/advertising.  Solution: I wrote an interesting newsworthy story to run as a press release in the local papers and put it out on Facebook where it spread like wildfire.

2.  Brainstorm how you can maximize/build on what you have.  Example: For the set design disaster I mentioned in my opening, I sent teenagers on a frantic scramble for what little props we had in our props closet.  They were carrying down a couple of Greek columns that had been made out of styrofoam/cardboard and accidentally broke one of them.  I put our artistic crew to work re-designing the stage with broken columns and fires made out of old metal trash cans, cheap fans, colored floodlights and toilet paper. 

3. Be flexible enough to reshape your goals to work creatively with what you have.  Example: I had scheduled a major Christmas presentation and had written a beautiful vocal choral piece into the script.  Three weeks out from the production date the choir director told me they couldn't pull off this piece which was essential to the story line and artistic content of the production.  I took the recorded vocal piece and choreographed a dance to it instead.  It ended up being one of the highlights of the production.

Creativity costs nothing.  A creative approach will set you apart from all the rest who may simply be throwing dollars at a problem.  What is it that you have written off because you don't have enough money?  Perhaps it's worth a second look, from a different perspective.  Maybe all that's needed is a little more creativity.

Oh, what happened to the theatrical disaster I mentioned at the start of this? With absolutely no budget, but a very creative and hardworking team, we pulled off an incredible inspirational production with a dramatic set and packed out the 900 seat auditorium with over 1,000 showing up for a standing room only crowd.

Tell me about a creative solution you have come up with - I'd love to hear about it!