Meet The Beautiful Kingdom Warriors!
In my now two years posting at Challenging Tertullian, I have had the joy of connecting with lots of folks around the internet. Many are like minded, others not so much, all have been fun to interact with. As we engage with these issues, it’s like we’re all on a roller coaster, and of course roller coasters are better together.
Case in point. Monday’s post was re-blogged by the two women behind The Beautiful Kingdom Warriors, a blog aiming “to empower Christian women and girls to find our callings as co-warriors with our brothers in God’s Kingdom.”
Sounds awesome to me!
I’m grateful to TBKW for the repost, and I encourage you to check TBKW out on their site. In particular, I noticed two significant resource pages. If you’re interested in the things covered on Challenging Tertullian, TBKW and elsewhere, I highly recommend them!
There is a video resource page, with links to clips on topics ranging from theology to marriage to the media’s objectification of women here.
And then there is an extensive link page, with articles ranging from Biblical interpretation, God and gender and women in the Bible here.
Becky and Ruth, and all the readers over at The Beautiful Kingdom Warriors, I’m glad to be on the roller coaster alongside you!
Quick, Pass Me the Detergent!
Oh how I love to do laundry.
I mean it. And what’s not to love? For one thing, you get the satisfaction of serving the family. For another, it’s a job where you can see tangible, real-time results. And then there’s the intoxicating feeling of triumph when you’re folding the last load and you know that each and every laundry basket in the house is totally and completely empty. It’s awesome.
OK, I just broke down how doing laundry gives me joy. Hmmm.
Perhaps I need to rethink my definition of joy?!?
Or maybe not. Because there is evidence that when married couples share the household chore load, good things can happen.
For instance, this article refers to a recent Psychological Science piece that demonstrates a link between dads doing an equal share of the chore load and their little girls gaining a vision for vocations that are not traditionally feminine. You can find the full report here, but here’s the article’s abstract:
Gender inequality at home continues to constrain gender equality at work. How do the gender disparities in domestic labor that children observe between their parents predict those children’s visions for their future roles? The present research examined how parents’ behaviors and implicit associations concerning domestic roles, over and above their explicit beliefs, predict their children’s future aspirations. Data from 326 children aged 7 to 13 years revealed that mothers’ explicit beliefs about domestic gender roles predicted the beliefs held by their children. In addition, when fathers enacted or espoused a more egalitarian distribution of household labor, their daughters in particular expressed a greater interest in working outside the home and having a less stereotypical occupation. Fathers’ implicit gender-role associations also uniquely predicted daughters’ (but not sons’) occupational preferences. These findings suggest that a more balanced division of household labor between parents might promote greater workforce equality in future generations.
So, you’re telling me that by helping more around the house, I can expand the range of felt vocational options for my girls? You’re telling me that by sweeping the floor, my daughter might consider being an astronaut?!?
Yes please.
There’s good modeling for the kids, and then there’s this headline, from this recent Huffington Post article:
“Splitting Household Chores May Lead to Better, Hotter Married Sex.”
Alright.
Let’s have the researchers speak for themselves on this one:
“Couples who shared domestic labor had sex at least as often, and were at least as satisfied with the frequency and quality of their sex, as couples where the woman did the bulk of the housework,” Sassler writes. “In fact, these egalitarian partners were ranked slightly higher in all these categories, reporting more frequent sex and greater satisfaction with the frequency and quality of that sex than conventional couples.”
On this blog, and in my doctoral program, I talk a lot about inter-gender partnership in mission. That is, my focus is on the ministry context, and my conviction is that the mission of God will move ahead in greater measure when men and women can truly share the ministry load.
Good to know that the same thing seems true in marriages.
So I say pass me the dish towel. And the feather duster. Heck, where’s that toilet brush?!?
What’s the Opposite of Subtle?
While driving south on the 99 this morning, I noticed Tertullian.
Yep, right there by the side of the road:
Grr.
Another Language Rant
There’s no other feeling quite like it.
I’m talking about the feeling that comes with finding a unexpected–and absolutely perfect–academic source. It’s like finding the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack. It’s missiological serendipity. It’s God-ordained literary happenstance.
And, lucky me, it’s happened to me twice in the past month.
The first source was a 1958 manual describing how to create an InterVarsity group on campus. As I’m trying to understand InterVarsity’s journey with gender issues, it’s an ideal window into what staff were (and weren’t) thinking about 20 years into our organizational journey.
The second source is a magazine article. There I was, in the Fuller library, staring down more than 40 years worth of InterVarsity student leader magazines. The collection covered an entire shelf. Oh, and did I mention that there was no index?!?
Faced with the (seemingly) impossible task, and with a quick glance to the heavens, I pulled out the 1985 volume. Nada. Then I went back a year, opened the 1984 volume and…Eureka! An article from April 1985 entitled “Should a Woman Lead?”
What a feeling. What a coup. And, for the record, the answer was (and is) an emphatic “yes.”
In the middle of an overwhelming doctoral program, it’s the little things I guess…
That said, as I cull through my growing collection of old sources, one thing grates at my heart and soul. And so today I would like to rant a bit about:
Authors using masculine pronouns to talk about men and women, or about people.
Reading older sources is a continual experience in enduring gender exclusive language. For instance, in the 1958 manual, here’s one gem:
“InterVarsity Christian Fellowship confesses unequivocally that the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is central, that at this point in history the God-Man made an atonement for man’s sin, dying as man’s sacrifice, as man’s substitute.”
I read that and it sounds horrible to me. I literally wondered out loud the other day, “how on earth could the type-setter stomach that?!?”
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking the same thing my wife said in response to my out-loud query.
It was just the convention of the day. It was standard practice of the period. Speakers, writers, authors, editors, publishers just didn’t know any different. And, of course, you’re right. It sucks, but that’s how they did things.
So, I get it. Still, a couple of thoughts in response:
First, thank the Lord that, by and large, the convention has changed. I’m not sure quite when it happened (early 80s? Anyone know?), but, mercifully, as a culture we’ve generally moved on.
Second, I say “generally” because of course not everyone has. For example, just last year, the great state of Texas began to update their state documents with gender inclusive language. Or, just other day, I was researching a church’s theological position and I came across this line, from the section on regeneration:
“We believe all men are sinners by nature and by choice and are, therefore, under condemnation. We believe that those who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior are regenerated by the Holy Spirit.”
Ladies, evidently you’re good to go.
Lastly, let me once more issue a plea for all of us to carefully consider the words we use. In particular, let’s be thoughtful about our pronouns. Want some tips? I like this page, entitled “Guidelines for Gender-Fair Use of Language” from the National Council of Teachers of English.
As I’ve said before, language can include and welcome, or it can exclude and disenfranchise.
Let’s be people who choose the former.
Go Dr. Mirzakhani!
For those us with a built-in, inexplicable bias that somehow men are better at math than women…
Think again.
For the first time in history, a woman has become the recipient of the Fields Medal, the top award in the field. It’s the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Or an Oscar. Or the Wimbledon trophy.
Her name is Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani and she’s the first woman to win the Fields Medal since it was introduced in 1936. Awarded every 4 years to the world’s top mathematicians, 52 men have previously gone home with the award since it’s inception.
You might be wondering what she did to win the prize?
“What Maryam discovered is that in another regime, the dynamical orbits are tightly constrained to follow algebraic laws,” said Curtis T. McMullen, a professor at Harvard who was Dr. Mirzakhani’s doctoral adviser. “These dynamical systems describe surfaces with many handles, like pretzels, whose shape is evolving over time by twisting and stretching in a precise way. They are related to billiards on tables that are not rectangular but still polygonal, like the regular octagon.”
Simple. You know, “like pretzels…”
Here’s what Ingrid Daubechies, president of the International Mathematical Union, had to say about the historic first:
“All researchers in mathematics will tell you that there is no difference between the math done by a woman or a man, and of course the decision of the Fields Medal committee is based only on the results of each candidate,” she wrote. “That said, I bet the vast majority of the mathematicians in the world will be happy that it will no longer be possible to say that ‘the Fields Medal has always been awarded only to men.’ ”
As for Dr. Mirzakhani herself, here was her take:
“This is a great honor. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians,” Dr. Mirzakhani was quoted as saying in a Stanford news release on Tuesday. “I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years.”
May it be so. And as for the myth that men are better at math than girls?
Thanks to Dr. Mirzakhani…
It just doesn’t add up.
Finally, a Driscoll Post
Over the last two years, as I’ve been blogging at Challenging Tertullian, I’ve started but not finished a number of posts about Mark Driscoll.
Now, if you’re reading this, chances are you have heard of Mr. Driscoll. Megachurch pastor, best-selling (sort of, not really, never was) author, public face (along with several other pastors around the country) of a new, more muscular brand of evangelicalism.
And, most relevant to me, rhetorical firebrand when it comes to issues of faith and gender.
Mark Driscoll is currently under fire. Just the other day, Lifeway Bookstores announced that they would no longer carry Driscoll’s writings. And last week, Acts 29, a church planting consortium founded by Driscoll, cut ties with the pastor, in hopes that “the name of Christ will not continue to be dishonored.” Let me say that while I laud the move, I wish Acts 29 had attributed their decision specifically to Driscoll’s history of vitriolic words about women.
Before I continue, it is worth noting that Mark Driscoll has apologized, saying, “I was wrong to respond to people the way I did, using the language I used, and I am sorry for it and remain embarrassed by it.” It is also worth remembering that Mark Driscoll is a person and while we can and should challenge his words and actions, we ought not sin against him.
When I’ve started but not finished posts about Mark Driscoll, they have for the most part fallen into one of two categories.
When I’m particularly steamed at something that Driscoll has said or done, I’m tempted to rant about how he represents everything that’s wrong with modern-day evangelicalism. Once, when he described men who drive mini-vans as “mini-men,” I took one look in my garage, confirmed that, indeed, I drive a 2004 Chrysler Town & Country, and dreamt up the title of “Hey Mark Driscoll, Let’s Not Talk About Your ‘Mini-Man.'”
Not proud of that one.
OK, maybe a little…
Alternatively, there have been seasons where I’ve felt a degree of compassion, or perhaps pity, for Mark Driscoll. As in, maybe he hasn’t had, or hasn’t taken, opportunities to grow in his understanding of gender issues. Maybe he’s on a journey and we just need to nudge (or shove) him along. In fact, sometimes, it’s caused me to reflect with gratitude on my own journey. Once I cooked up a post entitled “I Could be Mark Driscoll.” It was sort of a “there but by the grace of God go I” piece.
This time, I think I’m ready to finish and post. Why? Because I think I now know where I stand on Mark Driscoll:
I think, more than anything else, that Mark Driscoll and his comments about women make the point that we must be vigilant and persistent with this conversation about male privilege in the church.
After all, some 1,800 years have passed between when Tertullian wrote this:
“You are the Devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that tree; you are the first foresaker of the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil was not brave enough to approach; you so lightly crushed the image of God, the man Adam.”
And when Driscoll wrote this, to a woman on an online discussion board:
“I speak harshly because I speak to men. A woman might not understand that. I also do not answer to women. So your questions will be ignored. I would however, recommend to you a few verses to memorize: I Timothy 2:11-15 I Corinthians 14:33-35.To learn them, ask your father or husband. If you have neither, ask your pastor. If she is a female, find another church. If you are the pastor, quit your job and repent.”
In my first post, I commented that statements like these represent “a school of thought of which Tertullian was one pupil. And here’s the thing, if you ask me, that school was in session before Tertullian, and, significantly, we’re all enrolled in it today.”
So when it comes to Mark Driscoll, here’s what’s troubling for me:
Because of his reach and influence, Driscoll is teaching in a very large classroom.
Making Room
Imagine being given an opportunity to really advance in your career, a once-in-a-blue-moon invitation that comes with compensation and, more importantly, a public soapbox to share your perspectives. Imagine the honor, the prestige, the platform.
And then imagine turning it down.
On principle.
Because of your convictions. About gender equality.
That’s exactly what U.C. Davis Biology Professor Jonathan Eisen did recently, when he opted to turn down an invitation to present a lecture at a prestigious university.
His reason?
After doing some poking around, he noticed that the lecture series had an awful gender ratio. Far more men than women would be presenting. And this in a field, biology, where the gender ratios tend to be pretty even. For Eisen, the skewed lecture ratio wasn’t good enough, and he decided to act. According to this article,
“On his “Tree of Life Blog” and elsewhere, Eisen has championed diversity, highlighting the lack of diversity at scientific seminars and conferences, where speakers and organizers tend to be white males.
“We need to think about whether or not we’re creating systems that are biased or supporting things that have some sort of discouragement,” Eisen said. “Every single one of these things is discouraging participation and advancement of certain groups.”
And, further,
“In 2012, he publicly shamed a quantitative biology conference for a male-to-female speaker ratio of 25:1. As part of his campaign, he submitted an abstract called “A quantitative analysis of gender bias in quantitative biology meetings.”
This year, the conference had a 7:6 invited male-to-female ratio, and next year, 12 male speakers and five female speakers have been confirmed.
Upon refusing the lectureship, Eisen received a reply from a representative of the institution; Eisen calls it one of the most positive responses he has received to his criticism, asking for his suggestions about whom to invite. He sent along four names: Ruth Ley at Cornell University, Katie Pollard of UC San Francisco, Jessica Green from the University of Oregon and Julie Segre at the National Health Genome Research Institute.”
There’s a lot to appreciate here.
First, Eisen’s awareness about what’s happening with the lectures. He did his research, and, based on his discovery, he acts. Gender equality is something that is on his screen. He is curious about it, and he’s on the lookout. To me responding in a godly way to privilege begins with admitting that it exists. Eisen does exactly that.
Second, for Eisen it goes beyond awareness, to a conviction that things are unjust. And what’s the solution? By not accepting the invite to the event, two things happen. One, Eisen makes a statement about injustice. He’s in the news. He sends a message. Next, Eisen makes that slot available for women. Simply put, by him not going, the ratio can be better. On top of that, he has 4 names of women who can fill his abandoned slot. In responding to the reality of male privilege, men need to commit to lay down their privilege in order to empower the women around them. Eisen provides us with a prime example.
Finally, in the big picture, Eisen knows that his discipline, biology, is better served when women and men are both empowered. He knows everyone is needed to, in this case, advance the body of academic knowledge. In the article, Eisen’s boss, Linda Katehi, the UCD chancellor, is quoted. She notes,
“While this is just one lectureship at one university, the reality is that this gender disparity has broad repercussions for our entire society, especially when you consider the loss of discovery and innovation due to a large segment of our population’s either not pursuing or ultimately leaving careers.”
Come to think of it, according to chancellor Katehi, this is beyond just the advancement of academic knowledge.
It’s about the advancement of our society, our culture, as a whole.
Imagine that.
Male Privilege in the Church
Last week my friends over at the Junia Project posted 10 ways that male privilege manifests itself in the church. The entire post is here, and here’s the bullet-pointed list:
1. A person’s male privilege is reflected the second he wonders why people are still talking about gender.
2. Male privilege means never having your intelligence or qualifications questioned because of your gender.
3. If you apply for a pastoral staff job, you can be sure your gender won’t be an issue.
4. If you perform the same task as a woman, chances are people will think you did a better job even if the outcomes were the same.
5. The governing boards of your church and denomination will be composed mostly of people of your same gender.
6. As a man, you are more likely to be trusted with responsibilities, even if you are new to the church.
7. When you attend church meetings you can be emotional or assertive without being thought of in a negative light.
8. Biblical characters of your own gender will be featured as primary subjects and as positive examples 90% of the time in the educational curriculum.
9. You can be confident that the language used in all aspects of corporate worship will always include you.
10. God will be pictured as male and described in masculine terms 90% of the time.
I think this list is spot-on, and I’d just like to add three more:
11. You get paid more than the woman who holds your same job at the church down the block. After all, there’s a wage gap, both in the culture and in the church.
12. You won’t be scrutinized over what you decide to wear. OK, as a guy you might get Fashion Police treatment if you go really wild with the outfit, but, for the most part, men get a pass while women get the critique.
13. When you speak, people will listen closer. And, as a man, you’ll get better eye contact, people will sit straighter, minds will wander less, etc. In general, to be a man in the church (or in the larger culture) is to automatically be given respect in communication.
What about you? Can you think of other examples?
Meet Pierce Beaver
I was going to post today about Mark Driscoll and his recently surfaced diatribes about women, but, frankly, my heart can’t take it. So I’ll save the Driscoll post for next Monday, when my rant will be a bit more (but only a bit more)…tempered. In the meantime, if you want a take on Driscoll’s latest shenanigans, let me send you to Rachel Held Evans here. For today, enough about Mark Driscoll…
Instead, allow me to introduce you to F. Pierce Beaver.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually associate “prophet” with “professor.” I mean, for me professor conjures images of leather briefcases, slightly boring lectures, tweed sports coats, and perhaps a pipe.
Prophets, on the other hand, are sometimes cranky, often loud and always provocative. And, in my mind, they don’t seek tenure, publish research or attend symposiums (unless it’s to rant and rave).
And so this is the thing that in my mind made Pierce Beaver unique.
He was both. Prophet and professor.
I was first introduced to Beaver in a journal article celebrating the 40th anniversary of the American Society of Missiology. One glance at the following quote, and I knew I had a new friend, and, more than that, I had my new mission statement:
“The missiologist is called to be the pioneer and to blaze the trail. The missionary will not escape from his (or her) uncertainty until the missiologist points the way, and the church will not move ahead in mission unless the missiologist sounds a ‘prophetic call.'”
See? Professor and prophet.
Dr. Beaver had a distinguished academic career. Beaver did his graduate studies at Cornell, gaining a Ph.D. in history. Next, after several pastoral assignments, along with a short stint as a missionary in China, Beaver spent 7 years as the leader of the Missionary Research Library in New York City before settling in as a professor at the University of Chicago, a post he held from 1955 until his retirement in 1973.
All in all, in the words of one of his former students, Beaver was “a modest, intellectually meticulous, warmly hospitable, academically demanding, genuinely spiritual man” whose primary concern was the advancement of the church’s mission in the world.
And, of course, as an academic, Dr. Beaver wrote a few books. Most notably, for this blog, in 1968 Dr. Beaver published a book entitled All Loves Excelling.
All Loves Excelling chronicles the remarkable story of the rise of the women’s missions movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. According to Beaver, the movement was sacrificial in nature, empowered by a high degree of zeal and conviction, able to persevere through misogynistic pushback and successful in producing funding, a paradigm for single, unmarried women serving in the missions field, and an awareness about the global plight of women and children.
Whew.
But maybe the most compelling thing about All Loves Excelling are the names. Page after page of names. Names of previously anonymous women who sacrificed everything to follow Jesus to the ends of the earth. Names of women who pushed through the patriarchy of their day to push open doors to create a channel for women to serve alongside men in the work of mission.
As we know, when you remember someone’s name you honor them.
And, in All Loves Excelling, Beaver certainly did that.
In the end, I’m not sure what I love more about F. Pierce Beaver and All Loves Excelling. On one hand, there’s the content. Who doesn’t love a collection of missionary stories and testimonies, particularly ones you’ve never heard before?
But the other thing I love is that Beaver wrote it at all. You see, here was one of the world’s foremost missiologists collecting and codifying the stories of obscure, long-deceased missionary women. At another level, here was a male scholar diving into a topic that few others did or presumably would.
So, sign me up. As a man following Jesus and thinking about my male privilege, I want to be less like Driscoll.
And more like F. Pierce Beaver.
If Only…
Awhile back, before I got subsumed into this powerful DMiss book eddy, I read Jimmy Carter’s latest book, entitled A Call to Action. It’s a book about the too-often-violent nexus of religion, power and the plight of women in the world. I’ve previously featured quotes from Carter here, here and, most recently, here.
As a follow-up to last Thursday’s post, I thought I would share another compelling and insightful quote:
“Violence against women remains one of the greatest ills of our time. It is shameful that for many women and girls walking in the streets, relaxing in parks, going to work, or even staying at home can become a brutal experience. When women and girls feel unsafe, half of humanity is unsafe. Violence against women and girls is perpetuated by centuries of male dominance and gender-based discrimination. But the roles that have traditionally been assigned to men and women in society are a human construct–there is nothing divine about them. Religious leaders have a responsibility to address these historic injustices. Respect for human dignity should not be dependent on whether one is a male or a female.”
In the spirit of Carter’s words, I want to share the following video. Thanks to a friend for sending it my way. May it be so that, increasingly, the religious among us take the lead in protecting, honoring and empowering women around the world.
Challenging Tertullian 