Another Week Ends: Ugly Anthropomorphism, Shaken Manchildren, Big Love, The Church's Cognitive Dissonance, March Madness, and the MoneyQuest for Happiness

Doing my best to fill in for DZ, who is currently gearing up for next week's conference.

1) A great article from the Times this week, discussing the recent tendency of creaturely films ("Rango" etc) to capture the creature in all of us:

THERE is a special kind of appeal to stories that lead us to the far boundary of the human and allow us a glance at what is on the other side, where the wild things are. What often comes into view out there is a projection of something buried deep within. That wolf in the bed, in grandma’s clothes, embodies some threatening animal emanation of the self, sexual or otherwise, lurking in disguise in our cozy domestic enclosures. Those invaders from outer space, preying on our cities, represent our own predatory, destructive urges in monstrous, alien form. And we can’t forget the vampires, whose cold glamour places them at the busy intersection of love and death, where our longings chase their morbid shadows.

The lizards, rodents and other creepy-crawlies that populate its desert landscape are far more grotesque to behold than traditional Disney fauna, but their ugliness only adds an extra frisson to the film’s charming anthropomorphism. We might recoil and squint at first, but by the time “Rango” is over, the reptiles are as cuddly as bunnies or the fish in “Finding Nemo” or the ants in “A Bug’s Life.”...And also as human.

2) This piece entitled "Men May Be Jerks...But Women Are Insane", explores the laws and demands of gender identity in today's "manchild culture," from a woman's perspective. For a laugh, The Onion, too, has something to say (ht JS).
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Conference Preview: Grace for Single Moms

From Andrea Zimmerman, who, with her husband Aaron, will lead one of our breakout sessions on Friday morning at the upcoming 2011 Mockingbird Conference.

“Am I allowed to come to Christmas services at your church with my boys?”

An unwed mother with two small children asked me this question a few days before Christmas. Her church did not allow her to participate in services because she had children out of wedlock. Even though she had already visited our church twice, she couldn’t believe that we would actually allow her to participate, much less at a “special” service. She is not alone. Many unwed or divorced mothers feel this way about the church (And this is not a small group of people: 40% of children born in the US today are born to unwed mothers). Many families who have children with special needs feel the same way (95% of these families do not go to church).

For these folks, the church doors have seemed shut for so long.

What if the church were a place a teen mom could raise her child with loving, hands-on support? Or a place where a battered mom and her kids could start over with the community found in the local church? What if there was a group of people within the church to help a child with special needs and his family to thrive? What kind of theology creates the climate for such a ministry? What is the foundation--the undergirding theological perspective that guides a ministry like this?Our church asked that question. The result was Side by Side. During the Friday morning breakout session, my husband and I will share our church’s experience of founding and expanding a ministry to single mothers and to families who have children with special needs. We’ll share the stories of some of the families who have been helped. And we’ll explain our grace-infused theological foundation. And we’ll share the practical steps that have given rise to the surprisingly rapid growth of this ministry and caused other churches to catch on. We’ll also have materials available for those interested in bringing this ministry to their churches.

The conference is filling up--Register soon!

(Image: Rhonda Bowman)

Another Week Ends: Grace & Cutting, Depression & Recession, David Foster Wallace, Burned-Over Generations, Greg McElroy, Supernatural, Arcade Fire

1. Continuing this past month's unexpected foray into gender-related topics (i.e. here, here, here and here), Christianity Today published a doozie of an article earlier this week on its Her.meneutics site, "The Gospel of Grace for Women Who Self-Injure". A couple lines from the conclusion (ht DB):

I’m not surprised that self-punishing behaviors occur among Christians. And this is not to blame the church. For legalism — and I would argue that this is what these behaviors are at their core — comes in guises both religious and secular. The desire to control the destiny of a few moments, if not our lives, is a fact of the human condition. But it is a fact that directly opposes the gospel of grace. 

Also female-related, from Medical News Daily (aka Captain Obvious: The Journal) is "Mean Girls and Queen Bees: Females Under Threat of Social Exclusion Respond by Excluding Others First".

2. On the male side of things, and following-up the Man-Child post, Time reports on the impact the recession appears to be having on rates of depression among men, challenging the accepted finding that the condition is more prevalent among ladies, ht TB.

3. Speaking of men and depression, it's been a big week for David Foster Wallace. The New Yorker published an excerpt of his new book The Pale King, "Backbone". To compare the published version with the version he read publicly a few years prior, go here. I also came across a terrific discussion/defense of his fiction by Rebekah Frumkin on The Common Review, entitled "Our Psychic Living Room", which includes a variation of one of our favorite quotes from the man himself via a 1996 interview (ht CR):

The sadness that [Infinite Jest] is about, and that I was going through [when I wrote it], was a real American type of sadness. I was white, upper-middle-class, obscenely well-educated, had had way more career success than I could have legitimately hoped for and was sort of adrift. A lot of my friends were the same way. Some of them were deeply into drugs, others were unbelievable workaholics. Some were going to singles bars every night. You could see it played out in 20 different ways, but it’s the same thing. . . . I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values.

4. By way of self-promotion, Modern Reformation just published "Compassion, Creativity and Connecting with a Burned-Over Generation" by yours truly, which outlines some of the thinking behind Mockingbird, in case you were curious. I'm proud to say I was able to sneak Axl Rose, Michael Jackson, Whit Stillman, Oscar Wilde, Stuart Murdoch, and David Foster Wallace into the party. UPDATE: Mod Ref has been kind enough to unlock the article, so it's now available in its entirety on their site, for free! For more Reformation goodness, be sure to check out their considerably more tricked-out sister site, The White Horse Inn, and then head over to New Reformation Press to hear Rod Rosenbladt's stunning new must-hear sermon "Christianity in Five Verses." It's raining Reformation!
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Man-Children and the Women That (Don't) Love Them

When did The Wall Street Journal become the go-to place for provocative social commentary? An editorial by Kay Hymowitz entitled "Where Have All The Good Men Gone?" has been raising plenty of eyebrows this past week, doubling as a gender specific follow-up to this past summer's landmark NY Times article about The Age 30 Deadline (not to mention last week's conversation about high-school wrestling). Both articles explore the identity politics of "extended adolescence"/"pre-adulthood" in fascinating ways, and both hit on the various contradictions involved in the culture of self-definition. There might be a slight note of "woe-are-they" buried in here, but the observations themselves about the man-child phenomenon seem sound, that the law of human identity in this case (i.e. who society tells us we must and should be) is literally killing love. Much of this, of course, has been played out/mirrored in the church - and I know some would point to "secularlization" as a key part of the problem. But regardless what you see as the root cause, there's a lot of food for thought:

The knowledge economy gives the educated young an unprecedented opportunity to think about work in personal terms. They are looking not just for jobs but for "careers," work in which they can exercise their talents and express their deepest passions. They expect their careers to give shape to their identity. For today's pre-adults, "what you do" is almost synonymous with "who you are," and starting a family is seldom part of the picture.

Unlike adolescents, however, pre-adults don't know what is supposed to come next. For them, marriage and parenthood come in many forms, or can be skipped altogether. In 1970, just 16% of Americans ages 25 to 29 had never been married; today that's true of an astonishing 55% of the age group. In the U.S., the mean age at first marriage has been climbing toward 30 (a point past which it has already gone in much of Europe). It is no wonder that so many young Americans suffer through a "quarter-life crisis," a period of depression and worry over their future.
---------------

American men have been struggling with finding an acceptable adult identity since at least the mid-19th century. We often hear about the miseries of women confined to the domestic sphere once men began to work in offices and factories away from home. But it seems that men didn't much like the arrangement either. They balked at the stuffy propriety of the bourgeois parlor, as they did later at the banal activities of the suburban living room. They turned to hobbies and adventures, like hunting and fishing. At midcentury, fathers who at first had refused to put down the money to buy those newfangled televisions changed their minds when the networks began broadcasting boxing matches and baseball games. The arrival of Playboy in the 1950s seemed like the ultimate protest against male domestication; think of the refusal implied by the magazine's title alone.
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God...and High School Wrestling?!?!

If you watch SportsCenter, or read ESPN.com, you'll have heard about Cassy Herkelman's victory over Joel Northrup at the Iowa state high school wrestling tournament to become the first girl in the history of the tournament to win a match. The twist? Northrup defaulted, rather than wrestle her.

The reasons Northrup gave for his decision to default were that "wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner." By invoking God, Northrup invoked the wrath of notable ESPN.com columnist and Damon Runyon Award winner for "outstanding contributions to sports journalism" Rick Reilly. In his February 19 column, Reilly wrote that God has no place on the wrestling mat. When the other competitors, including the Herkelmans, praised Northrup for being "strong in his religion" and claimed that "you have to respect that," Reilly asked why:

"Does any wrong-headed decision suddenly become right when defended with religious conviction? In this age, don't we know better? If my God told me to poke the elderly with sharp sticks, would that make it morally acceptable to others?"

Now, I have several problems with Reilly's stance on this matter. First of all, his argument (if it can be called that) is a classic straw man. He sets up something that is obviously flawed (the comparison between Northrup's decision and poking the elderly with sharp sticks) just so he can knock it down. There is an obvious, and huge, difference, between a person declining to participate in an event (passivity) because they believe the are doing what God has required of them and actively engaging in the wounding of others for the same reason. It feels silly even to type it. Clearly, there are sins of passivity: when we say that confession each week, we confess our sins, both things done and left undone. But it is ultimately a fool's errand to decide what God has called a certain person to do, and whether or not that person is being faithful to that call.

My larger issue with Reilly is his claim that God shouldn't be involved at all. What good is religious conviction if there are limits to its applicability. Reilly's use of the phrase "in this age, don't we know better" is particularly troubling. Such language has been used to shunt God off to a supposedly impotent corner so that we can do just what we want with supposed impunity. I say "supposedly" and "supposed" because God is not impotent and we remain liable for the things we do. God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7).

Again, I am not making "sinful" or "righteous" assignations to Northrup's decision. I am merely suggesting that while, as Reilly rightly notes, it does not "say in the Bible not to wrestle against girls? Or compete against them? What religion forbids the two-point reversal?," it is imprudent to suggest that there are areas of our lives, be they our sexual mores, our business practices, or our wrestling strategies, that are free from the touch of God's power.

And what of other things we hold dear, better than which, "in this age," we seem to know? Like the idea that we are not ultimately judged according to our deeds or that a criminal's death can save the world? In some sense, Reilly's appeal to "this age" undercuts his own argument. This age is twisted like any other, and, despite our protestations, we don't know any better.

Women Are More Forgiving Than Men?

At long last, the truth is out! A brief and very interesting but - let's face it - pretty inconsequential report from Medical News Today, concerning a study from The University of the Basque Country, ht JD:

According to the study, parents forgive more than children, while women are better at forgiving than men... "A decisive factor in the capacity to forgive is empathy, and women have a greater empathetic capacity than males", Carmen Maganto, co-author of the study and a tenured professor at the Psychology Faculty of the UPV, tells SINC.

What drives forgiveness? Children believe that "one forgives with time", while parents point to reasons such as "remorsefulness and forgiving the other person" and "legal justice".

The authors of this study say that parents who have forgiven most over the course of their lives have an increased capacity to forgive "in all areas". Parents and children use similar definitions of forgiveness. Not bearing a grudge, reconciliation and understanding-empathy are the terms most used by both groups to define forgiveness.

However, there are greater differences between men and women. Both see "not bearing a grudge" as the best definition of forgiveness, but men place greater importance on this characteristic.

Hmmm....

Sweden's Ongoing War Against Sexism

The last time Mockingbird looked, Swedish clerics were deeply worried about girls there who wanted their fathers to "give them away" in the marriage ceremony. Swedish concern most recently has extended to men, brutally victimized by boxer shorts. Here's our latest update (thanks again to JD).

===============

A Swedish advertisement featuring a muscular man clad only in a pair of boxer shorts has been condemned as offensive to men as it portrays them as "mere sex objects". Sweden's advertising ombudsman upheld a complaint against the advertisement, promoting a television operator called Boxer, in which a photo shop character called Robert stretches out on a sheepskin rug wearing only a pair of straining, white boxer shorts.

"Even if the intention was to present a humorous link between the man and product, the man is presented, through his posture and lack of clothing, as a mere sex object in a way that could be deemed offensive to men in general," the ombudsman's office wrote in a statement. It added that Robert's "legs, chest, arms and abdomen are very muscular, and the outline of his genitalia is visible through his underpants". The statement underlined Sweden's apparently unwavering commitment to sexual equality, which has made it one of the most gender equal societies in the world.

Boxer, which has used Robert to help advertise its packages of cable television channels for about 10 years, defended its position. In a statement, the company dismissed the accusation of sexism, saying that through almost a decade of a service Robert was known as "disarmingly sympathetic, almost over courteous and in some sense the pastiche of a geek."

Joan Rivers Just Wants To Be Loved

After reading one glowing review too many, I reluctantly watched the new documentary about Joan Rivers this week, A Piece of Work.  It's filthy and more than a little disturbing - I certainly don't feel comfortable recommending it - but it's also about as unflinching in its honesty about show business, aging, career and, to beat an (un-)dead horse, achievement as anything I've seen, well, ever. Sort of a Hollywood counterpart to Scorcese's terrific Frannie Lebowitz doc, Public Speaking, albeit considerably more profane and tragic, and a whole lot nastier - you have to laugh or you'll cry. Although there's some interesting gender commentary mixed in, A Piece of Work mainly functions as a cautionary tale about ambition, depicted here as pure fear-motivated self-aggrandizement and therefore an engine of profound sadness, the extreme situation that sheds light on all others. The writer for The Worchester Telegram of all places highlighted two of the more poignant moments:

Rivers never remarried after the suicide of her husband, Edgar. At one point, we see her on a radio talk show talking about plastic surgery and the superficiality of looks. Doesn’t she want to be loved for her soul? asks the hostess. Rivers replies, “I just want to be loved.”

The documentary is at times hysterical, cringe-worthy and achingly sad. Many critics have focused on Rivers’ obsession with celebrity, but I think they miss the point that, as an older female in show business, she’s also obsessed with staying young and relevant. If she wants to keep working, she has to be. And she’s clearly not ready to retire, explaining that her desire to perform is a sense of calling.

“Ask a nun why she’s a nun,” she says. “I had no choice.” 

This clip from the Associated Press, which unlike most of the movie, is safe for work, and is pretty good too:

DFW on Fear and Love

1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

From the short story Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace, collected in Oblivion. Narrator posthumously (sadly, foretellingly) recounts his meetings with his psychotherapist:

"For instance, it turned out that one of his basic operating premises was the claim that there were really only two basic, fundamental orientations a person could have toward the world, (1) love and (2) fear, and that they couldn't coexist (or, in logical terms, that their domains were exhaustive and mutually exclusive, or that their two sets had no intersection but their union comprised all possible elements, or that

(ψx)((Fx - ~(Lx)) & (Lx - ~ (Fx))) & ~ ((эx) (~(Fx) & ~(Lx)),

meaning in other words that each day of your life was spent in service to one of these masters or the other, and 'One cannot serve two masters' - the Bible again - and that one of the worst things about the. the conception of competitive, achievement-oriented masculinity that America supposedly hardwired into its males was that it caused a more or less constant state of fear that made genuine love next to impossible. That is, that what passed for love in American men was usually just the need to be regarded in a certain way, meaning that today's males were so constantly afraid of 'not measuring up' (Dr. G's phrase, with evidently no pun intended) that they had to spend all their time convincing others of their masculine 'validity' (which happens to also be a term from formal logic) in order to ease their own insecurity, making genuine love next to impossible.

Although it seemed a little bit simplistic to see this fear as just a male problem (try watching a girl stand on a scale sometime), it turns out that Dr. Gustafson was very nearly right in his concept of the two masters - though not in the way that he, when alive and confused about his own real identity believed - and even while I played along by pretending to argue or not quite understand what he was driving at, the idea struck me that maybe the real root of my problem was not fraudulence but a basic inability to really love . . . ."

Another Week Ends: Seminarian Plagiarism, Disney's Decline, DCAU, Mad Men, MJ

1. Our Pensacola mini-conference is underway! If you live in the area, don't be afraid to drop in unannounced... We would love to see you. And those of you that don't live in the area, don't be afraid to say a prayer in support.

2. An unsettling firsthand account of professional plagiarism over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled "The Shadow Scholar", the most arresting portion for us being (ht AZ):

I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow. I have been commissioned to write many a passionate condemnation of America's moral decay as exemplified by abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution. All in all, we may presume that clerical authorities see these as a greater threat than the plagiarism committed by the future frocked.

3. A worthy look at Disney's conflicted relationship with its religious past over at First Things, through the lens of Armond White's review of Disney's current PC-schlock-fest Tangled. The always provocative White employs Mbird faves Carl Dreyer, Hans Christian Anderson, and The Pet Shop Boys among others to make his point. He writes:

We’ve accustomed ourselves to the formula by which a family movie designed to pacify children is considered innocuous, but we cannot ignore the ramifications of entertainment concepts that move away from profundity or that deny audiences the persuasiveness and the confirmation of epiphany.

Religion offers a way to understand our human impulses; popular culture has become a way to muddle them. That’s the theme the Pet Shop Boys identify in [their new project, a musical adaptation of] Hans Christian Andersen’s “Most Incredible Thing”; it’s also exemplified by the commercial corruptions that Tangled performs on the tale of Rapunzel. In his classic study The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, psychologist Bruno Bettelheim argued that readers “find folk fairy tales more satisfying than all other children’s stories” because “fairy tales carry important messages to the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious mind, on whatever level each is functioning at the time.” As pop culture gets away from faith, it also abandons its most important social function, confusing rather than uniting our humanity. It will take faith to raise corrupted pop culture from the dead. 

4. New York publishes two curiously affirming profiles of evangelical figures in one week!
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Another Week Ends: Franzen's Freedom, Strippers at Church, Hairdryers, Gender Jokes, Sufjan and Arcade Fire

1. The reviews for Freedom, Jonathan Franzen's much-anticipated follow-up to 2001's The Corrections, are in, and terms like "America's Greatest Novelist" are once again being thrown around, with the decline of the novel itself being re-evaluated as well. Personally, I love Franzen's work, especially his essays (he's got a great one about his involvement in youth ministry growing up) and will be first in line on the 31st. Time Magazine has gone so far as to put him on their cover, the first time they've done so with a living novelist in ten years. Their profile is only moderately interesting, my favorite bit being Franzen's take on busyness and books:

There are any number of reasons to want novels to survive. The way [Jonathan] Franzen thinks about it is that books can do things, socially useful things, that other media can't. He cites -- as one does -- the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and his idea of busyness: that state of constant distraction that allows people to avoid difficult realities and maintain self-deceptions. With the help of cell phones, e-mail and handheld games, it's easier to stay busy, in the Kierkegaardian sense, than it's ever been.

Reading, in its quietness and sustained concentration, is the opposite of busyness. "We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we've created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our way, that more than ever to immerse yourself in an involving book seems socially useful," Franzen says. "The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world."

The NY Times Book Review calls it a "masterpiece of American fiction" and describes one of the themes of the book, saying:

As each of us seeks to assert his “personal liberties” — a phrase Franzen uses with full command of its ideological implications — we helplessly collide with others in equal pursuit of their sacred freedoms, which, more often than not, seem to threaten our own. It is no surprise, then, that “the personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage,” as Franzen remarks. And the dream will always sour; for it is seldom enough simply to follow one’s creed; others must embrace it too. They alone can validate it.

2. A follow-up to last week's shocking video about strippers and church. Sounds like they're working things out! ht JZ.

3. The latest innovation in the world of New Atheism is pretty clever: A hairdryer, for de-baptizing. Points for creativity! On a less amusing note, Leisl Schillinger's article in the NY Times "Christopher Hitchens, Not Going Gently," clearly meant to strike a note of quiet admiration for a man "sticking to his guns," instead comes across as surprisingly naive, and even a bit silly. That is, it doesn't stick to its own annihilationist guns, which the man himself did in his recent interview with The Atlantic. It made me particularly sad to read a quote from the great Martin Amis about immortality being something that can be achieved through art. As if...

4. If you're in need of an additional chuckle, The Onion reports, "Person With Almost No Responsibility Constantly Stressed Out." And then there's Harvard Sailing Team's hilarious mirror takes on gender politics, "Girls Will Be Boys" and "Boys Will Be Girls." I could say something about original sin being evenly distributed, or about the law of gender being as confining as it is arbitrary, but it's mainly just really funny [warning: slight vulgarity - ht DB].

5. In music, apparently Sufjan Stevens just released a new EP, a couple of hours ago, entitled All Delighted People. And Arcade Fire's recent tour of primetime culminated in a pretty terrific performance on The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Arcade Fire - Ready to Start
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

P.S. If you haven't checked out our Resources pages recently, you're missing out! There's a bunch of new sermons up.

Sexism in Sweden: Revisionist Nuptials

Mockingbird's Jeff Dean found this hot story about Sweden's princess, who has created a scandal by having her father "give her away" at the ceremony:

The controversy surrounds the church's view that walking down the aisle together shows that the spouses are equal and they take the act of the father giving his daughter away as sexist....

...The church is hoping that this decision by the princess will not encourage other brides to do the same thing. Today, one in 10 Swedish brides are given away....

... "We've got a carefully worked-out position on this matter in the Swedish church [said priest and theologian Annika Borg] "and in the future it is going to be very hard for us to resist requests from brides who want to be given away."

=====================

Personally I think the image of stern Swedish clerics forcing their young girls to be free, over and against an impending tsunami of Swedish-girl-rebellion in favor of sexism, is just too marvelous for words. Few things have given me keener pleasure this year.

Women, Food and God (and Oprah)

If you've been paying attention, you know that last week Oprah Winfrey announced that she's never dieting again. Her decision was apparently prompted by reading the book Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. I tend to tune out Oprah when it relates to anything religious or self-esteem-y, so I was definitely surprised to find some powerful (even familiar) ideas at work here, and ones that are by no means restricted to the fairer sex. From a post on the topic over at That's Fit:

Roth firmly believes that your relationship with weight is a disguise for your relationship with yourself. 

"We turn to food when we are not hungry because we are hungry for something we cannot name. A connection to what is beyond the concerns of daily life, something sacred. But replacing the hunger for a divine connection with Double Stuf Oreos is like giving a glass of sand to a person who's dying of thirst."

The more you recognize your inner problems, anxiety or discomfort, the better your relationship will be not only with food but of course with your soul.  You'll be happier, and the weight will fall off more naturally. "You keep trying to feed yourself with that which cannot feed you," Oprah said. "I turn to food because if I deal with whatever it is I have to deal with in the moment, I'm going to fall apart."

Her words reminded me of a passage from Who Will Deliver Us? that Drake highlighted a while ago, about the Gospel in relation to the "assimilation of negativity":
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Plus-Size Models and Self-Esteem

A new study from Arizona State University has found that advertisements featuring plus-size models actually decrease women's self-esteem rather than increase it. Not quite sure what this means but definitely something legal, if you catch my drift. Perhaps something about how shifting the expectations of Law doesn't ameliorate its affect/nature? ht JD:

“We found that overweight consumers demonstrated lower self-esteem – and therefore probably less enthusiasm about buying products – after exposure to any size models in ads (versus ads with no models). Also, normal-weight consumers experienced lower self-esteem after exposure to moderately heavy models, such as those in Dove soap’s ‘Real Women’ campaign, than after exposure to moderately thin models. 

Thinner women tended to experience a boost in self-esteem when they viewed all models because they identified positively with the thinner models and saw themselves as different from the heavier models. Heavier women dropped in self-esteem when looking at all models because they saw themselves as different from the thinner, idealized ones and similar to the overweight models. 'Normal' women had the most shifts in self-esteem, depending on what types of images they saw and could therefore be the most influenced by pictures in ads. For example, if they viewed a moderately thin model, they felt similar and good; if they saw a moderately heavy model, they worried they were similar and overweight.

These findings could be used to prompt changes in behavior. For example, if a normal-size woman sees moderately heavy images in ads for weight-loss products, she might feel overweight and be more inclined to buy a diet plan or gym membership. The same premise could apply to using heavy images in public service announcements aimed at fighting the obesity epidemic.

More Choices = Unhappiness?

This past weekend one of the Op-Ed pieces in the NYTimes caught my eye. Maureen Dowd's column, entitled "Blue Is the New Black", focused on the trend that women have grown unhappier since the 1970s. She cites "the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, [which show] women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier."

What I found most interesting was the general conclusion about why this is happening. Women have more choice than ever before and, as a result, are now subject to more potential "law". Dowd writes:

Marcus Buckingham, a former Gallup researcher who has a new book out called “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently,” writes in his new blog on The Huffington Post, “Though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men, as they age, they gradually become less happy,” pointing out that this darker view covers feelings about marriage, money and material goods.

Buckingham and other experts dispute the idea that the variance in happiness is caused by women carrying a bigger burden of work at home, the “second shift.” They say that while women still do more cooking, cleaning and child-caring, the trend lines are moving toward more parity, which should make them less stressed.

When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands — and stress — on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties — and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.

“Choice is inherently stressful,” Buckingham said in an interview. “And women are being driven to distraction.”

The irony of this is that we humans will claw tooth and nail to defend our ability to choose, believing that having a choice is the key to our freedom. But the evidence presented in this column argues the opposite. Choice does not make one free (or at least happy), especially choice that exists under a world of standards. For our choices to be free they have to be made outside of the realm of judgment, outside of the Law, but as women are apparently discovering more than ever, they are not. Our choices, because we live under the Law, only increase the potential for comparison, judgment, and condemnation. More choice creates more burden.

Dowd sums up her column by citing Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.” Stevenson looks on the bright side of the dark trend, suggesting that happiness is beside the point. We’re happy to have our newfound abundance of choices, she said, even if those choices end up making us unhappier.

A paradox, indeed.

Is there hope? Thankfully, Christianity is not about setting us free from not having choices, but rather about setting us free from the sin that binds all of our choices under the judgment of the Law. For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. - Romans 7:11

But because of the cross of Christ we have this promise: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. - Romans 6:14

Oh, and in case you think I am saying that only women are suffering under the burden of choice:

"Are You there Jesus? It's Me, Woman.": Order, Submission, and Headship

This is part "four" in a four part series. For the introduction to the series, first part on creation, second part on the fall, and the third part on Jesus, click here , here , here and here, respectively.

In the previous post of this series, we looked at Luke 10:38-42 and the reality of the restoration of woman to God. We can now evaluate (or re-evaluate) submission and headship derived from Paul and his letters.

The Created Order. Man is not completely man without the creation of and the initiated relationship with woman (Gen. 2:18-24). Though he was man prior to the woman’s creation, it was not until her creation that he was able to know that he was man—man in relationship with woman and, by experience of this relationship, in relationship with God. The same holds true for woman—without the creation of and received relationship with man, woman is not woman. It takes a Thou to emphasize the I. “You are; therefore, we are; therefore, I am” (Les Fairfield). So, is there inherent hierarchy implied by the order of creation? The order of the relationship between man and woman is both inequitable [dissimilar] and non-interchangeable [‘A’ and a ‘B’, not an ‘A’ and an interchangeable, equal (similar) second ‘A’] (Barth III/iv 168). “A precedes B, and B follows A. Order means succession. It means preceding and following….[but] it does not mean any inequality between those who stand in this succession…”(III/iv 169-70, emphasis mine). In terms of A and B, A not being greater than B in value, we see that A is not truly A without B and vice versa. B follows A, not because it is inferior but because A was/is first.

Submission. The emphasis on submission within the NT (1 Cor. 14:34; Col. 3:18; Eph. 5:21, 24; 1 Tim. 2:11; Tit. 2:5; 1 Pet. 3:1) is not “…to be conceived on the analogy of the relationship between subject and prince, subordinate and superior, or chattel and owner…” (Barth III/iv 172). In fact, “In [Eph. 5:22] there is no absolute decree enjoining women always to take, or to be bound to, an inferior place. On the contrary, the call to [submission] is qualified…by the overarching exhortation which calls for mutual [submission]…” (Marcus Barth 621). A woman submits not because of man’s authority, but because of Christ’s authority; both submit to this same authority. “It is not saying too much to comment that in so far as man in his sphere is obedient to the direction of the same Lord of the same [authority] he ipso facto

subordinates himself to woman” (Barth, III/iv 172). As both submit to Christ’s authority, both man and woman submit to each other—Love flows into love flows into love. A woman so overwhelmed by the Christ inspired love of a man will love in response. Much like the woman in the Song of Solomon “…awaits her lover’s coming and the ever-new experience of his love with fear and trembling¹” (Marcus Barth 649-50)².

Headship (1 Cor. 11:2-16)³. Commonly, the word translated as “head”, “headship”, or “male headship” is defined as “authority”—and, in some circles, defined as “source”. However, there is a third way to look at the term “head” (and its related terms). Head contains the notion of “that which is glorified”. When looking at the relationships Paul uses in verse 3⁴—Christ the head of man, man the head of woman, God the head of Christ—one may notice that one part of the coupling is the person/being that is glorified and that the other part is the agent by which the glorification occurs (i.e. woman glorifies man, man is glorified by woman). This glorification is not the realization of a selfish desire for glorification by the one in detriment to the other. Rather, there is mutual reciprocity within the relationships (Thiselton 804). As one is glorified so is the other part (Thiselton 804). In other words, to take the example of Christ as the head of man—Christ is not glorified out of selfish motive, but to the contrary, his glorification is inseparable from his own sacrifice. In the same way, the other relationships enumerated in this verse are inextricably linked to a sacrifice made on the part of the party being glorified.

In Ancient literature, head was often applied to the most honored or prominent part (Keener 92; also, Barth III/iv 173-4). One could even use the terms: preeminent, foremost, and synecdoche (representative) for a whole for the translation of head, “The public face is linked with responsibility and representation in the public domain, since head is both the part of a person which is most conspicuous and that by which they are most readily distinguished or recognized. These aspects feature more frequently and prominently in first-century Greek texts than either the notions of ruler or source… (821, emphasis Thiselton’s). Each of the secondary (not inferior) parts of the relationships glorify their corresponding primary parts “by which they [the secondary aspects] are most readily distinguished or recognized” (Thiselton804). Knowing Jesus, we know God; knowing woman, we know man; knowing redeemed man we know Jesus. If head is translated in this way, there is reciprocity and mutuality between the two parts of the relationships (including man and woman), rather than subjection as manifested in the curse. In this passage, Paul draws his audience back to the Garden of Gen. 2 and proclaims: As it was then, so it is now…again.

She watched as he approached her from across the room. When he neared, he extended his hand to her. She stood still and didn’t respond. He smiled and asked, “Will you?” She looked inquisitively at him and, slowly, put her hand in his. He gently wrapped his fingers around hers and pulled her toward him. The music played in the background; they started to move. Slowly. She felt awkward at first pulled up against him participating in a motion, nearly unfamiliar to her; he seemed to know what to do and guided them both. She followed and eventually picked up the beat and the rhythm, familiarity of this interaction returned to her mind and heart. She had done this before. She raised her head from starring at her feet to look into his eyes. Their glance interlocked and they began to move as one…as if they were truly one. She smiled and let her head dip back and laughed as he twirled her. It had been years, but they were once again dancing.

"Hello, Woman. It's Me, Jesus.": Jesus, Mary, and Martha

This is part "three" in a four part series. For the introduction to the series, the first part on creation, and the second part on the Fall, click here , here , and here respectively.

The Gospel of Luke. One of the major themes of Luke’s Gospel is the reality of the restoration of the marginalized and the oppressed of society (1:52), offering a new lens through which to look upon the world (Green 11). Through Jesus, God actively intervenes within the world; not simply making an entrance, but—through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension—actively restoring humanity to Himself. Simeon’s blessing, in Lk 2:29-35, is an allusion to the Septuagint (Is. 49:6) and is being used to verify that the restoration of Israel to God is through Jesus (Tiede 285). The book of Acts (13:47, 26:23, and 28:28), also composed by Luke, uses the same allusions to Is 49:6—first to the twelve (Acts 1:12-26) and then to all nations under heaven (Tiede 286). In Acts 15:16 and in Luke 13:13, when talking about the rebuilding of the tent of David and the healing of the blind woman, respectively, Luke uses the Greek word translated as get straight, which is typically used to denote the concept of Restoration in Christ¹. To read the Gospel of Luke is to read about the temporal/physical manifestation of restoration of humanity to God through Jesus.

Bearing in mind this theme in Luke’s Gospel, it is important to notice the way in which women are given a significant place in the narrative—not just as interesting characters in a story, but as direct participants with Jesus and the disciples and recipients of His abundant, overflowing love. “In the first century, women were kept very much in their place. But Luke sees them as the objects of God’s love and he writes about many of them” (Morris 41). The Gospel illustrates Jesus radically departing typical social conventions while extending God’s mercy to women (Culpepper 24-5). “…[H]e specifically includes women among those for whom the coming of the kingdom is good news and points to the inauguration of a new community in which freedom, dignity, and equality may be realized” (Culpepper 24-5).

Mary and Martha and Jesus (Lk 10:38-42^{2, 3, 4}). In this passage, Luke tells of a specific interaction between Mary, Martha, and Jesus and points out the two differing actions of the two women—Martha welcomes Jesus into their home, and Mary sits at Jesus feet while he teaches. An important aspect of this passage is the Greek word that is translated as, “who sat at…”, which not only describes Mary’s actions but also describes her directly—“the one who is at Jesus’ feet.” Mary—as this “one”—sits in the place reserved for disciples. “That a woman has this position is somewhat unusual… Jesus’ ministry breaks molds...” (Bock 1040).

The picture is that of a rabbi instructing his pupil. The extraordinary feature is that the pupil is a woman. Judaism did not forbid women to be instructed in the Torah. But it was very unusual for a rabbi to “lower himself” to this. In the social system of the time women were a ‘rejected’ group, and Luke pays considerable attention to the acceptance which Jesus accords them (Ellis 162).

In Luke 10:39, we have an image of the in-breaking/restoration event for women: Jesus stooping so low to teach Torah to a woman.

As Mary sits, Martha is dutifully fulfilling her culturally assigned role, but too distracted to focus on Jesus, the incarnate Word of God (Culpepper 231). Jesus lovingly addresses her (“Martha, Martha…” v.41), and expresses his concern. Yet, just at the moment when one might expect Jesus to tell Mary to help her sister, He doesn’t. Rather, he subverts the traditional social role (v.42a). The love of God and harkening to his Word trumps everything else. Mary exemplifies what it means to be so enraptured by Jesus and so consumed with His love that her love for Him pours out—not from her own source of love or striving, but in response to the One who is the Source of all love. Mary, in love, can do nothing else but listen to Him and be in His presence—this is the “good portion” (v.42b). She placed herself at His feet, and disregarded the typical role first century Jewish society had carved out for her. Green writes,

What is this ‘one thing,’ this ‘better part’ Mary has chosen? She is fixed on the guest, Jesus, and his word; she heeds the one whose presence is commensurate with the coming of the kingdom of God. With Jesus’ presence the world is being reconstituted, with the result that…Mary (and, with her, those of low status accustomed to living on the margins of society) need no longer be defined by socially determined roles…(437).

Jesus affirms that this choice will not be taken away from Mary (v.42c), and simultaneously affirms Mary’s “radical violation of Palestinian social roles” (Culpepper 232). This is not a one time event.

Sin disrupted humanity’s relationship with God and nature and disrupted the relationship between man and woman (Gen. 3:14-17). The in-breaking of God’s kingdom through Jesus, restored what sin destroyed. Jesus, fully God and fully male, reaches down and grabs the hand of the woman and lifts her up. She is taken out of the subjection to man and returned to his side; and this restoration is sealed with a promise that it “will not be taken away from her.”

"Are You there Jesus? It's Me, Woman.": The Fall, The Hope, and The Glimpse

This is part "two" in a four part series. For the introduction to the series and the first installment on creation, click here and here click, respectively.

The Fall. The fall disturbed humanity’s relationship to God, thus, the relationships between humanity and nature, and man and woman were also disturbed. In Gen. 3:16 we read, “To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be [against]¹ your husband, and he shall rule over you.’” Prior to the Fall man and woman walked side-by-side, both reveling in the difference and similarities of each to the other. After the Fall, Eve was thrown into subjection to Adam, and Adam was placed over Eve. Neither of these positions is inherent in the creation, they are products of the fall.

“There can be no doubt that the condition of man as fallen from God is betrayed first and foremost by the fact that it is the condition of secret and open, conscious and unconscious, organized and unorganized shame at the relationship between man and woman; the condition in which one or other of the constituent elements in the order of this relationship is either over-emphasized or neglected, so that the whole order as such is lost” (Barth, III/i 309-11).

As Woman loses her freedom, so too does Man. Woman is no longer free to reign and rule creation alongside man, and man stands alone to wrestle against the earth. Relationships disintegrate. Chaos resumes. Shame reigns. God’s very creation: stained and distorted.

The Hope. Because this man and woman were made in the image of God, we can rest assured that the Fall does not have permanent effects upon this man and this woman or upon us as men and women. Even in the power of the Fall and the Curses the image remains, and it is the hope. Barth writes,

“…[humanity]² may grasp and hold this hope because [humanity] is God’s image and likeness, and because [humanity] was originally blessed, and is still blessed in spite of the fact that the blessing has been turned into a curse…[and] God is faithful to Himself and work and Word; that the creation of man as male and female, and therefore in the image and likeness of God, is not overthrown by the episode of the fall, but remains…” (III/i 190).

In Gen. 15 we read, “‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel’”(emphasis mine). The curse will not always be fact; chaos will be put in order; shame will not always reign. As God is faithful to His word and faithful to Himself, we know that his image, male and female, will be saved. Humanity will not be saved by their own doing or efforts, but solely by God’s desire for a restored relationship and a restored creation. And, in this restored relationship with God rests the hope of the restored relationship between man and woman.

The Glimpse in Proverbs 31. Rather than as a check list of what to look for in a woman or wife, we should look to the woman in Proverbs 31 for hope—the hope of full restoration: restoration of woman to God and the restoration of the relationship between man and woman. It is my contention that she is an expression of the hope for the reversal of the curse of Genesis 3. The hoped for reversal that would be completed in the coming Messiah—the Messiah to whom all of the Old Testament points. The poem would draw those who heard it back into the garden, when woman walked alongside man and they communed together in the presence of God, as co-vice-regents of the earth. The Proverbs 31 Woman is fighting a battle, not just keeping house. The warfare imagery throughout the poem leads us, the reader, to see a woman who is fighting against the chaos established by the fall. The Proverbs 31 Woman is pointing back to Eve, and at the same time pointing forward—through the chaos of the fall—to Christ.

She awakes early, and greets the near dawning sun; her arms are strong, she has full confidence of who she is—better yet, in her creation. She looks about the room; her feet hit the floor. She glances over her shoulder, and casts her glance—recognition intertwined with love—and she watches him sleep soundly. She stands, stretches, and walks to the closet door to remove the purple, silk robe from the door hook; she dons it. Tying the sash around her waist, her glance is drawn to the frost-covered window. She approaches the glass and presses her hand against the pane; winter is loosing its chilly breath upon the earth, she smiles. Hers is a warm house; the cold is suspended outside. Evidence of melt from the heat off her hand is left on the glass; she has left the room while he sleeps, restful.

"Are you there, Jesus? It's me, Woman": Creation

Everything hinges on this moment: WALL-E’s encounter with Eve. Before this, WALL-E’s life is, well, stagnant, plain, boring, and lonely. His sole purpose being: make cubes of garbage. Then he meets Eve. After this encounter with Eve (aptly named; well done, Pixar!), his world flips: there’s now community, purpose, reason, love, and a bunch of infatuation. Everything changes for WALL-E. He’s drawn out of himself and toward another; so much so that he is willing to venture into the wild unknown for her.

“'It is not good that the man should be alone.'” In Adam’s isolation and loneliness, he was neither a good image nor a good goal of creation (Gen 2:18), “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (emphasis mine). Karl Barth writes that Adam’s isolation and loneliness were not good because God, Himself, is not in isolation but is in community as the Trinity; and, because God will deal with both male and female in history, not solely with the male alone (III/i 289-90, emphasis mine). Thus, Adam’s completeness—the alleviation of his loneliness and isolation—and his relationship with God hinged on an other. An other similar yet different; some thing like him but not him.

Enter Eve. It was only in the presence of woman that man could feel the comfort of familiarity and the mystery of difference—the animals were all too different, there was no point of intersection for relation. “Everything aims at the one fact… that God did not create man alone, as a single human being, but in the [dissimilar] duality of male and female” (Barth III/i 288). He was drawn out of himself and toward God by her similar and different presence. Her creation was from him, but he had nothing to do with it. She made his heart thump with joy and love and a lot of curiosity. Her presence caused his reality to alter. Her presence created community; a community God would enter into relationship with (as noted above). As it was then, so it is now--community is comprised of both men and women. Thus, in any setting the image of God is fulfilled within the communion (communing) of both sexes together.

“'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…'” His loneliness is forever banished by her helping presence. She is his helper¹ not because Adam’s laundry was building up or because his house a mess; there was none of this in the Garden. She is his helper because she can do the one thing that he could not do for himself (nor could any animal do for him): save him from isolation and loneliness. “The whole story aims at this exclamation by man. In this…alone, the creative work of God reaches its goal, for only now has man really been given the necessary help designed by God” (Barth III/i 291; emphasis, mine). Thus, man exclaims and proclaims “Thou!” to his I.

The completion of all creation described here, i.e., the completion of man by the creation of woman, is not only one secret but the secret, the heart of all the secrets of God the Creator. The whole inner basis of creation, God’s whole covenant with man…is prefigured in this event, in the completing of man’s emergence by the coming of woman to man (III/i 294).

It is here, in this outstanding moment—looking on as Adam embraces Eve and she receives him—where we see the faint outline of the Cross. Once again, humanity will be isolated and alone, separated from God; and, once again, God will do the one thing we couldn’t do: save us.

She smiles, a welcoming invitation to him and only to him. His arms embrace her as his eyes had done moments earlier. She relaxes under his pressure and returns his embrace with one of her own. The others stare at this man and woman fused—with jealousy, disgust, or hope. He whispers to her, “‘This one at last Is bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh’…‘You surpass them all.’”

Judgment and the Ethic of Womanhood

A friend of mine forwarded to me a link to a blog post that stunned me. The author of the blog received an email from one of her readers. Here is a portion of the email:

“… you know God calls women to take care of the home. Proverbs 31 says: She watches over the affairs of her household.….You always seem to be on the computer or reading or studying … Maybe … God's…telling you to give it all up and be a stay at home wife. As a stay at home wife myself I know the rewards of making dinner for my husband every night and having a clean house…I see Mr. Newlywed does the cooking. That isn't really his job. ….Corinthians tells us we are not to be concerned with the matters of the world and just with our husband. You seem to concern yourself with many things outside of your marriage.…You are obviously concerned with things other than your husband....Do you even think about what he wants for the two of you?

“…sometimes what we love doesn't matter. God doesn't want women to work outside the home. Women just do it to prove themselves and show they can be like men. Why do so many women feel they need to be masculine?…I think you need to step back and think.…Don't you want to be home and watch your children grow up?...

“I'm just asking you to pray on it. You seem sensible and a good Christian. This is just my chance to preach the Word to you. Maybe even help you understand your calling. You can always email me with questions…I can help you fill your idle time with chores, volunteering, and cooking.”

There are two issues that come to the surface with this email: 1. “helpful advice” is a form of judgment; and, 2. there is a pre-determined ethic of “womanhood” being assumed. I’ll briefly address both issues.

1. While I can give the author of the email the benefit of the doubt and say, “Sure; I’m sure you meant this in love”; I cannot agree that this is what the author did in the end. Rather, an email like this cannot come across as loving because it is heavily drenched in judgment. The gist of the email: “You are not doing this...You are failing that...You are missing the mark” and, my personal favorite, “You should be godlier…more like me”. Judgment and accusation cloaked as love. “Preaching the Word” as pointing out shortcomings. Self-promotion and pride disguised as “I’m here to help.” Advice, specifically unsolicited advice such as this email, will have the opposite effect intended by the advice giver. While the giver will claim, “I did it in love, to correct your path, to set you straight”, the receiver will feel that biting wound of judgment, failure, and shame. The giver feels better, and the receiver feels worse (props to A. Zimmerman for his awesome sermon on Sunday).

2. The author of the email has a pre-determined ethic of womanhood; it is clear that there are certain characteristics that comprise what a Christian woman is: she is a stay-at-home-wife/mom, she does the cooking/cleaning, her primary concern is her husband and home, and she volunteers. Anything that strays from this “norm” is “masculine”, selfish, inconsiderate, misguided (meaning, not guided by the Holy Spirit through prayer), and insensible to the point of being a “bad” Christian.

This type of ethic isn't limited to the "Christian sphere; it's a universal experience that imposes itself on all women. I’m left asking: where is this ethic of womanhood coming from? Was woman created for the previously mentioned assumptions? Or, is there more to her creation? Is submission, in Christ, just a reiteration of the curse Genesis 3:16? Or, is submission something else completely, resembling Genesis 2:18-24? Does Jesus affirm this archaic, assumed ethic of womanhood? Or, does He do something radical by means of restoration? Is Paul promoting a stringent boundary on what a woman can do? Or, is he more progressive—though not a feminist—in his understanding of woman and woman in Christ? It is these questions that I would like to discuss in a four part series: “Are you there Jesus? It’s Me, Woman.”