Uncovering Paul

Posted on by Hilarey

Soon after 9-11, my oldest came home and prayed for the Muslims because “They make their ladies cover-up their heads.” I’m not sure where he got this, but people were turning all Muslims into caricatures of chaotic evil. It is interesting that this most grievous thing was given to my six-year-old as a prayer-worthy concern.

I first wrote about questioning my pastor regarding head coverings in my post Uncovered, and lately I realize that there have been very few pastors I haven’t asked multiple questions or wanted to dialogue “Why is (this) so?” In that instance, he didn’t know. And I don’t think he really cared. I mean, it applied to a different gender, culture and time than he did. Neither did it affect his authority to operate in the church.

Recently, I found great pleasure reading the book Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Marginalized and Vilified Women of the Bible, edited by Sandra Glahn. It was so beneficial (to me) to clarify the context of several Bible stories—and it’s the same reason I’m also enjoying Paul and Gender—Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women of the Church by Cynthia Long Westfall. I’ve only just started it, and like Vindicating the Vixens, the first chapter is bringing me a completely different world-view/paradigm/cultural lens to Paul.

A fiction author I love once wrote a character to say she had no problem with Jesus. It was Paul she didn’t like. My feelings bordered on mutual—but I’ve been pressing into trusting that God is good. So, if a thing isn’t good—either it isn’t from God, or it’s misunderstood. So I ask, seek, knock, clarify. Lately, that’s manifested as reading Paul and Gender and switching my Bible app to track scripture through “the life of Paul.” So I can press in for the good about his writings.

I already knew Paul’s command in 1 Corinthians 11 to keep a woman’s head covered was more about protection and equality for the first century church than keeping a modern woman subservient in a display of culturally irrelevant, historic modesty.

Still, my head covering ignorance and a western context of systemic power disparity and exclusion made the passage difficult to digest. America’s lens was refined by beliefs like “all women are born that they may acknowledge themselves as inferior in consequence to the superiority of the male sex,” from John Calvin. So of course we looked at 1 Corinthians and said, yeah—Paul wants the women’s heads covered as a symbol of male authority. Men don’t need it since they’re directly under God… See that Calvin quote, and more, compiled by a blog I follow here.

So as we chew on the meat and spit out the gristle from our Western Schism church fathers, I love how Paul and Gender paints a more wholistic backdrop. Here, I hope to lay some of it out and evoke a metaphor of my own*. This is just one take on the passage, and I think people will study it more and more—now that women can officially open a bank account. I have to remember that only happened the year I was born. This is only the first generation of people entering seminary with an inherent interest instead of “Not my gender… doesn’t affect me.”

Our American belief is that a woman would never want to cover her head. In the breathtaking book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, the heroine receives a hijab. (My heart swells just thinking of that story.) Her initial reaction is that she feels treasured and protected. This was my first inkling of a different take on head coverings.

But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved (NIV)

Let’s set the scene of the church in Corinth. Paul and Gender said “A woman of Corinth” was a euphemism for a prostitute.

From other reading, I’ve also understood that the setting is a time and culture where men can penetrate anyone they conquer or are in charge of—and it isn’t considered rape, homosexuality or adultery. It was culturally benign for them, like a spayed or neutered humpy dog. Merely a socially acceptable display of power.

And how do they know if a particular woman is off-limits? Her hair is hidden. A veil is the signal defining which women are protected and which are sexually at risk in this city where men with money and power can dominate anyone. If this conjures #MeToo and Epstein Island…the difference is: it isn’t socially acceptable. It doesn’t sit well with us.

Additionally, the veil maintains social class order. From the women’s perspectives, it’s hierarchy showing who has value. This woman is worthy and protected. This one is lesser, usable, discardable. For sale. We know social oppression was going on because the Corinthian church was jealous and quarreling with each other. Paul suggested they were doing more harm than good when they gathered because one would be drunk and another would go hungry during the Lord’s Supper. Paul and Gender said the law forbid a slave or a prostitute from covering her hair. So imagine the social oppression of a woman who had “no right” to cover up. “Who does she think she is?”

With head-coverings, a certain kind of man can scan a room and immediately see which woman he could have, and who is off-limits. Incidentally, modern men who are terrified of androgynous and transgender clothing still make me think of the certain type of person who wants to walk into a room and quickly ascertain who he could potentially dominate. I think it makes them uncomfortable not to know who they can fight or sleep with immediately.

Ok, still building the stage. Now take the cultural example of human (not chicken) breasts. In some places in the world, a woman’s exposed breasts aren’t immodest. But use our Western sensibilities and imagine a topless (topfree) photo in a magazine or behind a paywall—a picture of a woman’s breasts makes her “available.” You can see her nakedness so you can consider having her, imagine having her, or pretend.

Take that into a house church. They’re using the language of fictive kinship, calling each other brother and sister. And, at home, mom and sis take their veils off. And some guy thinks, “I’m curious what so-and-so’s wife looks like uncovered. After all, we’re, ahem, family.”

Let’s have all the ladies take off their veils!

Now, sister, stand before the congregation. Not a bare-chested home church in Indonesia at the turn of the 19th century, but a gathering in America. You’re about to deliver a message from God, to speak and to prophesy to the congregation. But first, they want you to take off your shirt. Since many of the Corinthians believers are “lower status,” the ex (or current) sex slave you’re sitting next too—I’ve seen her naked. And you’re my family. I should see you. Now stand straight and give the message with uncovered areola and nipple.

Just let that visceral feeling you have land and settle for a minute. It might give you a bit of empathy for the forced unveiling of a Muslim woman or a first century Corinth lady.

Modesty is cultural. If the woman has never had her hair exposed, it drapes her in a sexually vulnerable, naked sensation (and possibly position, depending on the crowd.) In Corinth, it would have felt shameful to some women. As shameful as having her head shaved—the punishment for infidelity and promiscuity. Shame is a particularly difficult emotion in that it is so isolating. Flowing hair would have been highly arousing to some listeners. I imagine some brothers in the church wouldn’t even hear your message if you stood bare-chested before them—even though boobies are available to see anytime, online. (I guess for some it wouldn’t even matter if you’re covered up. They still know you have ’em and they’ll look right through your shirt!)

Now, a slave girl whose entire life has been exposed and marked by her availability, low class and low worth, stands before the crowd and speaks to a congregation. A group which possibly includes her owners. In any other context, they are her social superiors and her uncovered head is the blatant visual reminder.

Paul’s directive is “all you all” women wear veils.

Equality in the church. Protection in the church.

Paul said something different to Timothy regarding the women of Ephesus who ostentatiously flaunted wealth and status. He told them to show appropriate situational propriety in their adornments like braided hair. But to Corinth, he addresses their specific issue and says, “Here, in the gathering of believers, no one is low class. No one is unprotected. No one is sexually available. Listen to her words and don’t look at her like that, Corinthians.”

A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man (NIV)

Additionally, there’s a contrast with the directive that the men should not cover their head. Paul and Gender suggests that a man of high status would want to be invisible when in a posture of supplication. It was the cultural norm for him to cover that up. Paul says, rather, males are to be vulnerable, with their “spiritual transformation is on display.”

A man’s uncovered head doesn’t bring up sexuality to the imagination of the hearers, it lowers him from his elevated status to equal, to fellow believer. “Exchange a covering of pride for exposed humility, all you men who could dominate anyone.” This would have been as jarring as some of the other things Paul said to them, such as, “You are all the bride of Christ.”

But here’s an even lovelier thing about this letter from Paul! He gives it to the Corinthian church as a non-contentious individual church decision. Because the other churches aren’t dealing with it. Verse 16.

Paul wants the church to learn to discern and make decisions because it will one day judge the world and angels.

Paul and Gender, page 35 says, “Women and men were supposed to be learning to exercise good judgment in ordinary matters in preparation for future responsibilities. Therefore, if women were (correctly) refusing to submit to suggestions or directions to not veil or to remove their veils, the Corinthian Church needed to be convinced that women should be allowed to use their own judgment or follow their own convictions in this matter.”

How can I not love Paul for this?

Westfall also asserts that the veil is a demonstration of her choice, her authority over herself. She writes, “However, as the subject of the sentence, the nominative woman is the subject of the infinitive, the one who has authority.”

It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels (NIV)

So the Corinthian head covered is a symbol of her own authority over her own head as she stands before God and the heavenly realm. This is why (counter-culturally) Paul tells a lowly slave girl to illegally wear a veil when she prophesies over the congregation in the privacy of a house church.

This unmarried girl is not veiled to signify the authority of men. She is elevated to equal status to the rest of the congregation before the Lord. Because God uses the things this world despises to shame the powerful. And she gets to make her own choice if she wants to display her hair when she edifies, strengthens, encourages, comforts and instructs the people**.

Diving into scripture like this reveals God’s intentions regarding our interdependence and treatment of each other—not to split hairs over hair scarves and cleavage. When a woman enters the four walls of your church building with more or less covering indicative of the life and culture she lives—remember:

Don’t look at her that way. Listen to her words.

*Thoughts from Paul and Gender are mingled with my own. So if there is something incorrect or irritating—assume it is me and not the book or the author.
**I was raised in a congregation and spent time in churches that believed in Cessation. Looking back now, I wonder if the doctrine has a purpose to maintain control from the top down, with the added benefit of avoiding a text which refers to women instructing men. I cannot find a compelling reason to believe in the cessation of (some) gifts, because prophecy (specifically) is the only gift that shows up in every list I can find regarding spiritual gifts. And, we’re warned to not suppress it. See 1 Corinthians 12:7-11, 27-30, Romans 12:6-8 & Ephesians 4:11-13. Keep reading the first letter to Corinthians to see details about how prophecy should look.

1 Corinthians 14
Vs 3 the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort
Vs 5 so that the church may be edified
Vs 22 it’s for believers
Vs 24-25 it’s for unbelievers to be convicted of sin, their hearts and secrets laid bare, it incites worship
Vs 29 two or three should do it taking turns, it should be weighed for truth
Vs 31 says prophecy is for instruction and encouragement, and all should have a turn

You’ll notice, a few verses later, Paul says women should be silent in church. Which contradicts Chapter 11 if you think Paul tells all women to prophesy and all women to be silent in the same letter. I assume Paul and Gender will cover this, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. The explanation I’ve previously heard is that verse 34 & 35 had to do with women who’d never previously sat in a learning environment or studied spiritual things. They were randomly interrupting the service, calling out questions across the room. He tells them to wait and go home to ask their husbands instead of being disruptive. If you get too fixated on the inerrant letter of your translation—you would think only married women get to ask clarifying questions and single women have to wonder about God until they have a husband. All of chapter 14 chapter is about removing disruptions and creating order while using tounges and prophecy, so this makes more sense than women being told not to speak unless they are prophesying, but men can interrupt willy-nilly.

A Ceremony of Grief

Posted on by Hilarey

When my husband and I were younger, I wanted to adopt. We went through two home studies. We attended classes, borrowed children’s beds, planned with our kids, and informed our neighbors. Finally, we brought in a young sibling group. Health and Welfare wanted a trial situation as part of the interview process. We didn’t finish the trial.

In the aftermath, when I was returning the crib and other items, I tried to hide my brokenness as I stood before the woman who’d loaned them. She looked at me and asked how I was “really doing” in that way of people who actually want to know—and aren’t just exchanging passing niceties. I told her I didn’t think I was doing good. “I might even feel a little…” and here is where I whispered my shame, “…depressed?”

She said, “Oh Hilarey! Of course you are. You’ve had an adoption miscarriage.” She explained that people bring casseroles for new babies but no one normally visits if you lose a baby. We mourn miscarriages alone. She also reminded me that even though I didn’t have the physical loss from my body, we had prepared our home, brains, and hearts for new family members. We had spent time (years) envisioning it and suddenly it was taken away. It was like a death had happened in our family and no one acknowledged it. Since then, if I have known of a miscarriage—I’ve tried to reach out.

A quick blessing for women in the light of Mother’s Day this weekend. Christ wept over Jerusalem and said how he longed to gather her children like a hen gathers chicks under her wings. Any desire you have inside of you to nurture, comfort, or protect—reflects the heart of God. If you have unsatisfied longings for family, you are in that phase of pouring out from your body and lacking rest and comfort for yourself, your children have moved on, or you have been rejected by those you love… May you feel the tender promise that God has not forgotten you.

Death of a dream

It was painful to release the idea of our imagined family. It can hurt to let go of any goal or dream. Recently, I’ve seen different dream-deaths in my close community. Major changes or plans of major changes. My husband moved to a new company and left the one where he’d worked for more than a decade. Even intentional changes can land you somewhere between feeling slightly unsettled to completely losing your footing in the overwhelm of irrevocable change.

Sometimes a dream dies peacefully in its sleep, and sometimes it twists and writhes like a B movie actor.

In my experience, that’s been the pain for me. The death throes. The last gasps of air when you thought the dream had already passed over. Any sudden reminders that you still want it—even though you thought you had let it go.

You don’t always know something is an idol until you cannot have it.

I used to visit with a refugee friend from Iraq who shared a verbal tradition about the story of Jonah in Nineveh. She told me that when the people realized their danger and the depth of their sin, they didn’t allow any man or animal to drink even a sip of water for three days. The mommas would not nurse their babies; they let them cry.

I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t imagine a nursing mom doing that. Forget the pain of swelling, mastitis and your milk drying up. Think of how a baby’s life at the time was already so precarious, infant mortality was likely high, a woman’s future was her progeny, and women risked so much in childbirth.

Ours wasn’t the kind of relationship where I could argue with her or express doubt, and she was so insistent. She assured me that the cows were screaming, and the entire city was wailing and crying out together as one. She’d descended from the people, so she knew.

I pulled out Jonah and reread the story. In chapter 3, verse 7 and 8 the king says, Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.

It could be literal, but nearly literal would still get the point across. What I received in the exchange was another example of where I cannot help, at least initially, to understand the Bible through the lens I have. In America, we encourage drinking plenty of water while fasting.

Recently, our church had a corporate fast for lent. The preacher kept coughing. Someone brought him a water bottle. I was sitting next to a young girl from east Africa and she looked at me with incredulous confusion. After the service, she asked, “I thought we were fasting this week.” She likely wondered why he callously tempted the entire congregation. (It was not a mandatory fast. People took part in whatever capacity they desired.) Once we talked, I discovered that in her culture, fasting meant nothing touched her lips, food or drink, sunrise to sunset. She ate and drank water at night.

It wasn’t just culture that dictated how Nineveh reacted to Jonah—but contrition. I realized I might not have experienced that kind of remorse, certainly not on such a scale. There have been many times that I’ve felt so much emotion that I wasn’t hungry… but never so much impending doom that for three days I wouldn’t even put a bowl of water in front of the cat. And that sound of my captive animal, crying out and maybe even eventually giving up in order to save energy, would resonate and echo within my soul.

But the communal experience—it would help you grieve with the sounds everywhere. And in the context of this, to mourn their pride and violence with a visceral ritual would be life-changing. You would cross over and never want to return to that sin.

I think our culture tries to hide grief. We keep uncomfortable things like disability and weakness hidden away. To the point than many people didn’t know their president, Franklin Rosevelt, was paralyzed from the waist down. Depending on your church culture, it could be worse. Because feeling pain must mean you aren’t trusting God if your religion promises finances, freedom, health and good married sex when you obey him. You can be sad about it for a minute… but now, where is your joy in the Lord? Haven’t you learned what you needed to from that trial yet, so it can be over?

Of course, some people never leave their pain to the point of wearing it as an identity. I know I have been on all sides of this. Either wondering why someone is still wallowing, hiding how I am not yet better, or letting my loss influence everything I say, do, and think. So we isolate.

Sometimes you need to grieve. And grief takes time. Your time, not someone else’s.

When you can’t move out of the grief

But sometimes the pain is just keeping something already dead connected to a machine. It’s clinging to the way you wish things were. I think we also refuse to mourn because either we hold the dream up higher than what God has for us, or we don’t want to admit failure.

I want to suggest that releasing a dream will be less painful than the alternatives of living in delusion or cultivating a deep root of bitterness.

I see now why some cultures hired mourners to wail at the home where a death had taken place. To voice your own heart-cry and legitimize the pain enough to let it pass. So that when you have mourned, you cross over. You stand up and wash your face. You do not camp in the slightly hidden shame of unprocessed grief.

Lisa Terkeurst writes in the last chapter of her book Good Boundaries and Goodbyes about this when she mentions having “a million little funerals” and opening up her hands to let each one go.

We have very little ceremony to mark the passing of something other than actual death, as a healthy way to grieve. Sometimes we don’t even know we need to mourn the release of a dream.

What I am proposing is to find a ritual to let something go. A sort of liturgy or ceremony to mark an ending. We have ceremonies for weddings and baptisms to show before and after. I think it might be worth creating a way to pass over the threshold and acknowledge the change when a dream dies.

Create a visual reminder of the change in your life. Light a candle, or blow one out, write a ditty, bake a cake, hang a banner… or throw a wake. And do it with your community.

Here is the way Mike Meyer’s character in So I Married an Axe Murderer mourned the end of his relationships:


It’s Probably Her Fault

Posted on by Hilarey

I loved the first cover of my first novel. Partly because, 11 years ago, it communicated to the reader: this isn’t going to be your typical Christian fiction. I didn’t want to bait and switch.

I knew it hit the mark when I participated in a Christian fair at a community park. I set up a bookseller’s table with a few of my writer friends. An angry, sweaty-faced man stormed up with his pubescent daughter, picked up my book and started yelling at her with an extended finger. “You asked what the pastor meant by immodest! This is immodest. This is… alluring!”

He went on to belittle her for men’s lust. Then he turned and leveled his disgusted gaze towards me. He would not hand me the book, but dropped it on the table with a derisive smirk (he showed me!) and marched her away in tears. She turned ashamed eyes back toward me for a moment, so apologetic for her crime of being a girl.

Drink more water or it’s your fault

In my youth, I heard water neutralizes an acid stomach. And on the flip side, sometimes pain in your stomach meant not enough acid. Which, of course, water also helps. I think there was a thread of “pain is a construct of your mind” philosophy also woven into that. The point was: you never actually needed antacids. You just needed to drink more water. Pain was probably your fault.

When I finally broke down and bought Tums, I still felt guilt that I had eaten the wrong things. Eaten too fast. I hadn’t had enough water.

We create these rules in our minds as a sort of safekeeping. To throw out to the universe, “That would never happen to me!” and “Look, see, how I have protected myself. I followed a rule!” When others suffer, we blame. You must not have followed a rule. It’s your fault.

It’s either my fault or your fault

Every time I hear a man say that he wishes women would be sensitive and “put a little more clothing on.” I die a little inside. But… only if he’s a believer.

What he’s saying is, “It’s the women you gave us, Lord!” He is trying to make someone else responsible, so his external situations can allow him to believe that he has relinquished his inner life over to God.

Cultural modesty does not prevent rape, so what do you mean by covered up?

I laughed a little when my uncle first told me he was “a conservative Christian.” In my mind, I thought, dude, you’re from California. You don’t know what conservative is. You let your wife wear pants. (I realize now this is a political alignment, and not an expression of faith.)

Should a woman hide her shoulders so LDS men know she’s wearing garments, sealed in the temple to someone else?

Can a woman show that she has two legs like a man? I loved the exchange in the novel, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. The missionary tried to get the African women to cover their naked breasts according to his cultural sensitivity (quite an inconvenience to nursing and working at the same time) while his wife wore pants and the men of the village couldn’t look her in the eye. They appropriately bounced their gaze away.

If you’re in certain parts of the world, maybe she needs to cover her hair. Or become as pious as a Hasidic Jew, shave her hair and wear a wig, so no one accidentally views the immodest glory of her natural hair. Surely that will make it easier for men to praise God for their maleness.

I’ve likely written before that in the autobiography Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali describes how the need to hide and sequester her womanhood never ended—only escalated—in her submission. Even fully hidden from view with a veil obscuring her face, men’s lust arose from the sound of her walking. The echo of her womanly shoes tapping down the hall brought up images of shapely legs, so her equally pious male friend asked her to wear soft-soled shoes.

‘Ezer a guy out, all you fine helper people. It’s really hard not to sin.

There’s nothing a helper can do to make it easier for him to turn his heart, mind, and soul over to God. Not even drinking more water.

I don’t care about outside the church or the unbelieving culture at large. It only bothers me in the body. And it seems more prevalent to me the more that roles and gender are segregated in the church.

I used to not care so much about equality or women who preached because I do not desire to pastor. My hot button was abuse due to those roles. But I’m to the point that whenever I hear the term “male leadership” or “husbands, lead your wife,” I cringe because none are free when power discrepancy is justified scripturally.

The more the man views himself as set apart, and the more gender-based responsibility he assumes… the more she is lowered from a divine image bearer to his object. Possibly a treasured object under his loving care to whom he will wash the feet of, and give his life up for, yes—but an object of his, nonetheless.

And I don’t think Jesus’s intent when he said “when you look at a woman with lust you have already sinned” means a man should remove her from his line of sight instead of submitting his heart. I mean, he should both submit to God and submit to women out of reverence to Christ.

If you’re afraid you’re going to pinch the tush of every female you see in the memory care facility during your senility—then view all women as your sister/daughters now, in the secret places of your reasoning. I heard a pastor once say that if you put a muzzle on a mean dog, you still have a mean dog. And I think during old age, we lose some muzzles of society. Hiding less of my sarcastic thoughts now that I’m fifty is a perfect example.

Neither should he keep women from the inner sanctum/lair because of the reminder that her sex difference is a portable temptation to him. Soft-soled shoes won’t remove lust just because she is neither seen nor heard. I wonder if, like objectification, the segregation of gender roles, and the ardent belief that men and women cannot be friends (because her organs dictate her one role) actually exasperates lust.

I know that belief contributes to the deep pain of the childless in the church. She is your friend, too. I have some close friends that might argue this point with me. But I think unpracticed interaction and segregation breeds, “She smiled at me. That means she probably wants to have sex with me,” as much as it reveals how the core belief of inequality spreads its tentacles into all interactions. Approaching an unavailable woman shows your belief that females have one function for you.

Sister, there is no way to prevent someone else from sinning against you. And if men will not see women as equal standing in the body of Christ, segregating or deferring to the gender at large will not change it. Differences are needed in community.

How to change it? Step up.

I believe using your gifting, according to your faith, and in whatever space will allow you, will move things. When we arrived in Israel for our tour, our Southern Baptist pastor raised his eyebrows at me and said “The tour guide is a woman?! Uh oh. We’ll see how this goes…” I was so annoyed that I, out of the whole group, was the one to whom he showed his prejudice.

Her people had escaped the Spanish inquisition. She was a born-again Jewess, living in the holy land and her family had practiced Jewish traditions and rituals her whole life. She had intimate knowledge of things like the Passover supper and which coins were exchanged in the first century temple. She spoke three languages. But she had this one thing against her—a uterus. At the end of the tour, our pastor asked his “heavy hitters” to kick in a little more money. He wanted to pay her extra because of her unanticipated value: she didn’t hold back her teaching.

As we’re being conformed to the image of Christ, we should not should stop trying to renew our minds or move toward the new kingdom. The kingdom where both men and women are now the priests of God, fully endowed with all the gifts of the spirit to shine light, regardless of our unique organs related to procreation.

And (this is only for the men who lead through gender instead of spirit-gifting) when you think of yourself as the head of everything—realize how often you ask her to step in for you. How you create a paradigm where you declare you are the leader, but are not empowered through gender alone, so you blame the girls.

Give your husband sex and then he’ll be faithful to you.
Take care of your body and then he’ll be attracted to you.
Dress modestly, then he will see you as a sister.
Submit first, then he will love you.
If you follow him, then he will lead.

I don’t think this is a problem for humans who weren’t raised in the church. I don’t think it’s an issue for girls who weren’t told, “Men only want one thing from you. Girls have (only) one precious gift. One thing of value.”

And I also don’t believe it’s a problem for men who view women as equal.

Back ordered and out-of-print Christianity

Movements sell books. I think much of the purity movement was people who rejected the sexual freedom of their youth. They over-corrected, and wanted a rule to corral suffering this side of heaven—to blame pain and dysfunction on something that could be controlled. Drink more water and it won’t be your fault! Or, they wanted absolution: I didn’t know the rule—so it wasn’t my fault. They wanted to redeem their virginity through their children and so promised them a false god, a sexual prosperity that they had no intimate knowledge of.

How we long for simple, descriptive, reproducible formulas! Tweetable existentialism. A theology with a man’s name on it.

I used to dismiss Jehovah’s Witnesses because (to my understanding) they weren’t allowed to read the Bible unless they viewed it through the lens of the Watchtower’s interpretation and accompanying literature. At least they are honest in their gatekeeping.

Now, I realize it’s the same in our churchyard. So much of what we peddle for book sales is a tangent to the gospel; slapping a man’s last name on our affiliation and pledging allegiance to it. We search for commentaries that explain what we want to believe. Or we sit under people who write commentaries that prove what we want to believe. One human cannot accurately contain all the deep mysteries of God—we were designed for community. So even if it that doctrine has sustained a couple hundred years, parts of it will be wind and its followers the reeds.

Making the straight and narrow, straighter and narrower since 1845

The Southern Baptist faction began for segregation. Churches were allowing non-whites in their congregations and they wanted to keep the truer faith of the good ol’ days. I was raised in the faith and given a hearty fear of liberal sects like the American Baptists. Now, as an adult, I’m becoming increasingly averse to historical denominations, dogma containing surnames, and movements. No matter how new, no matter how old. The dividing walls are not just gender, but a more systemic problem of gatekeeping and control of the money machine.

The other morning I read a blog by a woman who wrote a disclaimer that she was, after all, still Eve‘s daughter. She was diminishing God’s ability to speak truth through her since she believed all women were fundamentally more likely to be deceived. The theology she puts her faith in sells a lot of books and has for centuries. It was like saying, “I wish I could ask a man about this—since I can’t trust my lady-brain. Unfortunately, every time I try to, he thinks I want to sleep with him.”

The real upset is when laypeople and uneducated start digging. Even worse, armchair theologians like me reading the Bible and trying to parse out truth. As my dad reminded me, “Well, anyone can put up a blog.”

William Tyndale was executed because he translated directly from Greek and Hebrew instead of the church-authorized Latin Vulgate. The original texts undermined key doctrines of The Church. Plus, he translated into the English common tongue. The educated couldn’t fathom someone as a lowly as a plow-hand understanding holy scripture.

If no one is making money off it—is it really a valid doctrine?

Back when I thought I was called to be a missionary, I came across a lovely little book by Amy Carmichael, called Mimosa. It is the story of a young girl who hears the simplest of gospel messages one afternoon and receives it. The family could only send one child to the missionary school, so she returned home.

She grows up, becomes a wife and a mother and spends her life in a village far away from any Christians, the Bible, or Christian culture. She’s reunited to the writer decades later—only to find that with this tiny seed of God’s love for her, she’d lived a life convicted of, and in obedience to, many biblical concepts that directly opposed the culture of India where she made her home. Simple things like, it didn’t honor the God who loved her to go into debt she couldn’t repay. And big things, like trust in the Almighty for an empty belly.

I wonder about all the time I spend pondering women’s roles in the American church, when so many in the world don’t have access to “drink more water.” I’m sure we give too much effort talking about concepts, and laminating membership cards to Apollos or Paul, when, if we were just moving around outside in the world—the Holy Spirit would tell us how to take the next step.

But on the flip side, as we watch the exodus of believers who leave wounded and disillusioned from faith spaces, maybe it’s time for more armchair theologians to examine the dogma of our tradition.

And here is where it lands so heavy on me. No one questions your gifting when you are ministering outside the churchyard. The only place any of this applies is inside the building with a logo and a security team, where you can buy their books.

prayers in cracks of the wailing wall, 2018

Kicking Bricks & Flipping Tables

Posted on by Hilarey

I’ve heard foundations cannot be changed. (I feel like this is said when people describe how America was started as a Christian nation and therefore it could never not be a Christian nation.) But sometimes houses are moved from their foundations and placed in other areas. You can also lift a house and pour a new foundation—it’s just very costly.

So before you need to relocate the whole structure, I think it’s a good policy to not assume that you have a totality of the gospel already inside of you. Sometimes I prefer to seek affirmation for things I already believe, but when I approach the Bible with curiosity rather than angrily seeking confirmation—I usually enjoy it more. (Although, looking for something you know can be healing when it refutes lies. And a little confirmation bias does give a jolt of dopamine.)

I’m not an architect or an engineer, but my simple understanding is that if there is a crack in your foundation, it doesn’t mean you should heap more weight on top. When you do that, and the earthquake comes, you’re more likely to lose your faith completely.

Although they have built thousands of years on top of the stones where Jesus walked.

prayers in cracks of the wailing wall, 2018
My trip to (and under) the wailing wall in 2018.

Be willing to walk around the house and kick the bricks, checking for cracks in your foundation. Because we repeat so many things that are not actually biblical.

Not a Lender Nor a Borrower Be

One thing I was told with such authority was, “the Bible says to never lend or borrow.” I keep digital notes when something comes up during my Bible reading. That way, I can see them wherever I go, and add to them whenever I have space to process. The words I jot down could be anything from beautiful, resonating, irritating, confusing… but I especially like to add things that contradict either my paradigm or something else I’ve read in the Bible. This is how I kick the bricks of my foundation.

The first time I read, “You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none” in Deuteronomy 28:12, I thought to myself, “this contradicts not a lender nor a borrow or be.” So I did a quick search: “What does the Bible have to say about lending?” (I love digital Bibles.)

It says to not be tight-fisted to the poor. And when (not if) you lend, do not charge interest. I should lend.

I can’t find it telling me not to borrow, either. It says “the borrower is a slave to the lender” in Proverbs. Therefore, I want to have prudence when I decide to borrow because I am giving over my freedom until the debt is paid.

Proverbs is a collection of truths perceived by a wise person, but I don’t ever want to take one verse from it and turn it into a non-negotiable mantra. Otherwise I would get whiplash when I read chapter 26 verses four and then five.

As it turns out, the scripture “not a lender nor a borrower be” is from Hamlet. You can watch the Skipper sing it on Gilligan’s Island here.

My girlfriend calls that “the pizza bible.” You just say things you want or believe with authority and call it scripture. The bible says to bring me a pizza.

But you can also eat from the pizza bible it by taking things out of context.

Happy Good Friday

The Jesus who resonates most with me right now is the one who flips tables at the beginning of Holy Week. Sometimes I need to pull back and ask if I’m really called to flip everything I see over on its side. But to me, the God who comes down and passionately removes the gatekeepers restricting access to him is a God who sees and understands.

Black and white thinking from English translations only (or even worse, fixating on a single version) and taking it out of context means you could take a verse like 1 Timothy 1:10 and…

if you read ESV, you would come to the conclusion that it’s only immoral for men to practice homosexuality.

if you read the KJV, you would understand that only menstealers are immoral—it is fine to kidnap women.

We lose so much in English translations because we have humankind or mankind written as “men.” It lands in our mind as “not women” because it isn’t built into English to see humans/genders in the word “man.”

When I read the New Testament in Spanish, it reads differently. Yesterday, I got to sit with someone who reads/studies it in Greek. And his take was fascinatingly different from my ESV.

Personal Application

So, kicking your bricks… After you check if it’s actually in the Bible… see if it aligns with the context of the message, then in context with the heart of God. If it doesn’t work with your understanding of the heart of God… write it down rather than throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.

The next step is to ask, what does this mean for me in 21st century America versus the time and people it was written for?

Because you could write Paul’s advice to Timothy, “take a little wine for your stomach” on a 3X5 card and tape it to your bathroom mirror. And the morning you have a nervous belly because you need to drive a bus full of teenagers up a mountain road, you decide to take the inerrant scripture literally, regardless of the context of who it was written for, assume it is all directly for you, pour a mug of wine, and get behind the wheel.

There needs to be room for the Holy Spirit to tell you if it applies.

The friend I visited with yesterday mentioned that it is a little narcissistic to take every jot and tittle written for the New Testament church as directly applying to me, in America, today.

I have to take this to heart. Because there was such an emphasis on “where does the Bible say that” in my youth, I remember looking down on women who wore braids. I mean, it literally says don’t braid your hair in the ESV. And I have always wanted to correctly handle the Word of God. It just turns out there is more nuance than looking up a verse.

So much pain happens when you listen to what other people tell you God has said—instead of picking up the Bible and finding out for yourself. Then judging it according to the whole heart of God using the heart, mind and soul he gave you.

The Wife Follower

Posted on by Hilarey

the husband leader | the wife follower

I’m realizing that questioning the husband-leader-dynamic is part of the larger debate about women in the church. (I’m usually late to the circus.) And although I wish I had gone to a seminary-type college when I was young, so I already knew what was going on, I was raised to distrust women who speak in church. So I wouldn’t have considered it.

In my early doctrine formation, I understood definite roles in the church for men and limitations for women. It shaped my fear that any woman who exercised knowledge in religious matters or in scripture would probably end up becoming the woman who rides the beast, or at least, help bring her to power.

Beliefs surrounding a woman’s role in creation leads to understanding her role in the home and her role in the church body. I recommend reading 3 Female Ghosts in your Church by Jen Wilken to see why it matters how you view women in the church. Each role informs the others.

I don’t know enough about trajectory theory (and I try to avoid using terms to define my beliefs) but I do believe that God met the culture of the Old Testament in their corruption, and instituted laws which sent them toward a direction that was a better way than the one man had come up with. And then, the New Testament brought even more radical change to show that the goal of God’s kingdom was to eliminate social, economic, and biological differences.

In my deepest wound and false belief, I understood that woman was made as a trinket for God’s beloved creation, man. All of God’s interest wasn’t enough for man… Adam needed a pretty helper, too. So, it was only natural for woman to decrease herself and spend her life mitigating his emotions and whims. After all, she was created for helping and making babies. “Ladies, we can’t have kids. Focus on that. Do the one thing we can’t do!” You can reject something as a lie—but not realize how you still live it out. I thought I’d worked through that poison when I wrote Sworn to the Desert, but deep roots take as many years to weed as they do to grow. And the theme I used in that book is a self-girdling tree, a tree choked by its own roots.

In my last blog, I talked about why I don’t think men are called to be spiritual leaders in the sense that they are between their wife and God in any capacity. And calling them leaders, or giving them a role they can’t fill, is damaging. Defined roles hurt both men and women. In the book The Great Sex Rescue, the authors found that believing in clear gender roles in the home correlated with a wife’s diminished sexual pleasure/increased pain. “Women who do not believe traditional gender roles are moral imperatives feel more heard and seen in their marriages. In fact, women who act out the typical breadwinner-homemaker dynamic also feel more seen if they see it as a choice and not a God-given role.”

Fortunately, I always knew my role in the home was my choice. And, I learned that mutual submission is also my choice. But if you think your husband, your church, or your God are demanding you take a knee, then there is definitely going to be some diminishing. And not the “he must increase and I must decrease” diminishing. Check out that book, The Great Sex Rescue.

It might be true that some women want a husband to carry all the burdens and take all the blame. But I believe most women truly desire a partner. I know if I believed someone was in charge of the spirituality of my home—I wouldn’t live at peace with him unless everything was spiritually perfect. All the time. Bitterness would grow over any discontent if I had someone responsible whom I could blame.

Don’t follow him

I’m actually in a unique position to write this because I’m very much in love with my husband of 31 years. I trust him, and in no way is he unworthy of me following him. I couldn’t be who I am as a cook, a writer, or a human without having had his encouragement and space to grow.

But… I’ll never forget waking in the middle of the night and complaining to God that I was frustrated because I felt compelled to follow him at the loss of agency. When I seek counsel and comfort because I’m Awake at Night, and prayer doesn’t work, I often open my bible. I was reading the One-Year-Bible, and curiously, the very next passage was Joshua 7. After Achan’s sin, they brought out the whole family. And stoned them all. And after they stoned them all, they burned them all with fire.

Needless to say, I was not comforted that night knowing God allowed/endorsed Achan’s wife and kids to be eliminated because of his actions. Even though Ezekiel 18:20 says that children will no longer pay for the sins of their parents, I realized there were more examples in the Bible of a man making a bad choice and his is family being destroyed. Haman’s ten sons in Esther, and the men who tried to kill Daniel in a lion’s den through King Darius. They were thrown in with their wives and children.

I used the example in my previous post of Moses’ wife doing his job when he wouldn’t and therefore saving his life. But also consider Abigail, in 1 Samuel 25. She was married to Nabal, and since she knew he was a worthless man (verse 25), she went behind his back and gave provisions to David. She saved all the men of her household because of it. (verse 34)

Kings make tactical alliances, and sometimes wives are alliances. It always strikes me as interesting that David scooped Abigail up. Maybe after the Lord struck Nabal dead, she ran away with David because in a patriarchal society—even a fool for a husband, or becoming one of many wives, was better than no husband. (I have a girlfriend who wondered recently if Abigail lived in caves with David!) Maybe, in her intelligence (verse 3), Abigail had learned how to stay alive by strategically following power… and David was rising.

I know there are warnings to pastors to watch out for women who would lust after them merely because they have authority—and everybody likes followers, and to be pursued—even pastors. So, I wonder if we didn’t have a Shepherd/King down model as in most western churches; would this be such a problem?

We are told not to call anyone father, in a way of showing human spiritual authority one over another. So, as is typical of us rebellious humans, we claim inerrancy to the letter of the law, skip the heart, and rename the guy in charge pastor, instead of father.

Regardless of Abigails’s motives, it just shows me that even though David always returned to “running after God‘s heart,” he liked to collect women. More than just a king making alliances—because he gathered women who were loved by other men (Bathsheba aside) as in the example of when he wanted Michal back because Saul had given her to David first. I’m always struck with pain that Michal’s new husband went along the way, weeping after her, as she was returned to David.

But when you follow a human, you give your power over to them. Don’t follow anyone but God.

If this feels like a side rant, it is. I’ve heard men in the church say they idolize David or want to emulate him. They think as long as they return to running after God’s heart, they can meanwhile destroy all the people in their path and lead like a worldly king.

Sorry: thinking about what it means to be a man who leads meant I was either going to sing “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” or Sponge Bob’s “Now that we are men.”

Partnership

Just because man shouldn’t lead, it doesn’t mean woman should. One of the reasons the Israelites were told not to marry outside of Israel was because the wives of other nations would lead the men to follow other gods.

“During the days of Moses, however, Yahweh was increasingly clear about the marriage of his people, the Israelites, to foreigners. Mosaic law forbade marriage to particular groups of people, as it resulted in wives leading husbands into idol worship (Deut. 7:14). Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible, p. 61

Taken out of context, no wonder men of the church are over-afraid that women can only lead them to Babylon and to other gods. Never to God Most High. But I believe 1 Timothy 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to exercise authority over a man” is merely talking about this same oppressive, dominating, displacement of power that no believer should hold over another. It was happening in Timothy’s context and needed to be addressed specifically.

Here’s where it changes for us ladies: in the New Testament. Furthering the move from how men ruled the world as each saw fit in his own eyes, toward the direction of bringing God’s kingdom to earth, the disciples gave a woman authority over herself. When Ananias and Sapphira sold land and lied about the total, the apostles didn’t automatically kill the wife because of the husband. She was questioned separately. She was punished for her own sin, not his.

Realizing this, is huge to me. The new century church did not treat the woman as an accoutrement to her husband and throw her in the lion’s den automatically.

Interdependent

A woman came from a side of man, but men come from women. I like the idea of men being told to rise up in the church as, “Dude, pull your weight.” Just because she’s almost capable of doing everything doesn’t mean she should.

Women were segregated into the outer court of the temple, the court for women and Gentiles. Men had greater access if they were circumcised. And priests had even greater access than that. But now that the veil has been torn, 1 Peter 2:9 says we are a kingdom of priests. Men and women, we are priests.

Consider the freewill the church has in relation to “Christ the Head.” Typically, people who believe God demands subjugation (through the threat of eternal torment) end up leaving the church, or hardening and announcing online that everyone is going to hell.

If your men are “leading” you just fine and you’re content with where you’re going, great. Just keep an eye on the road. If not, lead yourself. Both Tamar and Ruth acted when the men in their lives remained passive and they’re named in the line of Christ. And whether he leads on the intimidating side or the passive side, realize that following bad leadership is not being a helpmate.

Following is not helping.

And I think woman is to be a helpmate only so long as her man pursues God, but then a hindrance to him.

My grandma had a plaque on her wall when I was a kid. It said:

Do not walk in front of me, I might not follow.
Do not walk behind me, I might not lead.
Just walk beside me and hold my hand.

I tried to find attribution but I think I remember the plaque said Author Unknown.

I remember the first time I understood this poem. I thought it was a little radical and wondered if my parents knew it was there. (At a very young age, I understood my dad was in charge of everything that mattered.) Sometimes it felt uncomfortable to read it, not quite scandalous, but it was probably my first memory of cognitive dissonance.

So of course I memorized it.

Even though I settled the dissonance by viewing the poem as a picture of friendship, I hope my tendency to lean into something discordant never changes. I don’t want to just hope there aren’t any monsters, or to surround myself with people who agree that there are no monsters—but to find a weapon and clear the house, to investigate what I’m dealing with, even if it’s scary.

Whether or not you’re someone’s helpmate, realize that following a someone other than God is not helping.

Just walk beside me, and hold my hand.