Tribal Church

I was at a party, holding my plastic cup of beer and talking to a stranger in a crowded house. She was in thirties, like I was. “So, what do you do?” she asked. “Where to do you work?”

I smiled because this part of the conversation can become really interesting. I’m a five-foot tall woman, who’s part of a generation that considers itself “spiritual but not religious,” so people don’t usually expect my answer: “I’m a pastor.”

“Oh my God,” she responded. “I never knew why anyone would go to church. But last year, my mom got sick. She’s divorced, and I’m living hundreds of miles away from her, so I didn’t know what we were going to do. And her church totally took care of her. They brought her meals. They drove her to the doctor. They called me when anything out of the ordinary happened.”

“Yeah. That’s what the good churches do.”

“Really?” She looked completely confused as she continued, “I had no idea. You should really advertise that.” I laughed, and we talked for a bit more about her career. But, her initial comments stuck with me as I snagged a rare empty space on the couch. I looked at the crowd of mingling people, and the loud music triggered my thoughts. It never occurred to me that people would not know that churches care for the sick. What had church become in the minds of most people?

I wondered as I traced the condensation drops on the side of my cup. Do people only know our faith by what they see on Fox News? Has church become synonymous with the Religious Right? Has Christianity become known as a “pull yourself up by your boostraps” kind of religion? What about our progressive congregations who are serving the poor, caring for the environment, and helping each other out? What about those who love our neighbors, even when they’re going through difficulties? Do people even know we exist? And how would we advertise that anyway? It’s not like we are an elderly care service—someplace where you can drop your parents off so that we can take care of them and you don’t have to worry. No, it’s different than that. We’re a community. Which, I suppose, can be an alien concept in itself these days.

Our society rewards autonomy. In our educational system, the most important tests are the ones we take alone. We move away from our hometowns in order to get an education or a job. Then we keep relocating for every career opportunity. People would rather rely on high-interest credit cards than borrow money from their own family. Young men and women, who are trying to enter an extremely difficult job market, are considered losers if they live with their parents while they pay off their student loans. People put off marriage and parenthood, because there is a societal expectation that we must be financially independent before we become married (which is increasingly difficult when it takes two incomes to maintain household stability). In these days of economic turmoil, the young have been hit with student loans, high housing costs, and stagnant salaries. Older people have been smacked with increased medical costs, prolonged retirement plans, and diminished savings. As we realize how threadbare our societal safety net has become, it is becoming clear how faulty our notions of financial and emotional independence are. We need each other. We need communities.

While many civic organizations have become relics of the past, faith communities still thrive in our society, as a place of solidarity in all stages in life. In our sanctuary, there is a space where CEOs and homeless people sit together in the same pew. We’re a gathering where people from diverse ethnicities work with one another. It is a setting where the young and the old support each other when we’re in spiritual, emotional, or physical need. It is a place I can go to, in times of faith or in doubt. When I’m too weak to hold any belief in God or myself, I know that a community holds it for me. And I can be strong for others, when they falter. It is a sanctuary, in a broad sense of the term, where people can question and work to make the world a better place.

I don’t mean to say that our community of faith is perfect in any sense. None of them are. We can fight over silly things, and we have expectations that far exceed our human capacities. There are some churches where people can just be downright nasty to one another. But, in the right space, it is a place to build community, with all of our human messiness. It is a place where we can struggle alongside one another, helping one another in times of strength and weakness.

In this society where we are becoming weary, anxious and depressed with our struggle for autonomy and independence, there is a place where we still gather. We take each other to the doctor. We make food for one another. We care for each other. We see each other as neighbors and we still create community.

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I was teenager, standing in front of the mirror, hating every bit of the reflection. I was born in the seventies and grew up along a beach town in Florida. It’s a place where–sometimes by necessity–people don’t wear many clothes. The beach dominated our recreation and businesses, and it was so hot that a lot of clothing didn’t make sense. Many restaurants had to instruct their customers to wear shoes and shirts in order to receive service. I never wanted to wear a bathing suit in public. I had a less than perfect body, and never got over my self-consciousness enough to venture out without full covering. And as I stared into that mirror, my body consciousness turned into shame, and then hatred began to take root, until I loathed what I saw. Every imperfection, every curve, I treated with a disgust that haunted me throughout the day. It came out in subtle ways, mostly with an eating disorder that never allowed me to consume food without guilt.

Sadly, my Christian faith didn’t help matters much. As a teen, we attended a conservative mega-church. I was a “born-again Christian,” fashioned in a tradition where I was always taught to “take up my cross” and to “die to self.” There was a dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit, they told me. As a Christian, I was caught in an internal warfare, where I was trying to contain the flesh and discipline it. This hatred of the body fit in well with the emotional and hormonal turmoil I went going through as a teenager, as I began to develop in strange and unusual ways, and I could no longer quite squeeze myself into a bathing suit. Our church constantly encouraged us to fast as a spiritual discipline. Our pastor went thirty days without food, and preached about the experience constantly. So I fasted. I learned to ignore the cravings for which my body yearned. I turned away from the hunger, pain, and stress, all in the belief that I, as a good Christian, ought to keep any cravings of my body under spiritual control.

I didn’t come into a full understanding of my folly until fifteen years later, when my body began quickly and drastically changing again. I was pregnant, and each day I would stand in front the mirror, just like before. Yet, the experience was completely different. This time, it was with pure wonder at what was happening, as each part of my body swelled. I could no longer ignore my cravings. I had to listen closely to them, because they told me exactly what my body needed—leafy greens on one day and dairy products on the next. If I shunned my hunger and skipped a meal, I would vomit. My body let me know when the stress of my job was becoming too much and I needed to slow down, or when I needed to sleep more.

During this second time of profound physical change, I no longer had the same spiritual teachers. My theology had also evolved radically, as I read more feminists in my tradition, and the voices of those women reminded me that I needed to love my neighbor and I needed to love myself. They lifted up the fact that God said creation is good, and we need to take care of it. As I looked down at my enlarged flesh, I realized that I was not only a part of creation, but I was a partner in creation. As my body morphed into new shapes, my faith took on a new form as well, as I read theologians who shunned the idea that every sin begins with pride, while lifting up the fact that often people live with the violation of self-hatred. When I looked into the mirror, my new teachers whispered to me that I must great respect for that reflection. Because what I was looking at was imago dei–I was made in the image of God.

Feeling those first kicks made me experience my spirituality much differently. So much of what I had been taught had been focused on death, especially Jesus’ death on the cross, and that act of human cruelty had become central to my faith in unhealthy ways.  And yet, through those nine months, and the years that followed, I began to see my spirituality through the lens of birth and life. I became “born again,” as I understood that the Spirit was giving birth to me anew. God was using me in the act of creation, and I learned the importance of deeply-loved flesh.

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It’s hard to watch the YouTube video of Rep. Mark Souder and part-time staffer Tracy Jackson, as they sit, talking about Souder’s unwavering commitment to abstinence education. Souder is the latest family-values guy to get poisoned with his own venom, as we find out that he and Jackson had an affair. This grown man, with a wife and children, could not do what he was asking hormonal prom-dates to do—abstain. Jackson seems to be intelligent and poised, playing the role of newscaster as well as she plays the role of a no-sex champ. It makes me cringe to see the made-for-Christian-TV videos, watching him pat himself on the back for standing up for abstinence, while talking to his mistress. But it doesn’t make me surprised. I grew up in that Christian Right world, and know it’s full of opportunities to be bitten.

Souder was part of the House Republican class of 1994, when we began to hear the “family values” message reverberating through our political and religious landscapes. At least, I certainly heard it. In the early 90s, I was young and in Bible School. I remember one afternoon in particular, when I snuck out of the dorms to the beach with my friends, six other Christian college students, most were from out of town. The women were from prominent families. Their fathers were pastors of large conservative churches and Evangelical institutions. All of our parents were in the thick of planning for the Republican Revolution, armed with a pro-life, pro-abstinence, and anti-gay agenda. Most of these women were at a Bible school, not because they were aspiring to have great careers in the church, but they were hoping to find men with similar values, so that they could become wives, mothers, and supporters their husbands’ careers. I, on the other hand, was a budding feminist, wrestling in a conservative Evangelical college. I liked these women. Even as I look back, I still have a great fondness for them. Their hopes were a lot different from mine, and I often became frustrated by their willingness to place all of their own career ambitions into a man. But, they were clever, witty, and beautiful. Their families were powerful for a reason, and as we snuck down to the Oak Street Beach, I even felt a bit intimidated by them.

When we got to the beach, we stripped off our outer clothes, and I realized we were all wearing bikinis, which was strictly against the Bible School rules. Thankfully this was in a time when no one carried cell-phone cameras, shared YouTube videos, or kept personal blogs. I doubt we could get away with that sort of indiscretion now. But, as I said, it was summer, they were beautiful, and we were young, and so it seemed natural. As we settled ourselves onto the towels, passed around the suntan oil, and slathered it on our bare bellies, we began to talk about abortion. Abortion in our circles was akin to murder, so I was surprised to hear one woman quickly confess, “I would get one.” My ears perked as she explained, “I wouldn’t even think twice about it. If I got pregnant, it would ruin my father’s career. I would never tell my parents or anyone. I would just do it, as soon as I found out.” The chorus of women agreed.

I sat silent, looking out into the water. It didn’t bother me that one of the women would get an abortion. What concerned me was that she would have an abortion for her family, in order to keep up the appearance of abstinence. She would do it alone to protect her pro-life father. Watching the lakeshore, I thought of all the strange traps that we were entangling ourselves in order to uphold these family values. As women, we were the sexual gatekeepers, we were to wear the purity ring and keep vigilant in fighting off men. We were told that masturbating was a sin, and Joycelyn Elders was a purveyor of evil. If we had sex, we were tainted and immoral. We could not get on the pill or buy condoms, because we believed in abstinence, so securing birth control was like premeditated sin. And now, was it understood that if we became pregnant, we were to quietly get an abortion in order to protect our father’s job?

I don’t want to universalize that moment and say that all women who grew up in the Christian Right thought these things. But for me, it became too much to bear, and I had to begin imagining values that supported every person in the family. Now that 1994 is far behind us and we are almost numb to the scandals of that “family values” class, can we begin rethinking all of this? And when we do, can we start focusing on the young women? Can we support couples when they need to say “no” and encourage birth control when they are ready to say “yes”? Can we nurture women in all of their choices, and urge them to make decisions in light of their own futures? Can we begin to support loving, same-sex couples as they look to start families? As Mark Souder and Tracy Jackson sort through their personal failings, as they adjust and makes some necessary changes in their own lives, I hope we can change our national dialogue as well, and use this time to recognize the failings of “family values” ideas.

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Season Two of God Complex Radio has begun, and Bruce Reyes-Chow had a wonderful conversation with Diana Butler-Bass. Join us as we talk about civility and graciousness.

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As different opportunities come up, I am coming to the startling realization that there are only a certain number hours in the day, and the hours that were once filled with blogging are now filled with other stuff.

But, I do want to let you know about the other stuff. I’m writing for the Huffington Post’s new Religion section. I was happy to see that my first post on Miriam’s Kitchen made it on to the first page. At least for a while. (Scroll down. Below the Lame Oscar Moments, below the Hustler article. Keep scrolling… there.) There will be a link to my blog on HuffPo, but I’m not sure what it is yet. I’ll be writing there a couple times a week, so I’ll let you know.

Also, God Complex Radio is doing really well. Most recently, I interviewed David Batstone about Not For Sale and the modern abolitionist movement. Coming up on Friday, we’re celebrating Women’s Day with an interview with Cynthia Rigby on the life and legacy of Mary Daly. Ryan Kemp-Pappan is also on that episode. And, I had a chance to talk to Eboo Patel for a podcast that will be coming up on the 19th. And if those amazing people are not enough to get you to iTunes to subscribe, then you surely will when I tell you that Serene Jones will be on a couple weeks following Eboo.

I’m doing a monthly post for Duke Divinity’s Faith and Leadership blog.

And… finally… I want to let you know that I’m going to be at Stony Point on March 21-23. I’ll be leading a seminar, along with Rick Ufford-Chase on Ministering to the Missing Generation, and registration is still open if you’d like to come.

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I’ve been doing a lot of exciting things since I last checked in–like trying to figure out how to get home from New York City in a blizzard, waiting on the phone with Amtrak, digging my car out of the snow, and talking to Daniel Karslake.

Daniel Karslake is the Producer and Director of For the Bible Tells Me So, a documentary about Christianity and homosexuality. You can download the interview at iTunes or listen to it at the God Complex Radio site. Either way, Karslake was really fascinating, so it’s worth the time.

Another site that you might want to check out (if you don’t already know about it), is the Beatitudes Society. I’ve written a couple of reflections for their Epiphany Study, which you can get to if you join Be@ts 2.0. Upcoming… we’re having a Beatitudes Society meet-up in D.C. I’ll keep you posted.

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I wanted to give myself six weeks from my shoulder injury before I started blogging again. My doctor said it would take that long to heal. Although I didn’t believe him, he was right. It took that long to heal.

The pain has been gone for a little while. My shoulder just reminds me that something is wrong every once in a while with sharp jabs that last for a few seconds. And I’ve had some overwhelming exhaustion. But, the great news is that I haven’t had any more problems with the shoulder dislocating, so it doesn’t look like I’ll need surgery.

Actually, now the pang I’m feeling is guilt, about writing “great news” on a day like today.

In Haiti, the devastation is overwhelming. People are trying to dig men and women out of the rubble with their hands. I am getting emails from people who don’t know if their friends were caught in the quake. Thousands are dead.

Being a religious person in this sort of situation gives me some hope in humanity, because we find out about the many people who have been working there, trying to make things better for a poor country. Often they are there with a church group, or because of their faith. As soon as the disaster hit, I could think of a number of friends who have dedicated their lives to the people of Haiti.

It’s almost enough to drown out Pat Robertson’s remarks. But not quite.

Are you looking for a way to help? Here is a list of relief organizations that my husband put together. I have a friend and member of our church who has been working with the Quixote Center. I have been impressed with their work. Give and pray. Give and pray.

photo by Jan Sochor

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I am stepping on to some shaky blogging territory (shaky blogging territory here equals writing something in a public forum that you hope a particular person does not read)… but… here goes….

I met someone who works for a denominational publishing house, who said, five minutes after our first hello, “We would never publish one of your books.”

I’m not sure why he said it. And, of course, I was offended. I mean, I can understand getting a rejection letter after sending in a proposal. But I hadn’t sent in a proposal. I had not even hinted that I would try to send in a proposal.

He went on, “Your material is not scholarly enough.”

The truth is that this house often publishes less-than-scholarly material. I laughed and pointed that out. And I also pointed out that my book sells very well, thank you very much. And then my mind went on an extended mental rant as I thought about how I would never enquire with them anyways, and that my book is used in seminaries, and ….

Yeah… that’s right. I’m a big baby.

I have had more conversations with him, which have been much nicer. But, this initial discussion came to my mind when I was at a focus group for another, much larger, progressive religious publisher. They were asking pastors what they needed, and our answers often gravitated to the same thing, “We need books that we can hand to our church members, not seminary books.”

And, I think it was Anne Howard who suggested, “Conservative religious books are grass roots. Progressive religious books are academic.”

We all shook our heads and the same cry echoed around the table, “Please, give us some smart, grass-roots books.” And we described our congregations: they are intelligent and passionate. They could tell you about the entire complicated tribal system in Afghanistan, but they may not know much about the Bible. We need books for that person.

Maybe conservatives assume that they will have converts and progressives assume that everyone grew up in the church. I don’t know, but we need those basic books.

There are some wonderful Ph.D.’s who can write on a grass-roots level, who fit this bill, but we can’t always look to the academy for what we need.

And so, I make my plea to my progressive publishing friends. Don’t dismiss those books that are for regular people. As pastors, we need to be able to hand a good book to intelligent parishioners who just might be starting out with this whole church thing. I also get requests for daily devotional books, marriage books, basic Bible books, finance books from a Christian perspectice—as progressives, we have things to say about ordinary life, and the people in the pews are really wanting to hear it.

So let’s hear it. Pastors and church leaders, what requests do you get?

Photo by Ansy

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Okay… they are out there. They slip into our churches, wanting to be unnoticed. They are the mega-church refugees.

After two decades of hand clapping, arm waving, and metal chair sitting, they gave themselves a reprieve from church. But now, they want something, and they’re pretty sure they don’t want their parent’s boomer church, with the charismatic pastor and the Limbaugh-induced sermons. And so a few of them are slipping into our pews. Looking around, wearily, cautiously.

What do they look like? How can you spot them? I have a few pointers, since I was one of them.

•Even though they love the environmental aspects of the screen, they might break out into a bit of a cold sweat when they see it in the sanctuary.

•They might bring their Bibles to church. Do not be alarmed when you see the book. Try not to stare. And don’t worry. They will figure out quickly that they’re not supposed to bring it.

•Their personal Bible in their pew does give them a little comfort because they can’t immediately tell the difference between hymnal, prayer book, and Bible in the pew. They will pick up the wrong one. At least until they figure out that no one else really follows along with the readings, because they are the only ones who know how to look them up.

•If they’re particularly moved by a solo, they will clap following it. Once. Until they figure out that it’s not okay. Then they will die a little bit inside.

•They never missed a Sunday at church growing up, but they don’t know the Apostle’s Creed. They are the ones mumbling “watermelon” when the rest of the congregation is proudly articulating every word.

•They might say “Amen” after the pastor says it. It’s just a reflex. And don’t laugh at them if they use “just” in their prayers. At least they know how to pray in public.

•They are the people who would rather leave their right arm than leave their email address.

•They may not have been going to church for the last ten years, because they were afraid that they couldn’t afford it.

•If they happen into a denominational church during Stewardship Sunday, they may never come back. Only because, in their mind, asking for money is what church is about every Sunday.

•If they hear how much your church is involved with helping the homeless and poor, then they will start to breathe. And they might be able to leave something in the offering.

•If you mention that your church supports LGBTs, then the muscles in their neck will loosen. They will be utterly confused, but very relieved.

•They are confused by communion. They might not have even ever participated in communion before.

•If someone tries to hug during the passing of the peace, they will have finely-developed defense mechanisms in order to shield themselves from the Holy Spirit chest crunch.

•If the pastor learns their name after a couple of weeks, they just might faint dead away.

•If the church has a discussion about having a “contemporary” worship service in order to reach out to more people, they will assume that you’re trying to get their parents to come to your church.

And what would you add? Have you been there? Have you seen them?

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So those of you who follow Bruce Reyes-Chow, the Presbyterian Moderator, on Twitter, know that he has been talking about certain conferences, and prodding us, wondering about our Mainline interest or disinterest in them.

And those of you who follow both of us know that I have been rather old-school, angry, and vehement in my responses to such conferences. (Old-school, meaning I’ve been taking a black-and-white, us-versus-them, my-way-or-the-highway approach.)

It actually kind of shocked me. I have a lot of opinions–there’s no doubt about that–but usually I can appreciate the viewpoints of Evangelical colleagues, even though I think that they’re wrong about many things. I have learned to embrace my heritage, as something that is an important part of me. If I hate it, then I hate myself. (Of course, there’s a fine line here. I do hate the sin that was inherent in my Evangelical formation, and confess it, and change….)

But, for some reason, my reaction to the Catalyst Conferences overwhelmed me. And I wondered why that was.

Was it jealousy? There are as many Mainliners as there are Evangelicals (and I realize that there is a lot of cross-over in terms here), but Evangelicals almost completely drive the religious book market, the religious media, and politics, because of the fantastic ability that Evangelicals have to organize huge events, and to find unity in vital causes. Authors and musicians who get invited to these sorts of conferences do really, really well. I was warned constantly when I wrote Tribal Church to make it an Evangelical book, or it would never sell.

But, I don’t think jealousy was fueling my frustration. I think the main character in the driver’s seat was fear. As you can see from the line-up, there were very few women involved in The Nines, and (I think) only one ordained woman. I’m afraid of going backwards. It’s irrational, I know. But the fear and anger are still there.

It was very difficult growing up in a religious tradition that saw me as sinful because of my growing call into ordained ministry. It was painful watching many of the women in my family, who had the same calling, not be able to pursue theirs. It’s difficult to think of all the Bible school students in my “message preparation for women course” (we were not allowed to call it preaching), where I heard some of the best sermons in my life, who pursued their M-R-S in the hopes of being a pastor’s wife, because that was the very closest that they could come to being a pastor themselves.

I understand the religious viewpoint that women should not be ordained. I know that an Evangelical conference will have a handful of women, and we should not expect more that that. But I also understand the deep sorrow and frustration that church can cause from the sexism that bleeds from generation to generation. And when I’m faced with it, then I bark, in anger and pain, as if I’m facing a dog that previously bit me.

The denominational church, even with all of the ordination difficulties, even with its less-than-flashy conferences, and its inability to unite across denominational lines to become a stronger voice in publishing and politics, has been an unbelievable font of grace for me. Welcoming my gifts, encouraging them, and allowing a place for them to flourish. And even though there have been bumps along the way, there is a way for someone like me. And I am filled with overwhelming gratitude to be a part of it.

I left the Evangelical Church, because the Mainline church—with its strong commitment to social justice, gender equality, spiritual disciplines, and intergenerational community—seemed much more relevant. And yet, now that I’m inside, I find many Mainliners wishing that we were like Evangelicals, so that we might gain relevancy.

I just wish we, the Mainliners, could see what gifts we have, celebrate them, and I guess along the way… I wish that we could learn to organize a little better.

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