Category Archives: Identity

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

At 19 a typical American male might be witnessed yelling at the screen of a video game, washing the old car he’s quite proud of, playing sports, falling asleep in class at a college somewhere, looking for girls to …, and working hard at a fast food restaurant. Chechen born American naturalized citizen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have done all those things, but he also allegedly took part in helping his older brother carry out an act of terrorism in the fatal bombing of strangers at the Boston Marathon a week ago. Dzhokhar has been described as a quiet, kind, and friendly, boxing enthusiast. His elder brother described as more outgoing, extrovert, friendly.

As I was watched and listened to too much news yesterday, reporters and “experts” gave their take on what could possibly cause an apparently “good kid” by all accounts go bad, I began to feel tired and weary. All the speculation, the waiting, the talk game, the hyper-news spectacle, it was too much. The TV kept flashing the young man’s face, he looked innocent… whatever innocent looks like. His brother, 26 year old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was dead by now, leaving his younger sibling to fend for himself. Whose idea was it to bomb, and why?

After a day of intense waiting behind barricades, cheers suddenly broke from the crowd which signaled that Dzhokhar had been captured. He had been hiding in the stern of a boat parked in the back of someone’s home. The kid was in bad condition, bleeding, apparently shot, and taken to a hospital for care. Authorities want to assure he stays alive. They want answers. We all want answers. What would make seemingly average and content young people (so they say) do something so terrible to people who had not hurt them? There are always clues.

It’s all speculation at this point until and if the surviving young man decides to speak. But their father who resides in his home country of Chechnya, said via phone that his sons are not responsible for this act, his sons are good boys and not involved in violence or terrorism of any sort. He said they liked living in America and were happy there. He insisted the American authorities must be mistaken in accusing his sons of this heinous act.  Their uncle, on the other hand, living in the U.S. said he’s ashamed of what the boys had done, calling them “losers” saying “they had not been able to settle themselves thereby hating everyone who did.”

And of course there are the words from the elder brother who is noted as having said he didn’t have one American friend, he just didn’t understand them (Americans).

I don’t know these young men and I don’t know the answers. Perhaps all that will unfold for us over the next few days and weeks. However, after twenty years of youth ministry work and training, one thing I think I know by now and that is, a young person, particularly a 19 year old male who may feel displaced, with a fragile sense, a distorted sense, or no sense of communal belonging, nurture and support, all of which helps create and seal a sense of identity and purpose… in the worst case scenario, even a “good kid” is capable of almost anything.

 

Comments from “An Open Letter to the Church from My Generation”

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I am constantly concerned for the damage we do to young people in the name of ministry. (I equally try to celebrate what is done well!) I write about it often here on this blog.

I had a former student (thanks D.A.!) send this post to me yesterday and not only is the actual post one we need to hear from within this current adolescent generation but the comments are especially telling. We wonder why so many don’t want to be a part of our churches but they want to be a part of the church? Just read the comments. One in particular responds to the young woman who wrote the blog saying “This is why your generation sucks.” Really…? Is that the care and concern Jesus demonstrated for others?

Regardless of where you land on the issue she addresses, she is speaking for many, not all, but many. Her post is a little lengthy itself but offers insight. Don’t give up. Read it then look to the comments and decide for yourself if that is the church as you want it to be.

An Open Letter to the Church from My Generation

What would cause you to sever ties with your tradition?

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It had been a long time since I read this piece but it was forwarded to me by a friend after being re-posted this past January. It originally aired in 2009. Surely something could have changed by now?! (I placed just a portion of the letter below, for the full version follow the link.)

My new thought in reading this is less about the actual content and more about the fact that someone (it just happens to be President Carter) was pushed to the point of leaving his lifelong faith community over a theological stance that has real world implications.

I am repeatedly having the conversation with godly, faithful followers of Jesus who are lost. Lost in that they don’t know where to go for church, for community, for service or for education and training. They entered adulthood excited about the possibilities they considered as an adolescent and feel lied to or let down as they learn of the deception and discrimination perpetuated in the name of orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

One dear friend described the church this way…”It’s like having one of your best friends marrying a woman you don’t like and trying to figure out how to maintain the relationship. The bride of Christ, she can be a bitch and yet, she’s still the one Jesus chose so we’ve got to figure out how to love her too.”

I am curious what pushes you to continue loving the church and how this might mean seeking a different community in which to serve God? I am curious what would push you to sever ties? Many lament the consumer culture around churches and dismiss it as shallow on the part of those who “church shop”. I get that and I can get on board to an extent. But maybe, just maybe we see movement or even more the dropping away for many from church not because of disinterest or being shallow but because they actually care and cannot stand to be a part of the distortion and mutilation of what God intended.

I am also curious what we are teaching our young people that leads to such damaging faith fractures as they mature and enter a season of life where they are more apt to question what is taught and to put together the ramifications of narrow boundaries. How do we do better youth ministry, honestly and actually keep our jobs?

I am concerned both about the faith of leaders as well as that of those they are leading when we no longer feel we have space to speak up and ask questions and choose instead to depart to an isolated wandering world of Christians looking for others who also feel they can no longer be a part of their tradition.

One final note of hope, I do love the repeated metaphor of adoption. Perhaps it is in realizing that we have been abandoned, orphaned so to speak that we can find the true family of God. Perhaps.

Losing my religion for equality…by Jimmy Carter

Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

I HAVE been a practicing Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service…

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

In celebration of anger

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Years ago I was asked “do the things that make God angry, make you angry?” I loved this question. It freed me to actually be angry about a few things. I am not naturally wired this way and it was absolutely liberating to embrace the notion that anger could actually be righteous!

A few years after that I had a parent of one of the teens in the church where I served tell me that God is never OK with our being angry. This was the teaching they were giving their teenage daughter and she beat herself up every time she became angry with her little brother or some other injustice in the world. She lived in a space where she felt she had to be absolutely at peace and in control regardless of the circumstances around her. She also lived with a lot of guilt and frustration.

While I know in my head that anger is OK, I still don’t know what to do with it. I don’t want to be angry about everything and in fact am rarely angry with wrongs that happen to me. I am much better at being angry for others or for bad situations in general. I usually try to turn my anger into advocacy. When it comes to being angry when I’ve been wronged, I’m still not very good at it. Mostly I just feel hurt. And yes, I have enough schooling to know that is just anger turned inward and is not all that healthy, a post for another day.

For today, I want to celebrate anger. I want to say it is really OK to be ticked off at the injustices and crappy things in the world. In particular, to be angry over the crappy things the church and christians have done to others, both in the church and outside. To be angry that we are far more exclusive than Christ Himself ever was. To be angry that we have managed to reverse the trend of scripture from opening up faith to others to closing the circle ever tighter. To be angry that far too often our colleges and seminaries pander to donors rather than standing for what is true. To be angry that brilliant students love to learn and are encouraged and challenged and then realize that what they hold to be true is unable to be spoken aloud in churches leading to conflicted ministers and congregations who have their ears tickled rather than being transformed into the church. To be angry that clergy have abused their power spiritually, emotionally, physically and sexually. To be angry that we are more concerned with who is “holy enough” rather than “needy”. To be angry that still children and youth are too often relegated to an afterthought and not considered as precious and equally made in the image of God. To be angry that racism, sexism and a whole host of other discrimination takes place in the name of serving God.

Tradition says that today is the day we remember the Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. God incarnate, after riding into Jerusalem on a donkey knowing full well death was just around the corner, goes to the Temple and flips over the tables calling a spade a spade. He says “My house shall be called a house of prayer but you have made it a robbers den!” He named, out loud, that the Temple had become other than it was intended and in one action opened the doors for the blind and the lame, for children and for all those who were not in powerful positions seeking to maintain the status quo.

The response was “Hosanna”!!! We typically think of this as a word of praise…it really connotes a cray for salvation.

Hosanna today, this week and in this point of history. May we be saved from our own devices and instead become who God created us to be. May we be angry enough that we have been on the wrong path that we fight to make it right.

What makes you angry pulling out your own response of Hosanna?

So what is the message of “Act Like Men”?

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I don’t know whether I am helping or hurting my theological stance, but I was sent a link to the conference named below this past week. I at least appreciate the graphic with a man bowed in prayer. The difficult thing is that the posturing I have personally seen, read or know by reputation of the majority of these men is anything but quiet, humble and prayerful. It has been brash, misogynistic and couched in scripture being wielded like a club. It is not just my being female and my gut reaction of feeling the need to defend women that makes me respond with such angst. It is my being Christian and a deep concern for men and women, boys and girls. For the church and those who need years of therapy after being abused emotionally and spiritually. I have written in several spaces on this blog about another organization that speaks strongly and regularly in favor of strengthening our young men so this is not an anti-male kind of thing either. (BTW- for the reminder, check out The Heroic Quest for Boys!)

Being treated as “less than” seems to come in waves in my life. I am currently drowning from the waves that keep coming. I have learned to let them wash over me knowing that isn’t God’s truth but…it is exhausting being told verbally and through body language or simply by being cut off in a theological conversation that I am not welcome. I hear from young women, some I know others I do not, weekly telling stories of their own struggles and wishing that this conversation would stop! That this were no longer an issue IF women should be at the table but that we are and that is God’s intent. That we have something to contribute and it pushes way beyond decorating or volunteering in the nursery (both of which are fine…just not the only options).

I have all kinds of gut reactions to this PR piece. I have all kinds of questions given you have to sign up for updates at all and there is very little information beyond who is  featured. Certain lines can be drawn based on their leadership and roles within the Acts 29 Network and statements in their own contexts. I am curious what others “see” in this and what you might “hear”?

I also imagine what a similar conference might hold were it titled Act Like Women. Talks on how to lead, to share the gospel, to live radically for Christ, to fight for justice, to speak out for the voiceless, to offer care and nurture, to proclaim the gospel, to study scripture, to develop networks for marketplace ministry, to be a woman of valor, to adopt children in need, to be the “help mate”- the strong partner God intended, to be thoughtful in all household and family decisions, to write, speak, sing and stand beside other men and women knowing that acting like a woman means that we show the world a glimpse of the image of God. Even more importantly for me at this point in life, that we should young women and small girls (mine included) that acting like a woman is much more about who God created us to be in partnership (ministerially speaking as well as sexually speaking) with really great men also created to be in partnership with us.

MARK
DRISCOLL

MATT
CHANDLER

ERIC
MASON

JAMES
MACDONALD

GREG
LAURIE

LECRAE

 

They viewed me as unclean…whatever

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Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. All around town I saw ashes silently residing on the foreheads of people around me. Even my own daughter with her beautiful porcelain skin had ashes hiding beneath the messy flop of hair. Typically I reach for wipes to clean various things off her face (yogurt, dirt, marker etc.) This however wasn’t something to be cleaned. It was something to be worn long after she had forgotten it was there. It did however set her apart from others. Smudged, so to speak, with the grittiness of Christ.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about being smudged, dirty, even unclean. This past week my Sunday School class finished our look at a book titled “Unclean” by Richard Beck. I am not sure I could recommend a book more highly. It was encouraging at points, disturbing at others and always thought provoking. It looked at the church through the lens of the psychology of disgust. It forced us to talk about holiness, purity, what Christ modeled and now calls us as the church to be and do. In the conclusion Beck says

“Notions of purity and holiness create judgments regarding pollution, defilement, and contamination. Purity and holiness carve the world into clean and unclean and then direct feelings of revulsion and contempt toward the self or the other, those designated as ‘unclean.’” Once these judgements and boundaries are in place, it is almost impossible to see how the mission of the church can be accomplished.”

The mission of the church is messy, dirty, gritty and often looks anything but pure. I’ve had multiple conversations recently about who is “in” or clean and who is “out” or unclean. I have heard from teens and leaders in church settings that Young Life has treated them as less than worthy and even rejected their presence as they were already connected to a church and therefore not worth their time nor did they fit the mission. I have heard from teens and Young Life leaders that while they long to connect with the church, churches reject them for not looking…well, churchy enough. I sat in a class with adult nursing students this past week who stated that while spirituality is important, they see little to no connection with church for feeling judged and turned off for not being able to be regular attenders due to work schedules or not expressing the correct beliefs in ways that were palatable to those in leadership.

I also had the experience this week of the stark reminder of when I too am treated as unclean and when I return that notion, at least in my own mind if not in my actions. I sat with a group of men discussing atonement at the invitation of a grant from Notre Dame. Three of us hold PhD’s, the other three hold either a Master’s or Bachelor’s from a particularly (shall we say) “rigid” institution. The two male PhD’s were treated with respect, almost reverence from the three other men. I was told that my comments were “a matter of opinion”, “that I didn’t know what I was talking about” and then simply shut out of conversation. It was clear both by their actions that night (and openly my previous encounters with Bible students from this particular school) that women are viewed as lesser and inferior.  I used to be terribly hurt viewing myself as Beck states with “contempt” and “revulsion” wondering how to be acceptable in the eyes of Christians in general and those I respected in particular.  This particular night I was simply tired and felt I no longer have time to waste my efforts on such people. In short, I viewed them as unclean.

As I drove away, I wondered how do we ever get to a place where we can do the work of the church if we in the church cannot even get over our disgust with one another? How do I become a person who is able to cross boundaries in the ways I desire and see Christ doing? How do I take this gritty season of lent and realize that perhaps we need to figure out how to view all as Christ does previously unclean, washed white as snow.

Remember when . . . .?

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The word wiregrass immediately conjures up two recollections for me. The first is relatively non-descript – no particular memory – just a recollection of walking through swampy woods of scrabbly pines scrapping my legs against the prickly, needle-like leaves of the wiregrass plant. The presence of wiregrass on the ground and Spanish moss hanging from the trees is a sure sign that you are in the Deep South.

The second recollection is much deeper and broader than the first. Wiregrass evokes a sharp emotional and physical experience of home. I am instantaneously drawn back to the smells, sights, sounds and even touch of my childhood. Memories flood back to me: the all-encompassing hug of Ida Mae as she clasped me to her breasts; the sizzling heat of the kitchen as Mama fried chicken and baked her mouth-watering cats-head biscuits, the laughter and chatter of family gathered around the kitchen table, the long and boring drive down two-lane roads that stretched out like gray ribbons amidst the interminable pines and wiregrass. Though I have travelled far from the Wiregrass region of the Deep South, its tentacles are deeply intertwined in my very soul. The mellifluous and honeyed drawl may be softened somewhat, but the experiences and values of my southern childhood are deeply embedded in the woman I am today.

For much of his life, my great grandfather ran a little country store in the Wiregrass area of southeastern Alabama. My recollection of exactly which strip of highway his store set beside is long gone, but I do recall that the store set right on the edge of the highway. The only thing that separated the store from the highway was a small spit of sandy earth and a chinaberry tree. (I remember the chinaberry tree from visits my family and I would take to see my grandmother – my great-grandfather had long since died. To entertain ourselves, my brother Dennis and I would play war, throwing the hard small chinaberries at each other hoping to inflict mortal wounds).

The store also served as the living quarters for my great-grandfather and later, my grandmother. There were two tiny bedrooms, a small kitchen and a back room that served as a living room. The front room housed the store.

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There was no indoor toilet. An outhouse sat out beyond the back of the house. As a young child, I remember visiting my grandmother during the summers. One of my chores was to take the chamber pot to the outhouse each morning and empty it. Perhaps this helps explain why I love the outdoors, but hate camping or any other form of roughing it!

There were always people stopping by my grandmother’s, either to buy something, to catch up on neighborhood gossip or to swap stories. It was during these moments that I learned that art of story-telling – an art that is deeply ingrained in me. My father and others told the same story over and over again. These repetitive stories would often begin with “Remember, when . . . .” The repetition of the stories served to maintain the family and community bonds, connecting the generations and instilling values. Families and societies teach their children what’s important through the stories they tell. In many ways, scripture, particularly the Old Testament, is a collection of stories passed down from one generation to the next; to help the younger understand their heritage and their God. These days I think we have abrogated our responsibility of storytelling to the entertainment and sports industries. Sometimes that’s a good thing (e.g. movies like Lincoln and Beasts of the Southern Wild); sometimes not.

During my recent convalescence from knee surgery, I watched lots of talk shows. I didn’t realize how many options were available! In an episode of Katie, Katie Couric encouraged parents to write annual letters to their children, something she wished she had done for her two daughters. As Couric talked about the need for telling our stories to our children, I was reminded of something that Robert Bellah wrote in Habits of the Heart:

We find ourselves not independently of other people and institutions, but through them. We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love, and learning.

Bequeathing our stories helps our children and teens discover who they are. Telling our stories to the next generations lays a foundation as they engage the question “Who am I?” Getting to the bottom of ourselves demands that we learn the cultural/familial milieu that is our own – good and bad.

So, two questions I am asking myself these days: What are the stories I am telling? What do I want my children (biological and not) to discover about themselves through the stories I leave?

Who Will Love Me For Me?

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love-inspirational-daily

There are some songs that simply help us to transcend. They say the things that we think in our hearts and never quite know how to put to words. And then you hear it. The words, the melody and arrangement and it is as if someone has expressed for you what you were unable to express yourself.

I have been in conversation with two young leaders this past week. Both by all accounts seem to be confident, bold, and well-liked. Both are living with deep insecurities, afraid that if the world really knew them, rejection would follow. They are blind to the love God has for them and are working hard to feel worthy of just about anything. I can’t help but think of the dozens of leaders I have had similar conversations with over the years. I can’t help but think of the times I have felt this very same thing.

One week ago I was blessed to be at a youth group night with my friends with special needs. It was a night of looking to the new year, being excited about our theme from Eph. 5:1, Therefore be imitators of Christ as beloved children. That we night we decided imitation was the theme and we held a karaoke talent show to imitate our favorite artists and, well, just to laugh a lot. And then the tenor of the night changed in an instant. One young woman with obvious speech and cognitive disabilities sang along with a song by JJ Heller “What Love Really Means”.

This song is one of those songs that seems to express what so many are either afraid to say out loud or they have not yet found the words to explain the deep ache they live with every day. There is hope. And there is love waiting to be given. I included the lyrics to the chorus below. To see the full lyrics, click the link. Take a moment and be reminded there is someone who not only will love you but already does.

What Love Really Means (JJ Heller)

Chorus

Who will love me for me
Not for what I have done
Or what I will become
Who will love me for me
‘Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means

The Tone of Obama’s Address

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President Barack Obama delivers his inaugural address at the ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol during the 57th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, Jan. 21, 2013.

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

It is the evening of the inauguration. Surely the President, Vice President and their entourage are happy to have this day coming to a close.

One thing rang true for certain from the President’s address. He is not concerned about re-election. That may seem obvious by the fact that he simply cannot run for re-election but there was something more, something palpable. He seemed fed up with working so hard to say things in just the right way. He seemed empowered to move forward with his convictions. He invoked his faith and a belief that we have God-given responsibilities. He seemed reserved on one level, but reserved with the confidence that he is about to embark on what he now hopes to do with a little more maturity and experience behind him. In short, he seems ready to live what he says he believes realizing that it may not be all that popular.

If it weren’t for this being a presidential address, this sounds like a prescription of the Christian life. Speak with authority. Keeping in mind that speaking with authority does not mean being a jerk or weilding your convictions and beliefs like a club. No protest is needed at the funerals of others. Life is much more about what you are for and not what you are against. Move forward with convictions. Live out what you say you believe, even when this is exceedingly unpopular. Your faith cannot be hidden. It is the guiding force of who you are, including what you do, AND it does not prevent you from working with and for those who don’t hold the same faith traditions. (BTW, last spring an article was written detailing Obama’s explicit Christianity, despite the criticism lobbied his way. I’d be curious to see how much more it has grown this past year and into the future.) He ends speaking with authority of one who is no longer trying to prove himself. He ends asking us to find unity as a people. He ends calling all to a better life individually and corporately. He ends reminding us that all are equal. He ends just short of a sermon and with the change of just a few words, this would have sounded quite at home in pulpits across the country.

What if those of who claim Christianity worked with such conviction and focus? Perhaps the verse in Colossians would take on new meaning and change more of the way we live.

“Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as if working for the Lord, not human masters” Colossians 3:23

Rape, Manhood, and Warriors

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The face of rape is changing and it looks a lot more like young men we know. (By this, I mean we are no longer assuming rapist are wearing dark jackets with faces covered, lurking in the dark corners of the streets.) The new face of rape comes in groups and may be comprised of upstanding young men, strong members of the community, and, quite frankly, be a part of our youth ministries. When this does occur, the repeated refrain is that this action “seems so out of character.” But does it really, given the manhood being taught in our world, including in some of our churches today?

The headlines regarding rape have been horrific in the last few weeks. Death after a gang rape in India, gang rape from high schoolers in Ohio, and shock over an archaic law allowing rape of single women in California. This is hardly the way anyone hopes to begin a new year, and certainly not how I anticipated beginning a blog post in a season typically filled with hope, resolutions, and a sense of starting over. But maybe this is just what we need to hold out hope to others, to resolve to be about the things of God and to start afresh crying out for (and working toward) God’s kingdom and will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

Tim Wright, pastor at Community of Grace, offered a warning and a vision this week on his blog The Heroic Quest for Boys. It was the first time I had seen such a clear upending of the term “warrior” and all that goes with it. This is a popular term in Christian circles for many young men and pastors reaching out to them. But it is also a term so often laced with patriarchal and abusive ideals.

The Warning: In his essay, “The Crisis of Manliness,” Waller Newall laments, “As a culture we have never been more conflicted about what we mean by manhood.” Many of our men suffer from Flight Club syndrome. Newell explains, “Under-fathered young men, many from broken homes, are prone to identify their maleness with aggression because they have no better model to go by…If young men are cut off from the positive tradition of manly pride their manliness will reemerge in crude and retrograde forms.”  (The Book of Man, William J. Bennett, p. xxi)

 

A vision of hope: We need warriors today, not for fighting each other but for fighting hunger, discrimination, pollution, human slavery, and the abduction of children for soldiery, among many other conditions of human and animal suffering.  We need warriors who can battle congently and convincingly in boardrooms and in the media, in schools and courtrooms, in forgotten jail cells and in dusty fields long rendered infertile by poverty, pollution, or civil war.  And we need leaders among these warriors who can match the nuanced complexions of these kinds of battles with an incisive intelligence, stellar communication skills, and a talent for moving fluidly between competing perspectives and entities.(The Last Boys Picked: Helping Boys Who Don’t Play Sports Survive Bullies and Boyhood, Janet Sasson Edgette adn Beth Margolis Rupp, p. 181)

I would like to call Christian men and women both to enter into the lives of young men and draw them to something greater than the warrior metaphor! Something that God actually intended. My belief is that men have much more to offer than a caricature of manhood and this is NOT in opposition to, or to the detriment of, women.