I’ve been trying to write this blog entry since June and given some recent comments I’ve received via email, I figured that I should probably just hunker down and write it.
A few rules though if you’re going to comment:
Since I’m pretty much baring my soul here, personal attacks will get you banned from my site. I have been taught how to I.P. ban and I can do it quickly.
This is very much a C/S entry. “C/S” is con safos and it’s meaning is “like it or not, it stands without question”. (Read Drink Cultura by JosÃ? Antonio Burciaga for more on this.) In other words, you cannot disagree with anything I say on here because what I am saying is what I believe and you cannot tell someone that they do not believe what they believe. This is not for debate — it’s for explanation. There will be *plenty* of opportunities for debate later. 🙂
It’s probably self-explanatory that there will be no links to fisking in the comments. This is meant to be informative, not to be a source of a rant in someone’s journal.
If you have a litany to say to me, just email me. It’s simpler and saves on space on my web server
Click on (more…) if you choose to accept these challenges.
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When I was taking Person in Ministry two years ago, our final paper was to identify an issue with which we were struggling on a daily basis, create blueprint to work with it, and talk about the influence of grace in our work. My issue: my lack of a clear identity. I had spent 21 years in California, suffered through 3 1/2 years of sexual harassment in high school, fought with depression in college, and moved to the Midwest. My identity was still very much rooted in Santa Cruz because that was where I dealt with everything and where I found Jesus. It was where I had started dating my husband and I had grown used to my life there with an amazing church community, my chapter of Intervarsity, a long distance relationship with my then-fiancï?? (and now husband of 18 months) Jon, and my group of very irreverent and non-Christian friends (3 of whom have been saved since we graduated). Two years earlier, I had been fighting depression; failing my classes; isolating myself from many of my IV friends whose response was something along the lines of “I’ll pray for you” (while my pagan friends were taking me to get my prescriptions, forcing food down my throat, lending me shoulders to cry upon, and listening to me whine); and having my church give me the ultimatum that I was going into therapy or withdrawing from school. (This ultimatum, by the way, saved my life.) Two years later, things were completely different and I was having a hard time reconciling who I was.
When I read this paper this weekend (two years after writing it), it was fascinating to see who I used to be and who I am now. I have reconciled my depression and my harassment into my identity (which I wish I’d remembered when I was going through candidacy) and they remain clear memories but not things that impede my living of my life. The way they were reconciled and integrated *does* impact the way I live my life and the way I react to issues. Considering the flak I get for being anti-Bush/pro-life/pro-legal/pro-Green, pro-Democrat/Lutheran/[insert descriptive feature that rattles people], I thought it might be good to do some reflecting on why I am the way I am and maybe explain to people how I can be that way.
I am Lutheran. (I would also argue that being Lutheran gives me as much of a right to use the title “Reformed” as my brothers and sisters of the PCA, CRE, and other more Calvinistic churches do. After all, Luther was the one who influenced Calvin. 🙂 However, that’s another rant for another time.) During my second year of college, I took a class called “Reformation Europe” that talked about Europe during that time period and read quite a bit of Luther’s works for my paper. (I did read Calvin but he didn’t impress me all that much and I disagreed with the way he came down on some things.) Luther really was where I am theologically and the whole “saved by grace through faith” thing was exactly what I believed. I am a huge fan of Sola Scriptura and being Lutheran really fit with my love for the Word. (Oh yeah… I was also dating Jon who was in his second year of seminary at the time and I wanted to spare our kids the problem of having to choose between my Episcopal church or the Lutheran church that Jon would be pastoring. This has since become a moot point because both of us are aiming for the ordained ministry.) I found that it was a compromise between my Episcopal love of liturgy and my Conservative Baptist views on things (except for the ordination of women) and I have enjoyed the Lutheran churches that I have attended.
I claim to be a feminist. I should probably define what I mean by “feminism”. As my Church History II professor put it, “it is the surprising idea that I as a woman might be human and equal to a man.” In other words, I am not a second-class citizen because I am female and should be paid as much as my male counterpart, provided that my education, experience, and work quality are equal. I tend to have a very feminist viewpoint on many issues because of the harassment I had in high school. My self-worth was highly devalued and discounted and I think my feminist take is a way of trying to re-author the myth that my femininity negates my status as a beautiful daughter of my King. Because I was treated badly as a woman, I very naturally gravitate toward womens’ rights issues like abortion, equal pay, womens’ health access, and I was going to be an OB/GYN if I had pursued Biology and gone to medical school. In a way, doing something with women’s issues helps me to take back some of the power I lost when I had to deal with the harassment.While I have a feminist outlook on things, I really try not to let it cross the line into bitterness against men because that just isn’t healthy. I am not a fan of “inclusive language” because it really isn’t inclusive. As much as I favor a lot of the things I fight for, I go for them because they are human rights and not really a gynocentric thing, which means that I tend to take a more moderate involvement in them than many women do.
I am pro-life/pro-legal. This means that I am pro-life (abortion is wrong) but also in favor of it remaining legal. (This is the reason that I have both Million4Roe and Feminists for Life on my blogroll.) I believe that abortion is murder and not an acceptable form of birth control. However, making it illegal would not deter anyone from getting one. There were plenty of underground abortions before Roe vs. Wade and there will be plenty if Roe vs. Wade is overturned. The simple fact is that that *is* the only option some women feel that they have. If you were 16 and faced being beaten, kicked out of the house, and living on the streets (which *is* a reality for quite a few people), you would probably choose to get rid of the child to retain shelter, food, and safety. (Not to mention that the beating would probably cause the abortion.) In addition, there are diseases (both mental and physiological) that can cause grave danger to women with the addition of pregnancy hormones. Should we put them in danger and let them suffer?Some would probably ask me to name cases like this. I had a few friends in college who faced the beating/homelessness situation when they were teenagers and aborted their babies. My therapist told me of cases where she signed off on abortions for mentally ill women because the pregnancy hormones interfered with their meds or these women had to be taken off of their meds because they might hurt the baby. These women went into psychotic episodes and were dangers to themselves and to others. Jon has confirmed the existence of the latter cases from his chaplaincy days. I know about the physiological diseases because I have one and could be in danger if I were to get pregnant. (They still do not know how severe my Crohn’s is or if it is indeed Crohn’s because it is a really tricky diagnosis.) As a very wise woman once told me, you don’t always have a complete set of options and you don’t always have perfect circumstances. I think that if we actually address what causes the need for abortion, we can lower its incidence. I supported the 24-hour wait law in Indiana because people need to really consider their choices before having an abortion. I am in favor of birth control because it would cut the number of abortions down significantly and most methods do not actually kill the fetus.
I am a moderate. As I state on my “about the blog” page, I am the fine line between right-wing Democrat and left-wing Republican. I don’t believe that the candidates for either party are perfect — there are some great people (Bob Taft, Gary Locke, Elizabeth Dole, Nancy Pelosi…) and some losers (Dubya, Al Sharpton, Tom DeLay, Gary Condit). I tend to vote for individual people and not a straight party ticket. I vote Democrat or Green when back home because I have yet to see a Republican do anything decent in California. In Ohio, I vote Republican because the Republicans here are more moderate and actually get stuff done in Columbus. I avoid extremes because there are very few issues that are truly black-and-white. I also am not opposed to taxes IF they actually go somewhere other than the pockets of the politicians. For example, I would be willing to pay double my taxes if we could provide medical care for everyone. Unfortunately, this will never happen in the USA because our government isn’t set up that way.
I do not support the war in Iraq; but I support our troops. Bush has been talking about going into Iraq since the 2000 campaign. The UN found no evidence of WMD’s and they’re the ones who had the authority to go in and search. They are the ones who decide if we should/can declare war. In other words, our president made us international personna non gratia’s over his vendetta against Iraq. If we had gone in for human rights reasons, I would have supported it, as would most of the U.N. countries who opposed us. (This would not be difficult to prove.)While I do not support the war, I do support the troops over there. They are the ones putting their lives on the line for something they believe in, and I definitely do pray for them. I feel that the best thing we can do is pray for peace, which would mean that they could come home. Many of the people in my parish have kids, nephews, friends, or spouses over there and even if my church doesn’t support the war, we support them.
I believe in the ordination of women. Yes, I’ve read the passages in Timothy, 1 Corinthians, and all the other epistles. I’ve read both liberal and conservative hermeneutical resources on them, have done word studies on the passages in my Greek class, and have prayed about this. I’ve looked at churches which have female clergy and churches that don’t. I’ve looked at this issue from every angle and I’ve come down in favor of it. What really convinced me was when I received the call to ordained ministry and found that I could not deny my call. I’ve discerned that it wasn’t from Satan and that leaves only one option: that it is from God. I respect those who disagree with me on this — it isn’t a black-and-white issue.
I believe that I can fundamentally disagree with someone, but still respect them and consider them friends. It would be really boring if I agreed with everyone on everything. I know that many of you disagree with me on a whole host of things from religion to politics (*especially* politics) and I can deal with that. I am thankful that many of my friends are of the same mind because I think I have learned more from them than I would have learned from being around like-minded people all the time.
I am very tactful and pragmatic about the Great Commission because I am a convert. Basically, I had a neighbor who read the Christmas story to my brother and I when we were 6. She and her family made sure I knew that I was welcome at church anytime I wanted to go and they also made sure I knew that Jesus loved me as I was growing up. One of her co-workers and one of my supervisors tried the “shove-it-down-Jen’s-throat” method, which really turned me off to the faith. Thankfully, my memories of Christianity were the ones of my neighbor and not of her co-worker; and when I was depressed and sucidal, it was her actions that brought me to Christ because she loved me for who I was, not because she would get spiritual brownie points for my conversion. Her example taught me to not be pushy about my faith but instead to show it in how I live my life. I don’t believe in “soul-winning” because of her (well… that and it’s against the explanation to the 3rd article of the Apostle’s Creed) and I try to witness through my friendships and through my attitude.
Does this explain me enough for people to see why I land where I land on issues?
still reading but i loved this part right off:
“In other words, you cannot disagree with anything I say on here because what I am saying is what I believe and you cannot tell someone that they do not believe what they believe…”
also, i’m right there with you on the pro-life/pro-legal. i know this isn’t a debate section, but it’s always nice to find fellow pro-life/pro-legal folks. 🙂
oh and the whole not needing to agree with friends (esp. politically). totally feel that way. i love that you and i (from my perspective) can debate civilly, hopefully learn from each other, and still be friends. at least, that’s how i see it. 🙂
*hugs*
i know i know, i’m hogging space.
i just wanted to say that i agree with so much of what you said here (the feminist stuff, the conversion stuff, even part of the iraq stuff). i should probably email you instead of taking up space. lol.
That was a great, brave post, Jen. Thank you for sharing all that with us! XOXOXO.
“I believe in the ordination of women.”
I wasn’t sure if I did until a couple days ago (I kept going back and forth in my mind w/ the issue), but Mom and I were talking, “out of the blue” I thought of the fruits thing where “you shall know them by their fruit” and there are so many women who are ministers that have good fruit…
Jen, you rock! 🙂
Yeah, rock on, Jen. …For some reason, I suddenly picture you as Lucy standing before Aslan, and he is calling you “dear heart”.