Loving Our Frailties

by Rev. Laura Barclay

This weekend, I attended a new members class at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, KY. The 100 year old sanctuary is gorgeous, decorated in an English Country Gothic style. In the 1970s, stained glass windows were installed with pictures of apostles and saints throughout history. One panel in particular struck me. Each of the apostles had two symbols representative of their lives in each hand. 

Peter in the middle, top panel, holds a key in his left hand. This is indicative of the passage from Matthew 16:18-19 where Jesus says, 

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock. I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

On this passage is the basis for the Catholic tradition that Peter was the first pope--the first head--of the one global church on which Jesus laid the foundation through his ministry.  Whether or not you interpret the passage this way, it is inarguable that Peter had a profound impact on the shape and spread of Christianity after the death of Jesus.

Yet, notice what Peter has in the other hand. He is holding a rooster, which is the symbol of his betrayal that Jesus predicts in Matthew 26:34: "Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times." This becomes true later when Peter pretends that he does not know Jesus after his arrest. So how is it that the man with the keys to the kingdom also betrays Jesus? 

The apostles are portrayed almost as comic relief in the gospels. They don't understand Jesus' message or miss the point, allowing Jesus to clarify. In the famous "Feeding of the 5,000" story in Matthew 14, the apostles want to send the crowds away rather than feed them. Jesus says to them in what I can almost imagine as an exhausted eye-roll of a tone in verse 6, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."

While the apostles keep screwing up during Jesus' life, they are forced to organize after his death. They realize what Jesus' teachings meant to them and that it's up to them to spread the message. Jesus is entrusting it to them, for all their bumbling imperfections. In Matthew 28, they are asked to go throughout the nations and spread the teachings. 

If we believe that Jesus was both fully human and divine, then we must understand that he knows the horror of human fear. In the garden before his arrest he was sweating blood (Luke 22). This is a very real condition called hematidrosis, which is brought on by extreme fear and anxiety. Imagine Jesus in the garden in the dead of night alone, sweating blood, crying, in the midst of a panic attack, pleading with God to "take this cup from me." Most of us would have a similar reaction to the possibility of being crucified. 

I think Jesus would absolutely understand Peter's betrayal in the face of death. This is why Peter's commitment to Jesus' message after the crucifixion is even more profound. The theologian Origen would later go on to confirm Peter's upside down crucifixion in Rome, showing both Rome's continued cruelty to perceived insurrectionists and his willingness to die for his beliefs. 

Each of us is a bundle of courage and fear, loyalty and betrayal. We must come to terms with this and love ourselves, as God does, not in spite of our frailty, but because of them. Humans are beautiful, messy creatures that are far from perfect, but we are made in God's image. And if we believe that God understands humanity even more intimately through Christ's experience, then we have to trust that God is there when we are paralyzed with fear or, God help us, when we betray one another. If anything, we must learn to forgive ourselves as God forgives us so that we can begin to see ourselves as children of God. The next time you fall short of your expectations, don't dwell on it. Know that God is there, cringing with you in sympathy, and ready to remind you that you are loved. You just have to accept that unconditional love, which may be the hardest lesson for humans to learn.

Slim Fit

By Rev. Aileen Lawrimore

Have you noticed? Every garment promises it—from blouses and dresses to jeans and jackets: “Slim Fit.” “Super Slimming.” “Secretly Slimming.” “Sleek and Slim.” “Slim Style.”

I’ll admit, I’m one of the reasons this marketing strategy works. It’s true; I’ve bought lots of things (and not just clothes) that promised to perfect me upon purchase. So before I start my rant, hear me: I’m guilty.

Now. Let’s move on.

Issue #1: Why do we think that a garment will solve all of our body image issues? (And by “we,” I mean not just you, but me too—see above.) We’re fatter than ever here in the US of A, and the diet industry is growing just as fast as our slim-fitting dresses. Let’s try a new slimming technology: Let’s eat right and exercise. But let’s eat right because it is the right thing to do and because it is wrong to eat junk and to overeat. Let’s exercise because the benefits are greater than the inconvenience. And then, healthier and stronger, let’s buy what we want and wear what we like, knowing it really isn’t clothes that make a person. It’s character.

Issue #2: Why in the Sam Hill do size two jeans need so-called “slimming technology?” Seriously. It’s one thing to slip slimming secrets into my size 12 jeans; it’s another for size 2’s to promise such nonsense. I’ve seen it, and if you look, you’ll see it too: jeans smaller than size 4, blouses in XS that promise to make their wearers appear even smaller. Crazy. Come on now. Have you ever seen a size 2 person who was just a little on the plump side? If you have, you are the one with the problem—and I mean this—get yourself some help.

Issue #3: What’s so great about being slim? You know what I think? Here’s what I think: I think it’s a white thing. You read me right. I said it’s a white thing. A Caucasian quirk. How do I know? I know because I have lived my life surrounded by people of other ethnicities. Not only did I attend inner-city schools, I’ve worked and lived in environments where my pale skin put me in the minority. And it’s been my experience that other ethnic groups have more liberal attitudes about beauty. Lots of things define beauty. Skinny can be beautiful. And so can curvaceous. Green eyes, dark eyes; light skin, dark skin, freckled skin; curly hair, straight hair, streaked hair, natural hair, permed hair; long legs, short legs, fat legs, skinny legs, legs that climb on rocks. It’s all good. So get with it white folk; then get over it.

Well, in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.” (Which is of course an outright lie: I could talk for days about this topic—or any other). So I’ll just close with what I used to close my Weight Watchers’™ meetings with, “You are beautiful today. When you lose weight, you will be thin and beautiful. But today, you are just plain beautiful.”

Aileen Lawrimore is a public speaker, freelance writer, and editor. This article originally appeared on her blog, Aileen goes on…and on.

Bullying: An Unacceptable Reality

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Last week, a study published from Clemson University showed that one in six school children have experienced bullying. Many respondents felt that teachers had done little or nothing to stop it. The study also showed that as children get older, they are more inclined to engage in bullying. In the wake of the teen suicides of Tyler Clementi, Billy Lucas, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown, and others because of anti-gay bullying, I think it is important to reflect on what our children might be subjected to in our schools and become part of the solution.

In the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, teens have started a chapter of the Interfaith Youth Core and chose bullying months ago as the single issue on which they wanted to act. Many of these children told their stories at a C.H.A.N.G.E. assembly in April comprised of 54 faith communities and neighborhood associations. I was shocked by what these children had experienced. One Jewish girl told a story about swastikas being drawn on her desk and money being thrown at her feet, and a Jewish boy said a group of guys asked him why he was at “their school,” saying, “I thought you all died during the Holocaust.” A Muslim boy told a story about being called a “terror baby,” while a Catholic boy shared that he and his friends were called “gay” during the accusations of sexual misconduct among some priests. One Latino Christian described his fear of succeeding in class, saying that the gangs would bully him for being a nerd if they knew how smart he was. From sexual harassment to racial discrimination, it was truly heart wrenching to hear the stories of our youth. In a group of Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Unitarian youth, every single child had, at the very least, witnessed some form of bullying or discrimination in their school.

According to a report compiled by the US Department of Justice from worldwide studies, Australian researchers discovered that children who were victims of weekly bullying “experienced poorer health, more frequently contemplated suicide, and suffered from depression, social dysfunction, anxiety, and insomnia.” When they grew up, they had an increased likelihood of having children who would be subjected to bullying (pg 12). It’s a problem that has long-lasting effects.

So, what can and should we do? First, we need to become more educated about what our children face in their schools (check links below to start). Second, find out what you can do to stand with those who are bullied. To show immediate support, many celebrities, political figures, and regular folks like you and me have been making short videos and posting them to YouTube to say that “it gets better,” both as you get older and as time progresses and views change about gender, race, and sexuality. Parents can work to be more engaged in the schools, listening to their children and reading between the lines. Teachers can respond and stop the bullying when it starts. Churches and their members can mentor schools and students, and be safe havens for children and teens who are being bullied and contemplating suicide.

Each of us is a child of God, made in God’s image and deserving of love and respect. Gen 1:27-31 states, “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them…God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.” We can and should show our children that their lives are precious, and that their potential is great. Jesus tells us not to be “a stumbling block before one of these little ones” and to “become humble like this child” in order to be “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (NRSV, Matthew 18). Let us commit to love, stand with, and speak out for these children in Jesus’ example. That these kids can’t see tomorrow for all the pain of today is a tragedy we shouldn’t be willing to let continue.

Additional Resources:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Bullying Initiative: http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/

The National Center for Bullying Prevention: http://pacer.org/bullying/

Stomp Out Bullying: http://stompoutbullying.org/

Politics and In-Laws

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Whatever your political party, chances are high that you have Republicans, Democrats, and possibly Independents in your family, whether you are aware of their affiliation or not. This is certainly the case among my relatives. When I was home over Easter, my husband and I had dinner with my mother and father, as well as his father and step-mother. For the first time, our two families endeavored into a deep discussion on religion and politics. Let me stress that our religious and political views are many and varied. I shifted nervously in my seat, hoping we wouldn’t hit a verbal wall as topics related to immigration, health care, and racism were broached.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, but I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath.

In the middle of all of the discussions and negotiations, we kept finding ways to affirm our respect for one another. Perhaps it was the shared underlying belief in our discussions that we were all made in the image of God. “I don’t understand where you’re coming from” became “How much can we agree on?” Eventually we experimented with how our Congress works with statements like, “If we were to introduce a bill on immigration, on what topics could we agree to start forming statements?” The conversation ended with laughter and a solid agreement on the need for term limits and honesty about mistakes, corruption and greed on both sides of the aisle.

Over the course of the last year, we have watched heated ideological differences lead to yelling, spitting, throwing bricks into government offices, growing militia movement numbers, and open-carry rallies that aren’t even about gun rights. We’ve watched some Republicans criticize a Democratic President for negotiating a new START nuclear treaty with Russia, though President Obama used the same terms for negotiating as Republican President Reagan in the 1980s. Conversely, President Bush was never heartily celebrated by many Democrats for his commitment to global AIDS relief or declaring certain environmentally endangered areas to be protected near the end of his presidency.

If we stop seeing the underlying image of God in our neighbor, regardless of political party or religious belief, then we fall into the trap of belittling them or inciting violence against them. Perhaps if both parties could find a way to humanize the other side and figure out what we can agree on, rather than boiling the sum of a person down to a list of issues, we could all sit around a table and laugh heartily like family.

Liturgy and Human Disability

by Andrew Tatum

In many ways, I think, our understanding of what it means to be human (and by us I mean Westerners) is inherently related to an understanding of the imago dei - even if some people won't claim that relation. When we think of what it means to be human, we often turn to the idea of human capacities.

Hans Reinders, in Receiving the Gift of Friendship, reminds us that this view of humanity as related to human capacity is - unfortunately - directly connected to historical Christian conceptions of the imago dei. In other words, any Christian effort to insist that "people with profound intellectual disabilities are people just like other people" on the basis of the imago dei is bound to disappointed with what it finds.

Reinders notes that in his research on the imago dei, he found that the theological support for a capacity-oriented imago dei was broad and deep within the Christian tradition - and not only the Christian tradition:

"Personally, I have great respect for people who live profoundly disabled lives. But can one even say that? Are the people living such lives the proper object of respect? Any contemporary textbook on ethics will explain to its readers that they owe respect to all human beings, because of their capacity for reason and will. These textbooks do not say this because they are contemporary; readers will find the same view in all major Western thinkers, from Kant back to Aquinas to Augustine to Aristotle, to name a few. One only need substitute "rational soul" for "human being," and one will find the proof of this claim."

Reinders, of course, wants to counter this claim that our humanity or our lives as the imago dei are necessarily related to human capacity. In working through these claims, I am more than willing to go along with Reinders - but in a different direction that he is going. I want to say that our humanity is constituted by our relation to other people and to God and, thus, that none of us are fully human unless we participate in life with others and with God. Of course, this could be a dangerous move because it could lead to the oppression of those who do not understand "right relation to God and others" in the way in which I do. This is something that I'll have to deal with. But the further claim that I am inclined to make is that "right relation with God and others" is forged primarily in the fire of gathered liturgical celebration. Therefore, I have some questions. Implied in each of these is the question of how "historic Christianity" has asked and answered these questions.

Three interrelated questions on Liturgy and Human Disability:
1. In what ways can liturgy shape our understanding of what it means to be human?
2. In what ways can liturgy serve as a means of faith formation?
3. In what ways can the inclusion of disabled persons in the liturgical celebration of Christian communities become mutually edifying and spiritually formative?

Andrew Tatum is the youth minister at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smithfield, North Carolina and a student at Campbell University Divinity School. This post is taken from his blog, Methobaptist Musings, where he reflects on being a Baptist in a Methodist setting, and writes on matters of theology, culture and church.

Jimmy Carter and Gender Equality

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Former President Jimmy Carter stated in a recent video appearance at the Parliament of World Religions meeting in Australia, “Every generic religious text encourages believers to respect essential human dignity, yet some selected scriptures are interpreted to justify the derogation or inferiority of women and girls, our fellow human beings.”

Carter has become a champion of women in religion over the past decade since his departure from the Southern Baptist Convention, and his humanitarian record is impeccable. His comments made me reflect about the global state of women in religion. Carter said, “It is ironic that women are now welcomed into all major professions and other positions of authority, but are branded as inferior and deprived of the equal right to serve God in positions of religious leadership. The plight of abused women is made more acceptable by the mandated subservience of women by religious leaders." This is an incredibly astute observation. While American women are slowly closing the pay gap in the secular world (MSNBC reported recently that women in DC make 92 cents for every dollar a man makes, though they lag far behind in the South), women are far from having equal representation in the pulpit.

Perhaps a perusal of Southern Baptist literature may tell us why. As America’s largest Protestant denomination (though their numbers are declining), their view on women says a great deal about conservative religion and women’s representation therein. The December 2009/January 2010 issue of SBC Life, Journal of the Southern Baptist Convention states:

“The Bible clearly teaches that men and women are equal in value and dignity and have distinct and complementary roles in the home and the church…If families do not structure their homes properly, in obedience to the teachings of Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, and Colossians 3, then they will not have the proper foundation from which to withstand the temptations of the devil and the various onslaughts of the world. This in turn impedes the husband and wife from modeling redemption in their home God has called them to (Ephesians 5:22-33).”

The SBC believes that women are separate, but equal to, men (they call it complementary equality). Women’s domestic duties are just as important as those of the men who run the church, and those who violate this teaching invite the devil into their homes. They clearly ignore Galatians 3:28; Jesus’ attitude toward women; Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene before any other after resurrection, making her the Apostle to the Apostles; and all of the women who are cited as church leaders in Paul’s letters, including Phoebe (a deacon), Priscilla (church leader), Junia (a prominent apostle), and others (10 female leaders in Romans 16). SBC leaders are threatening that the devil may take hold of your household if you violate their view of female subservience. They also ignore the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, which showed separate can never be equal. But, I don’t wish to get in an argument over prooftexting. That rarely serves any purpose but to find and distort passages to fit one’s own ideology, as demonstrated by the above excerpt from SBC Life with Ephesians 5:22-33.

Rather, I agree with Carter’s view that the entirety of scripture is liberating. While you can prooftext and distort passages out of their historical context, the Bible as a whole has a bend toward freedom, love, and hope. In the Old Testament, Moses frees his people with God’s help, God watches over his people in exile, and God sends prophets and leaders to proclaim social justice (Micah 6:8, Jeremiah 22:3, Amos 5:24, Isaiah 1:17, Nehemiah 5, etc.) as an exhibition of the love of God toward all God’s children. In the New Testament, Jesus comes to declare that the poor are blessed, spends time with the social outcasts (tax collectors, lepers, and women), and has a large following of female patrons and supporters who funded Jesus’ ministry (Luke 8:1-3). Jesus was politically dangerous to the Romans because he served a higher power that demanded love, social justice and obedience to God’s way, not Caesar’s. I take comfort in the liberating and logical words and deeds of Jesus over the fear and ludicrous suggestions espoused by the SBC that my husband and I might embrace the devil because we are both ordained and share housework. I love my God, and 400 years of Baptist history has taught me that personal experience and the priesthood of all believers make my love and testimony valid before my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

Carter promotes women in ministry in his words, as well as religion being used faithfully to follow God’s liberating call in the world rather than to restrict and build hierarchies. I think Carter is trying to say that if the glass ceiling is broken at the top, and women can be seen as pastoral models and leaders, then our view of God and society will be transformed. If a woman’s perspective in religion is valued, than perhaps Ephesians 5:22-33 will be seen less as a justification for the devaluation of women and more of a treatise on loving understanding between the sexes.

I’d like to close with Carter’s most powerful words: “At their most repugnant, the belief that women are inferior human beings in the eyes of God gives excuses to the brutal husband who beats his wife, the soldier who rapes a woman, the employer who has a lower pay scale for women employees, or parents who decide to abort a female embryo. It also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair and equal access to education, health care, employment, and influence within their own communities.”