Silent for the sake of the angels

There is a puzzling reference in the Bible when Paul discusses orderly worship, where he instructs that women should be silent during the worship service "for the sake of the angels", and save their questions to ask their husbands at home. While I'm sure nobody wants the worship service disrupted with whispered questions and answers, what do angels have to do with it?

I think I may have found the Jewish context that makes sense of that, the missing piece of the puzzle. It starts with the Jewish understanding of a certain Psalm:

Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. (Psalm 42:8)

The Jewish understanding of this verse was that the "night-time" reference was about the song of the angels: "in the night his song shall be with me" was the angelic hymn of praise. And why was the angelic hymn of praise heard specifically during the night? According to the Talmud, it is because during the day, the angels kept silent for the sake of Israel, that God might hear Israel's prayers.

"there are companies of Ministering Angels, who utter divine song by night, and are silent by day for the sake of Israel's glory, for it is said: By day the Lord doth command His lovingkindness, and in the night His song is with me. (Talmud, Mas. Chagigah 12b)

Some helpful footnotes to the Soncino Talmud explain that the angels are silent by day "because Israel utters God's praise by day" and that, "By silencing the angels by day, God shows his lovingkindness to the children of Israel, who are thus permitted to win divine grace by their prayer."

Apparently, when Paul cited that the women should be silent "for the sake of the angels", it may have meant: If even the angels in heaven are silent during human worship that God might attend to it, how much more should the mortals be silent from things that would disrupt it. So if some congregation had an issue with some wives who didn't understand some aspect, they shouldn't be whispering to their husbands during the service for an explanation, but saving their questions for home, and keeping silent "for the sake of the angels" who also kept silent so as not to disrupt the prayer and praise.

"Slut-shaming" versus virgin-vilifying

Lots of people argue by slogan these days. There is a slogan now being used that way, "slut-shaming", and they say it like it's a bad thing for a "slut" to be ashamed. Granted, I wouldn't choose the word "slut" -- it's harsh and insulting and communicates nothing but contempt. So I wouldn't introduce such a word into the conversation myself, and will take this opportunity to say some words that are more accurate: foolish, irresponsible, using and being used, selling your future short. The feminists see this as an issue -- that men are not called to account for the exact same bad behavior -- then conclude that therefore women should behave just as badly.

Many feminists are genuinely trying to take a stand for fairness; but I wonder sometimes whether they realize that they're being played. Would it bother them to realize that "feminism" has become a tool by which the men play the women to get what they want? And the feminists are defining "success" in terms of "doing what men are doing" -- as if what men are doing is automatically smart or right or desirable. Why did that assumption pass unchallenged, especially among feminists? Does an "empowered woman" want to be a copycat of the men?

Women have traditionally been held to higher moral standards -- at least when it comes to sex -- because we're the ones who suffer the consequences of idiocy or short-sightedness. We're the ones who face the "choice" of aborting our children or raising them alone, often in hardship. The stakes of the game are far higher for us, so we were expected to play smarter.Why aren't men ashamed of lying their way into a woman's bedroom? Good question, but that doesn't make it smart for us to give them a free pass and condone it. And make no mistake, the men have played the feminist movement so that now they have women standing up for the "right" to play the game the way that men want them to.

Except conscience is a tricky thing. If, deep down, we know we have been irresponsible with our lives, our bodies, our hearts, our emotional well-being, possibly even our futures or our potential children's future -- our consciences demand that we notice. The "feminization of poverty" -- the fact that the poor are more and more likely to be women and children -- is directly because we have stopped playing smart, and started defining "success" as "imitating men at their worst". And we could be a little smarter. This is an age where people are security conscious. People wouldn't dream of giving out their ATM pin to someone they just met, or having their password that's something ridiculously easy to guess. I would suggest that most women need to change the password to their pants. "I love you" is just too easy to guess. It's a sure way to get lied to and played.

As for virgin-vilifying, it has become a recurring action in pop culture. In The Breakfast Club, there's a scene in which the most disreputable character continually insinuates that there is something wrong with anyone who isn't sleeping around. And in that conversation, it looks as though he's the only one who may be sleeping around -- but the others allow themselves to be treated as if their patience or self-control -- or waiting for the right moment -- is somehow shameful. On The Simpsons, there is an episode in which we learn that Principal Skinner is a virgin -- and the town reacts in shock and disgust as if something was badly wrong with waiting for the right person, the right moment, the right relationship, or even marriage. There have even been some feature-length movies that have as their premise that there is something wrong with you if you are past a certain age and still a virgin. It was entertaining to see this virgin-vilifying turned on its head in the movie Easy A, where the main character helped other peoples' reputations -- that is, helped the reputation of vilified virgins -- by claiming to have slept with them.

On this particular topic, the feminist movement reminds me of a scene from the play Guys and Dolls in which Adelaide sings, "Take Back Your Mink". The lyrics are all about how powerful she is and how she is taking a stand and won't be played by the men any longer -- but the actions are all about her undressing herself for men's entertainment in a strip club. When it comes to the topic of "slut-shaming", the feminist movement is taking the role of Adelaide, singing about how sleeping around is "empowerment" while the men hoot and applaud, and maybe not realizing that was exactly what the men wanted them to do, and that the men are quite firmly in control of that situation.

Is there such a thing as "masculine" and "feminine" virtues?

I wonder where society got the idea that there is a set of "masculine" virtues and a set of "feminine" virtues. As best I can tell, the Bible has no such distinction. Everybody is called to a life of virtue, and we don't get a pass on any of them. There are no optional virtues. Courage is often considered a masculine virtue -- but women face death just like men do; it's not like we women can afford to sit that one out. In the Bible, Paul's instructions to be patient and kind, or to show gentleness and respect, don't come under the heading of responsibilities of wives; he's speaking to everyone at that point. Jesus has commanded all of us to love each other; it's not like the men can skip that one. It makes me wonder what kind of distorted personalities people would have if we tried to live up to (down to?) the recommended set of virtues for one sex.

I'm not saying men and women are the same. Vive la difference, as they say. I'm saying that the idea of "masculine virtues" and "feminine virtues" is not really how the Bible speaks about virtue.

Why feminism is a mystery to me

This post was drafted while I was doing 50+ hour weeks at work for several consecutive months. I held back from posting it then because I wanted to re-read it when I wasn't so hot-headed. It still seems worth posting, so here goes.
I know there is a sense in which I am a beneficiary of feminism -- at least in the sense that I am in the professional world and nobody thinks anything unusual about that. If that was the whole of feminism, I would be an enthusiastic admirer of their legacy. But feminism seems to come with a lot of baggage, and much of it is a mystery to me; here I hope to briefly sketch out some of the most puzzling things to me. The trigger for writing this is really the final paragraph: my job is good, but my dissatisfaction with my schedule is running high. And while I'm on the subject, I thought I'd clear out a few other things I wanted to voice.

1. I love my children
Are there any other Harry Potter fans here? Whenever I watch the fourth film (Goblet of Fire) and see Amos Diggory's reaction as he realizes that his son Cedric is dead, it brings me to tears. The film is clear in every portrayal of Amos that he loves being a father. He loves his son, and is very proud of him. Being a father is the greatest joy of his life, a bright point of enthusiasm in his own existence. Most parents are like that to some recognizable extent. I think it is part of humanity to delight in our children. I would be tempted to say that feminists are ambivalent about children; but the ones I've known are nothing of the sort. Ambivalence would be a huge improvement. Possibly because feminism has framed itself so much in terms of advocating legalized abortion, the practical emphasis has been on children as a burden or a hardship: as unwanted. Until the feminism of the streets catches up with the reality that most men and women love their children, that brand of feminism will remain a stranger to me.

2. Sociology and psychology
In school, I took a number of courses in both psychology and sociology. In both areas of study, there was a general recognition that people often define themselves and others in terms of roles and relationships. The feminists I have met are actively hostile to the idea that we might be seen in terms of relationships; they consider it a sign of something like bondage and oppression to be defined as a wife or mother. There doesn't seem to be an objection to being defined by professional relationships, or by personal relationships of other types. But the family relationships of wife and mother are viewed with some measure of suspicion, and a woman defining herself in those terms risks being viewed as in collaboration with the oppressors. The idea that those personal relationships might be supportive or fulfilling rather than oppressive is not given serious consideration. There is not a full recognition of the basic human reality that we do not live in isolation -- that being defined by our roles and relationships is not necessarily a bad thing, and that a woman might be proud to define herself as a mother.

3. One of my personal heroes
I have often heard the story about how oppressive things were until roughly the 1960's, at which point things began to improve slowly if not steadily because of the much-opposed efforts of the feminist political movement. Before then -- and certainly in centuries past -- the history of women was a history of people consigned to a sub-human status. That being the case, I can't quite figure out how Elizabeth I would have risen to the throne of England. Queen Victoria either. There are other women who were sole monarchs of powerful countries at various points in history. Have I noticed that the women monarchs tended to arise when those countries were completely out of males of a certain bloodline? Well, of course. I do not dispute that there was a marked preference for male rulers, and that it was institutional. But the idea that women were seen as sub-human, that submission to women -- or women in leadership -- was seen as unequivocally wrong, simply does not stand up to the notable exceptions to male monarchies. If women were seen that negatively, they could have found someone besides Elizabeth I to lead England. The prevailing theory is compatible with the more common occurrence of a male monarch, but that theory of sub-human status is so absolutist in its claims that it cannot explain how any exceptions were possible. We have to seek an explanation that accounts for all of the facts. If any man was always seen as better than any woman regardless of anything else, then Elizabeth I could never have ascended the throne. As it is, I suspect that this particular feminist interpretation of history paints an unrealistically bleak and harsh -- and possibly politically self-serving -- picture of the motivations of our ancestors and the realities of the past. To put it simply, that picture of the past doesn't pass the sniff test.

4. My job is not the point of my life
I enjoy my job most days. But I still think early feminism had an unrealistically rosy picture of the work world. It was where men found their fulfillment and their recognition, achieved their goals, earned their respect. Women wanted all that too. The idea that even the best jobs could be frustrating or unrewarding did not figure into the computation. And some jobs are simply jobs -- their goal is to keep bread on the table. Very few jobs, even among professional jobs, are important enough to be the goal of someone's life. The feminist overemphasis on work and professional status is almost necessary in that system, given the ambivalence or antagonism towards family life. But this stance overlooks what men have long known: nobody gets to their death bed and wishes they had spent more time at work. Some feminists even have a Marxist streak in which they recognize it is possible for an employer to be an oppressor. This might be useful to remember when calculating whether work is really a panacea in the search for recognition and freedom from oppression.

Your will be done on earth ... God, politics, and sinners

Here in the good old U.S.A., a number of Christian traditions have experienced church divides along liberal v. conservative lines. The differences in political views typically coincide with a number of theological differences. I have read Christian bloggers who identify with one or the other political agenda, who seem completely unashamed about expressing open contempt for Christians on the other side of the liberal/conservative divide, with no visible recognition that hatefulness and spite might be sinful rather than God-pleasing. When something is dear to our hearts and someone belittles it, there is always a temptation to bitterness and malice.

I would not for a moment tell people to ignore the world in which we live. We pray daily for God's will to be done on earth as in heaven. And in every political cause, there are those who earnestly believe they are working for exactly that: for God's will to be done on earth. Up to that point I have no objections, but more of a caution: certain types of laws do little good merely by being encoded in the law books. Trying to change hearts by mandate or to change lives by force generally breeds resistance and resentment, even if the cause is good.

Have you ever considered what happens when a politico-moral agenda becomes someone's top priority, their defining goal in life? It splits the world into pro and con. Before long, "good" is agreement with the agenda and "evil" is disagreement with it. It can become something very close to institutionalized enmity.

For example, consider what happens when women's advocacy groups and infant's advocacy groups clash over abortion. The women's advocacy groups do not see infant's advocacy groups; they define what they see in terms of their own agenda, and see mysogynists and oppressors instead of infant's advocates. The infant's advocacy groups do not always recognize the extent to which the abortion-on-demand camp is not trying to be anti-infant at all. A sensitive look at the wording used by the abortion-on-demand camp would notice that they really avoid acknowledging any infant at all, which is surely not a sign of hatred of the infant, but more likely of a deep-seated acknowledgment that if this really proves to be an infant, abortion-on-demand would be morally unthinkable. By being pro-woman (ignoring the infant) or pro-infant (ignoring the woman), we put beyond our reach any full-spectrum solution of the type that might actually work for everybody. And we cannot afford to miss the fact that it is the separation into antagonistic factions that puts a better solution out of reach.

Having strong views is not sinful; but we are sinful. There is a temptation to demonize the opponents. There is a temptation to ignore when they have a point lest it be seen as weakness and concession. There is a temptation to take the easy way out: to take our good motives as a guarantee of good perspective and good judgment. There is a temptation to miss the realities that every politico-moral agenda sets us up for both self-righteousness and enmity.

Christ was not shy about right and wrong. But he listed enmity itself as one of the things that had to go. The world (apart from Christ) has no resources to call on for reconciling between enemies. At best, the world only redefines the group considered to be the enemy; it does not oppose the general principle of enmity. But as Christians, we must oppose the general principle of enmity while holding onto the realities of right and wrong.

I wish that our conversations across the political divides did not start by assuming bad faith. I wish that each side would honestly ask the other, "Why is it you think that is the right approach to take, or the right priority to have?" and actually listen to the answer. Even if we don't agree, some good might come of the mere act of setting aside enmity and listening to each other.

Feminism and Mother's Day

It's been awhile since I posted on feminism. It's not really one of my favorite topics, as the whole atmosphere tends to be dry and strident, political in the bad sense, and divisive, without much edifying in the conversation. But in reading the latest Lutheran Carnival, two of the Mother's Day entries caught my eye. The first is from Rev. Cwirla:

Some today decry the "feminization" of the Church, but I beg to disagree. What is wrong with the Church is not its feminizing, but its neutering, in which there is neither male nor female but a gnostic, androgynous, politically-correct "it." I would argue instead that the Church is not nearly feminine enough, just as her ministry is not nearly masculine enough. As fatherhood goes, so goes motherhood. We have lost the motherly nurture and care of the congregation just as we have lost the firm, fatherly authority of the pastoral office. We have lost the proper place and dignity of our being male and female, and so we are confused about our respective roles.

Recovery and reform are not to be found in chest-thumping distortions of masculinity or in strange caricatures of femininity, but in brokenhearted repentance. Kyrie, eleison!

Myself, I particularly enjoyed that a complementarian has replied so graciously to the steady stream of derisive caricatures of the complementarian position. It's one thing to agree or disagree with a view and another to resort to mockery; but it takes incredible amounts of love and prayer to respond to mockery both boldly and graciously. Whether you agree with Rev. Cwirla or not, his contribution was well-done.

Next is from Emily Carder at Quicunque Vult as she reviews Elizabeth Cady Stanton's mixed legacy:

Her success in separating women from the Word of Life is so complete that feminists now celebrate women’s experience as a grace event. Can there even be need for a Savior now that the judgment upon mankind had been removed from the Bible according to Stanton? She taught that if there had actually been a fall in an actual Garden of Eden, then "when Eve took her destiny in her own hand and set minds spinning down through all the spheres of time, she declared humanity omnipotent..." (Gaylor 1997, 134). Ethics for feminism is now deemed as whatever validates the full humanity of the woman. Refusing a woman any freedom to act as she wills is denying her full humanity; therefore, abortion-on-demand must be among a woman’s most cherished prized possessions.

Stanton's is a much more complex life and legacy, with good and bad mixed together. If, as Carder argues, "ethics for feminism is ... whatever validates the full humanity of the woman", that validation is itself a good thing. Ethics can be seen as whatever validates the full humanity of all humans, and in that sense feminism is partisan and a little bit narrower than humanism. The narrowness of focus on women alone avoids the uncomfortable humanist question of the life of the next generation while still in its delicate dependence on the mother. From a Christian viewpoint, the irony and the shame is that someone had to voice teaching "the full humanity of the woman" as if it were an objection to the Bible instead of the teaching of the Bible, which teaches that male and female are both created in God's image. From this standpoint Christianity teaches a higher view of both men and women than humanism.

And it's fascinating to me to hear the comments on Adam and Eve: "when Eve took her destiny in her own hand and set minds spinning down through all the spheres of time, she declared humanity omnipotent..."

Theologians down the centuries have said much the same thing when reading the same passage: that our rebellion against God was an attempt to displace God and crown ourselves as gods instead. We really shouldn't be too surprised if someone reads the same passage and sees humanity's declaration of independence from God, a proclamation of ourselves as gods and goddesses with no authority but our own. Such is the power of that passage that this rallying cry of rebellion from God still resounds thousands of years after it was written with the voices of those who do not apologize for it; such is the power of that passage that even those who are fully convinced it never happened may claim it as their own.

But what about grace? "Feminists now celebrate women’s experience as a grace event." I think there is a sense in which conservative, complementarian theology still needs to ponder the matter of grace. Adam's curse included death; but death is abolished in the world to come. Eve's curse included "he shall rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). In the New Creation, will all the curses be undone? Is Eve's curse borne on the tree as well as Adam's? To what extent is subordination, like death, a matter of a cursed world? Death is the door to resurrection, of being restored. If submission is the death of pride, then is submission also a door to resurrection and restoration? If some part of Eve's sin was self-exaltation, then is "women, submit" similarly sinful if spoken in self-exaltation? Where is the line between submission and subordination? When subordination is taught as good, does it lead women to search elsewhere for grace and for recognition of full humanity?

I'm not suggesting that people stop wrestling with the passages or stop taking the Bible seriously. I'm suggesting that conservatives allow themselves to take a good hard look at the fact that the Bible here presents this particular subordination as a curse, that it is just as natural for women to see it as a curse as for men to see death as a curse, just as natural to hope for release and see it as a return to a more pure and wholesome state of things. Not every instance of a woman wishing for freedom from it is a matter of pride; some of it is a wish for redemption and the restoration of a non-cursed state. In this, the Church should be firmly on the side of redemption. This leaves plenty of room for discussion on exactly how that should take shape.

Feminist theology: the most pressing question

After I read Ben Myers' interview with Meehyung Chung in which she said that feminist theology has neglected the everyday voice of women in the church, I wanted to address some of the ways I had seen that to be true. As I wrap up the series with this post, there are other topics that could possibly be considered, but won't be covered in depth. For example, there seems to be a need for Christian feminism to find a role for dignity in service, to break the worldly pattern of always equating service with oppression, to reclaim service as a Christian vocation and humility as a Christian virtue, with lowliness as an honored path. These and other such things are implied in what has gone before, and it would be tedious to pursue every angle, and besides merciless to catalog every fault. I would like to close with what is, in my mind, the most pressing question.

Meehyun Chung commented that feminist theology had neglected the everyday voice of women in the church. While I believe this to be true, there is something which concerns me more, and I expect concerns the everyday women in the church more, than whether feminist theology is neglecting our voice. Is feminist theology -- at least in some strains -- neglecting God's priorities in favor of their own agenda?

That brings us to the question, what is theology supposed to do? If the purpose of theology is to know God, to bring the knowledge and presence of God to our lives and to our world in a redemptive and creative way, if we see this active presence and knowledge of God as the crowning blessing among all possible blessings, that is one vision of theology. It will necessarily lead to all kinds of redemptive and creative work in the world, wherever the presence of God and knowledge of God are treasured by his children and incarnated in our lives. This redemptive and creative work will include women, and will see people especially called to serve women, just as it will see people especially called to serve men, or serve children, or serve certain cities, or serve the homeless. It will also see theologians called to consider justice for women just as surely as all matters of justice are matters for God's people.

But there is a concern here that feminist theology is not always about the things God. There is a concern whether feminist theology has at times been divisive and partisan, whether pride and competitiveness and self-centeredness have crept into the conversation, whether the cause of women has been given higher place than the cause of Christ. When feminism becomes an end in itself, God becomes a pawn in a political argument. When God is a pawn, then God is no longer the source of blessing; without a source of blessing, such theology is stripped of its power to redeem or transform. Anything which exalts itself above God eventually defeats itself for that reason. For feminist theology to maintain its perspective -- and its promise of being a redemptive power in the world -- it must remember that it is part of the larger framework of God's transforming presence in the world.

Feminist theology and social justice priorities

This continues a series on what I hope is constructive criticism for feminist theology. By now I'm eager to move along to more edifying subjects, and have only two posts remaining (this and one more, as I start typing the current post).

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I think one of the more obvious ways in which feminist theology has neglected the concerns of average women has been in the area of priorities. Given that social justice is a concern, is the ordination and promotion of women really the highest priority among theological issues? I'm not saying that to discourage conversation on that subject; it's a topic of the day and let's have the conversation. Instead, I mention priorities by way of a perspective-check.

Social Justice Top Priority: Commitment to Marriage
Let's talk about social justice. One of the leading causes of poverty in this nation -- surely a social justice issue -- is single motherhood. I expect that working marriages would do far more to reduce poverty than increasing the minimum wage. Yet people see the minimum wage as a worthwhile social justice issue, but do not see strengthening the family as a social justice issue. However, it is a social justice issue.

I think we sweep problems like that under the rug because they are messy and embarrassing. It sounds much nicer to talk about whether we have enough women who are pastors and bishops. But in the meantime we have too many women who are living in poverty because their boyfriends pressured them into sex and then abandoned them when they wouldn't have an abortion, or whose husbands walked out rather than invest the work needed to sustain a marriage. The good we do in the average woman's life -- and child's life -- by creating a two-parent, stable, just and merciful Christian home far outweighs the good done to that same woman by having a woman bishop who won't address those concerns either. Home life is sometimes dirty and ugly; Christianity is at its strongest with love, redemption, justice, and mercy. But these things don't happen by themselves. What happens by itself, in our hearts and lives, is increasing sin, dismay, and disorder. The spiritual neglect of a home long-untended makes itself felt in too many lives. The leaders have to lead and make points of these things with their people.

Social Justice Priority: No Pressure to Abort
How many pastors use abortion as an example of evil in our culture? Now, how many of those pastors actually say, from the pulpit, that a man should never ask his wife or girlfriend to abort their child? They also say that, these days, one of the leading causes of death in pregnant women is being attacked by the father of the child. Have we mentioned to our people that these are horrific things, that a man should never attack his wife or girlfriend with the intent to induce a miscarriage? A friend of mine from church is raising a profoundly retarded and disabled child because her husband attacked her while she was pregnant. Rather than inducing a miscarriage, he induced a very premature delivery. It may seem too horrific to say or consider, but it happens around us, and even in our churches, because we are sinners too. Just as "do not murder" and "do not commit adultery" are obvious but are written in the Ten Commandments all the same, we need church leaders who are willing to address the obvious and ugly problems around us.

Social Justice Priority: Justice and Mercy in Courtship
Dating is often an exercise in the man trying to press the woman as far as she will go towards sexual intercourse. I'll take the traditional women's complaints against the men first, then look at the other side of the coin.

When it comes to pre-marital sex, even men who are Christians often show no signs of self-restraint, placing the burden of guilt or pressure of rejection on the woman. Teaching men to be self-controlled, to hold themselves accountable for how far they go, would greatly ease the burden on women. When was the last time anyone heard church leaders address that it is wrong to use high-pressure tactics, to use emotional blackmail, or to take advantage of emotional insecurity in order to gain sexual concessions? The next generation approaching puberty includes my own daughter. I can explain all this to her, but it would help if I had the church's support. For a Christian man it should be unconscionable to make an inappropriate advance in the first place. We need to re-set our expectations there.

Enough picking on the men, though. Women also must be taught those same standards of accountability, responsibility, kindness and justice. Not only are women perfectly capable of pressuring men unduly, there is also the temptation to blame it on the man, which may seem plausible because of traditional expectations. Christian women should know that it is ungodly to take advantage of men, and that it is especially repugnant to blame men for our own moral shortcomings. Blaming other people for our own faults is the height of injustice. It kills love, rejects mercy, and ignores kindness. It stunts spiritual growth, cutting us off from repentance and forgiveness. I hope it doesn't seem strange to you that I hold women accountable and hope other women will take the lead in holding ourselves accountable. Both egalitarians and complementarians will notice that Paul's instructions to Titus to have older women teaching younger women about the realitiies of building loving families. It seems odd, if not worse, that the one area on which complementarians and egalitarians should have full agreement is the one thing that I can't see either camp doing.

Quality of Life and Quality of Culture: Peace with Men
Strife between men and women is nothing new. Peace between men and women, and goodwill, is a worthy goal. But a certain strain of feminism tries to score political points by grievance-mongering. I'm not saying there are never grievances, I'm saying the approach being used is sometimes more likely to aggravate the grievances than resolve them. In this way, the feminist movement has at times had a negative effect on male/female relations. If the Christian feminists or Christian feminist theologians are to have a positive impact on this, some more constructive approaches would be welcome.

The Point?
Our Lord called down blessings for the peacemakers, for the merciful, for those who longed for righteousness, and for the pure in heart. All of Christ's brothers and sisters are called to be channels of blessing in the world. When feminist theology is genuinely Christ-like, it promises to be a blessing to the world.

Women's Liberation and Love of Family

This continues the series about whether feminist theology is neglecting the voice of the woman in the pews. First, Christian feminism must reclaim Christ's priority of love for our lives, contrary to secular feminism's disdain of family. Second, social justice must be applied to our own homes and workplaces; in a Christian sense this includes bringing justice, love, mercy, blessing, and rest into the equation.

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Bricks without Straw: Feminism and the Workload Problem

You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don't reduce the quota. (Exodus 5:7-8)

Women's liberation has been both a blessing and a curse to the average woman. While many women have taken on work outside the home, the workload at home was not reduced. Exhaustion and frantic schedules are among the most common complaints, along with less time for the family.

Feminists v. Family and the Priority of Love
When someone speaks dismissively of "women's jobs" and "women's roles", much less "making sacrifices for the family," it's a safe bet that the one voicing disdain is a feminist. The feminist has often insisted that family life is at worst demeaning, at best unnecessary, and at any rate undesirable. The liberal women's movements can give the impression that staying at home and raising children is a benighted throwback to an unenlightened age, an oppressive condition from which someone could only wish to be liberated as from a prison, something that amounts to embracing a second-class subservient status. Here the feminist has not only failed to understand the voice of the average woman, but has considered it unworthy of consideration.

As long as feminism is antagonistic towards family life, it will be opposed to large numbers of women who enjoy family life at least as much as their careers. A healthier and more mature feminism must make room for women's dignity to include a love of family. Feminism, as it comes of age, must become comfortable with the other members of a family: it must become comfortable with children, and it must become comfortable with men. The assessment of children must be expanded beyond "expense" and "career distraction." The assessment of men must be expanded beyond "oppressor" and "competitor." The feminist assessment of life must also expand to include love as a legitimate part of life in addition to accomplishment and status. Failing to do so handicaps feminism's applicability to real life, and handicaps the lives of those who embrace feminism above love. Christian feminism -- especially in the form of Christian feminist theology -- could easily elevate itself above secular feminism by embracing a solid family model. It is difficult to see how a view based on Christ's teachings can avoid the priority of love for very long; one of Christ's most prominent and distinctive teachings is the priority of love.

What can the leadership do?
Back to the day-to-day issues of exhaustion and frantic schedules. There are some practical contributions that the church leadership -- whether pastors or theologians -- can make in this situation. We can follow the Bible's lead of including family and household concerns among the pastoral and social justice concerns of the church:

• Encourage employers and managers to be compassionate about family time, not to set obstacles for parents caring for children, not to begrudge adequate leave to workers who have children.
• Encourage Christian employers to seek out ways to make their family policies a blessing to their workers. For example, employers could make arrangements for part-time workers still to have health insurance coverage under employer-based group plans, or could grant an automatic half-holiday for a child's birthday or an anniversary. I wouldn't want to limit the conversation to ideas that suggest themselves to me based on my own situation. As Christian employers, not only justice and hard work but also kindness and grace should be evident. We should make our management policies such that all people wish they had a Christian manager, CEO, or HR Director.
• Make justice in the home a priority. Encourage parishioners to review home workloads whenever exhaustion is a problem for anyone in the family. Have each household make sure that the workload is distributed fairly and that unnecessary work is eliminated.
• Encourage realistic measures of how fairly household chores are distributed. Here is one possible test for whether work is distributed fairly: if one person is often still doing chores after the rest have sat down to rest, then that person is likely doing more than their share of the work, and the others less than their share.
• Make mercy in the home a priority. Encourage people to take notice of tiredness, to take seriously the need for rest, for sleep, and for peace and quiet.
• Making blessing in the home a priority. While not descending to a legalistic view of the Sabbath, be the good shepherd who makes the sheep lie down in green pastures and leads them by still waters. It restores their souls. If the sheep look harassed and helpless, that's the shepherd's cue to do something about it.

These themes have roots that go deep in Scriptures. It is time we take note of them until they take root in our lives. Justice, mercy, blessing, and rest are not optional in our homes or our workplaces. We need to receive these for our own well-being; we need to embody these in a useful ministry of love and mercy to the world.

When Christ is de-emphasized for his maleness ...

This continues a short series on whether feminist theology is neglecting the everyday voice of women in the church.

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If traditional theology has been accused of a discomfort with women, it seems that some feminist theology has a discomfort with men. The discomfort can range from neglect and disinterest to blatant antagonism. If feminist theology makes the argument that the man's discomfort with women is a theological shortcoming and possibly moral shortcoming, the same must apply to instances of women's discomfort with men. Feminist theology does remind us that women bear the image of God just as surely as men do, drawing attention to something the Bible has always affirmed. However, a certain strain of feminist theology aims to portray God almost solely in female terms, with the results (as we have seen) that are sometimes embarrassing, which is not necessarily a strong first showing in theology. Simple embarrassment is not a cause for excess concern; many male theologians have embarrassed themselves over the centuries and foolishness is no novelty in theological studies. But there is a more serious consequence of a theology that tries, as one of its goals, to be scrupulously female-oriented instead of simply Christian with our own voice. That more serious consequence is the neglect of Christ. The feminist may see God the Father as God the Mother, or may see the Holy Spirit as female, and there is probably relatively small harm to their theology (other than ethics, generosity, and charity towards men) from so studiously ignoring the masculine. But among the ways in which we know God, Christ in particular is intractably male. So Christ, as an adult male -- which is to say Christ in his ministry -- is seldom encountered in his full humanity in feminist theology. Women in position of church authority have been known to speak of "mother Jesus"; this is better than discarding Jesus entirely but still comes across as a willful distortion.

Attempts to feminize Christ, neuter Christ, or ignore Christ do irreparable harm to the knowledge of God. Some branches of feminist theology are more comfortable with Christ as child (neuter) than with Christ as son (male). This risks losing sight of Christ's adult life; it risks marginalizing the miracles, the compassion, the teachings, the crucifixion and resurrection that occurred in Jesus' adult (human male) life. Christianity with a missing or half-hearted Christology is devastatingly handicapped. It is flatly impossible for any full-fledged theology to come from a perspective which is so narrowly feminine that it avoids the full realities of Christ's incarnation.

When feminist theology re-invents the Trinity ...

This continues a short series on whether feminist theology is neglecting the everyday voice of women in the church.

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It is common for the egalitarian camp to offer assurances that placing women in key roles does not amount to throwing out historic Christianity wholesale, but instead is simply correcting some misunderstandings and misapplications. Some noteworthy public examples have not been very reassuring. The PC-USA recently approved referring to the Trinity as "Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb." Let's begin, here, with the Life-giving Womb. I can only imagine what the feminists would say if the Trinity were ever referred to as "Father, Son, and Live-giving Testicles" or something along those lines. To put it more plainly, this seems to be an example of over-stretching the study of the Holy Spirit beyond reasonable bounds, with an aim to make a merely human point. In theology -- particularly incarnational theology as we Christians practice -- there's always the careful distinction whether we sinners are remade in God's image (restoration) or whether God is remade in our image (idolatry or blasphemy on the extreme end, or petty presumptuousness and rank silliness on the low end). I don't see that referring to the Holy Spirit as a womb has any Scriptural merit, but instead it seems a fairly transparent effort to thrust our self-image onto God. I don't think it can be taken so seriously as to amount to blasphemy, but I expect it does amount to rank silliness. That an early, conspicuous contribution of the new leadership to church life is something both misguided and frivolous comes as something of an embarrassment to the average woman in the pews, possibly to women in theology in general. It comes across as a nearly childish form of the "me too!" argument, and the focus comes across as less on God and more on women seeking to call attention to themselves at a moment in the worship service when the focus ought to be on God.

It's very likely that "me too!" needs to be said. It is always reassuring of our shared human dignity that the Bible names both men and women as being made in the image of God. Still, I would be less embarrassed if this point was made with a little more tact than that, and if the image of God did not seem to be used as a pawn in the gender wars. The image of God should be one thing men and women have in common; when we use it in a divisive or narrowly sexist way (as in "Life-giving Womb"), that's an improper use of the doctrine. It is not for us to remake God after the image of only one sex.¹ If the image of God bestowed on us is to be a heartening and life-giving teaching, then it is to be seen as a gift of God to us, the hope of glory, and the dignity of humanity, both men and women in common.

Which leads fairly directly to my next post on the subject ...

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1 - It is likely enough that some of the people recommending "Life-giving Womb" for use in the Trinitarian formula recognize it as narrowly sexist, and see the narrow sexism (let's be charitable) as corrective, rather than such a low thing as payback or liturgical revenge. But I'm skeptical that language of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost was ever meant as narrowly sexist; adding something to the mix that is hard to interpret otherwise than narrowly sexist in its reference to reproductive organs introduces a pointed narrowness and explicit divisiveness that was not there before and is not helpful to introduce.

Is feminist theology neglecting the women in the pews?

I'd like to recognize Ben Myers for his part in my next series, particularly an interview he conducted with Meehyun Chung, a woman who recently received recognition for her theological work. In response to an insightful question of Ben's, she answered (in part):

Feminist theology has achieved various things in the academic sphere, but the voice of women in the church has not actually been accepted – or rather, feminist theology has neglected the everyday voice of women in the church.

That very well sums up many of my objections to feminist theology. What is meant to be a representative voice in the academic halls can actually be a misrepresenting voice. I set out to type up a single post reviewing the points where I think feminist theology often misrepresents the everyday voice of women in the church. It soon became clear that I was looking at a series. Here is the first installment.

Priesthood of all believers
The egalitarian camp has spent a certain amount of time and energy making a case that women belong in the higher echelons of church leadership. For just a moment, let's set aside the question of whether this is good or Biblical. Instead, let's suppose that the egalitarian efforts towards ordination and promotion of women were instantly, completely, uncontestedly successful in their aims, and ask ourselves: how much good would this accomplish for the average woman? To put it another way: To what extent is the average man elevated by the fact that his pastor or priest is male? How does this compare to the extent to which we are lifted up by forgiveness when we are humbled, or the extent to which we are lifted up by being a member of the priesthood -- not the priesthood of the elite, but the priesthood of all believers? Did feminist theology take a wrong turn in aiming for membership in the elite rather than restoring full membership in the body of Christ to all believers?

In some sense this is an unjust criticism in that the pastoral role is a legitimate role within the church. All the same, I'd submit that when women looked around and saw ourselves marginalized, it was too small a thing to notice our own marginalization, and not also notice the marginalization of all the laity together. Neither will breaking into the elites, even with complete success, be enough to change the fact that most of the women -- and men -- are still marginalized within the church.

To Codepoke on Egalitarian/Complementarian

Update: Codepoke has replied here. And he comes awfully close to issuing a challenge: if complementarians aren't complacent about abuse of women (whatever form it may take), then why isn't it on their agenda? (Kind of implying: if it's not on your agenda, isn't that the working definition of complacent?) So: complementarians out there: What do you say? (For anyone curious, I'm still reading the arguments back and forth between the egalitarian and complementarian camps; I'm asking questions at this point with an aim to keep the conversation going at least until I've heard more of what everyone has to say.)

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I was typing up a comment in response to Codepoke on egalitarian views and found that my comment was way too long for the comment box. In the same circumstances I'd have told someone else to use their own blog. So here goes. Please read Codepoke's piece; it's worth the time. I'm responding to Codepoke as "you" throughout this post because it's in response to the linked article; other readers please don't take a reference to "you" personally during the course of this post. And fair warning, if someone doesn't care for the topic of rape at all, maybe you'd rather skip this post.

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Reader's digest version of the part of Codepoke's post that I'm responding to: he hits some very good points about how culture is complacent about mistreatment of women in comparison to, say, the recent public scandal in which young boys were abused in certain dioceses in the Roman Catholic church. He has some disturbing examples of church (congregation/leadership) complicity in husbands mistreating their wives. But by placing the topic of sexual abuse within his argument, there's an implied link between sexual abuse and complementarianism (the view that women and men have equal humanity but different roles), and a stated link between wanting less sexual abuse and egalitarianism (the view that women and men have equal humanity and therefore equal roles).

There is also some mention in his post about how abused women react to abuse; this portrayal does not correspond to what I've seen myself and even seems potentially unfair to the women themselves -- which is where I start my response.

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I know this is a delicate topic, and I'm going to mention something the men in general may not know. Those of us who have been abused or raped -- you were tactful enough never to mention the "r" word but I'll put it on the table -- I've been in on a good number of those talks that we have when the men aren't around. We're a sisterhood. And in all the talks I've been in on, I've never heard any of us say "boys will be boys". I've heard stunned amazement that someone could be that violent, heartless, ruthless -- but never heard a reaction that was dismissive, never heard someone who was even marginally accepting of that kind of outrageous crime. We give each other our shoulders to cry on, even share an odd laugh at the ridiculous situations we find ourselves in. (How the blazes do you get fingerprint powder off your windowsill? That stuff is stubborn, but it's not like in the Better Housekeeping tip books, y'know, right next to getting out grape juice stains or whatever.) Is it possible that someone somewhere has said "boys will be boys"? Oh, no doubt, all kinds of people say all kinds of things. But in my experience that's not typical at all.

You said, "Where is the outrage for the abused girls?" I'd really love for there to be some outrage from the men's side. It's usually this squirmy guilt-by-association reaction, to which I can only roll my eyes and say: hey, most of us take it for granted that decent men chase thoughts like that back out of their heads when they occur rather than act on them. I bet my life on that every time I go to the grocery store, without thinking twice about it, so about the "guilt by association thing" I think the average man (one without a record of perpetrating sexual abuse) should lighten up already.

So "where is the outrage for the abused girls?" Bullseye. And what outrage there is tends to take the form of wanting to kill the perpetrator in slow and nasty ways, which I think, my own opinion here, approaches zero on the helpfulness scale. ("Great. And the person who cares the most is either wasting his time or will end up in jail, and is turning himself into a revenge-crazed co-victim and posing in his hero cape, meanwhile never having offered me a shoulder or a hand-up.")

But I have to say too: I'm very suspicious of the topic of sexual abuse being used for political ends or to score points in an argument. (Don't even get me started about how the pro-legalized-abortion folks exploit rape victims politically to shame their political opponents into silence for the benefit of abortion candidates who are, as a group, 99% of them pregnant from sexual irresponsibility rather than sexual abuse. I don't want the 1% pregnant by rape to be forgotten, but I don't want other people piggybacking on our trauma for their political ends. It really ticks me off.)

I know all abuse -- including sexual abuse -- has a legitimate place in a conversation on human rights. I also agree that the topic is sometimes swept under the rug (though at other times it's overdone to where people really can get sick of hearing about it), and that whatever else we've achieved as a culture on this topic, a healthy level of discussion isn't one of them.

Does sexual abuse really and legitimately flow from a complementarian viewpoint? Nope. Do the egalitarians manage outrage? Mostly over complementarians. As far as outrage over sexual abuse, I haven't seen it yet, though I've seen lots of pious moping about how the problem is generally someone else's fault. I smell a rat whenever a person (or camp) locates sinfulness outside itself. That goes for both sides. Would the world be better off, from the standpoint of reducing sexual abuse, if all men thought women were of equal value? No doubt. Would the world be better off, from the standpoint of reducing sexual abuse, if all men took up the roles of protectors in light of women's (typically) relative weakness and lesser aggressiveness? Probably so there too.

When we look at our own culture's past, or other cultures around the globe now, it's really easy to cry "oppression" when looking at rules like "women stay home or else be accompanied in public" ... but the parts of the world that are so safe that even a woman with small children can go out safely are few and rare. It takes a remarkably well-ordered society for women to be safe alone outside the home; most of human history has simply not achieved that level of safety. If you lived in a place that dangerous, would you keep your daughter home or tell her to go out only with a male relative? If you picked "with a male relative", would it be oppressive? I think we should grant our forefathers the benefit of the doubt as to whether they were intending to oppress or to protect with some of these rules.

You know I'm still listening in the egalitarian/complementarian debate. I also know you never explicitly connected complementarians and a culture that fails to be outraged over sexual abuse of girls in the same way as sexual abuse of boys, though you did fairly directly connect egalitarianism to trying to do things better. I have no objections to trying to do things better! I have no objections to trying to make people more fully awake towards justice. But I don't think it's justified for the egalitarians to mark the "culture of sexual abuse" tally against the complementarians. I take it for granted that decent people everywhere are against sexual abuse. I also suspect that the original intent of some of the "oppressive" rules of the past was to protect from all kinds of harm including sexual abuse. If law and order ever collapse again in our lifetimes, I think the "oppressive" statutes of the past will make a whole lot of sense. It's still a fair question what makes sense here and now.

Take care & God bless

Series of Note: AmbivAbortion Rant

Normally, I don't consider myself well-read enough in what other people are writing around the blogosphere to be in the recommendations business. But this evening I followed a link and read Amba's 'rant' on abortion. Every once in awhile you run across a piece that you know was forged in the depths where courage meets pain. I have no doubt that writing it -- or before, thinking through it -- cost her dearly; it shows its worth. It defies easy characterization, other than this: brave, honest, thoughtful, and heart-wrenching. She speaks with a voice that liberals can respect and conservatives can appreciate.

Amba's Abortion Rant: Part I
Amba's Abortion Rant: Part II

Leave yourself some reading and pondering time when you follow the links.

"I Think, Therefore I'm Single"?

How about, "I love, therefore I have a family." One day people will remember that thought can be used for constructing as well as for deconstructing. Note: Offensive language warning if you follow the T-shirt link.

IMonk, Prissiness, and Christian Culture

Michael Spencer's December post on prissiness in Christian culture recently caught my eye and left me thinking. It's not just that the good v. bad line in his post works out to men = good, women = bad (excepting Peggy Noonan); I've heard that line before and can hardly muster the interest to respond on that level. But his stereotypes, for all their age, are not yet faded; they still have some life left in them. It would be easy to dismiss Spencer's comments as chauvinism, for they are unmistakably that; but because the underlying concerns actually resonate, I'll pass over the woman-baiting/man-baiting comments (I wonder how much is just marketing gimmick anyway). Here I will take a look at the men's and women's cultures with a quick word on both sides of the house. In the interest of full disclosure, if any stray reader isn't already aware, I'm on the women's side of the house myself.

On the women's side of the house
The woman's stereotype is nagging, arguing, and whining. (These days, large and prominent women's lobbies use uncomfortably similar strategies as tools of the trade, part of the lobbyists' repertoire. That approach is not exactly a stereotype-buster. I do not wish to imply that all lobbying is that bad or that these are the only tactics of lobbyists. The point is that women's lobbying using the tools of a negative women's stereotype plays into that stereotype.) Nagging and complaining are the traditional tactics of the powerless, tactics designed to annoy people into compliance simply to make the unpleasantness stop. Winning by making yourself odious, by taking yourself to a place where nobody cares to deal with you, is a poor strategy. But more than that, it's morally repugnant, dishonest and manipulative. It's a type of bullying which few victims are skilled enough to escape unscathed and uncompromised. It also locates the perpetrator outside of reasonable and mature society.

Another stereotype is a certain fussiness over little things. Are women prone to prissiness? The historical woman's responsibility of raising children may have led us to focus more on smaller things which happen in our homes and are under our authority such as children's crude language, to focus less on concerns outside our assigned area. Have we become tunnel-visioned?

Spencer also points out that, in history, much of the temperance movement in the U.S. early last century was led by women who were distressed over the male alcoholics' unstable family lives and tendency to physically harm their wives. It's often tricky to know how much of a noble cause is the desire to help others, how much to protect yourself, how much to get your own way. No doubt all play a part. But the temperance movement's result, the temporary prohibition of alcohol in the U.S., left some uncomfortable questions on the table. Has women's historical lack of power led to a manipulative use of morality as a tool for getting the upper hand?

If you take a person with a small sphere of influence, a small sphere of authority, and one main tool for reaching beyond it (morality), you're going to see that tool abused. It's not right, but it's predictable. Morality that forgets God, that is steered by the "divine right" of the personal convenience of the wielder, is being used in an immoral way. How often do we succumb to that temptation?

On the men's side of the house
The man's stereotpye is strong and powerful. Unfortunately, we live in an age where many are horrified by power. It's an understandable reaction to the abuses of the past. But anything that hints of power is now suspect, from plain references to control, order, or obedience, to moderate ones such as reverence, respect, and loyalty. Things that are related to power tangentially, such as gentleness and humility, can also be awkward. A man who is in power has become a distrusted expression of power.

Women are at home in a world where overt power is not available; men are not. Is our society playing by women's rules? Spencer's post is the voice of a man trapped in a woman's world, looking for a way out. "Blame the women" (or Spencer's only slightly more oblique "blame effeminacy", the influence of women) is not exactly an original or ground-breaking approach. It's not at the top of the "realistic and honest" scale either, as prissiness and whining are hardly powerful enough adversaries to stop someone who actually has strength of character and is resolved towards a goal. Beyond that, "blame the women" is not even productive; scapegoating others is less productive than accepting responsibity for what each one can fix on his own.

If power and authority are to become once again rightful matters that can be discussed without shame and embarrassment, they have to be rehabilitated. If women stereotypically abuse morality, men stereotypically abuse power, using it as a dishonest way to get their own way. It is easy to remember that morality is supposed to take its lead from God's love and holiness, is supposed to serve him; this has not prevented abuses. But it is easy to forget that power is also supposed to take its lead from God, likewise taking its lead from his love and holiness, likewise serving him. Power that forgets God, steered by the human convenience of the one in power, will be abused whenever it is used. The current posture of half-hearted abdication and painfully self-conscious power sharing has not worked very well. The solution to the abuse of power is not a power-vacuum; that will be filled one way or another. Complain about effeminization if you will but nature abhors a vacuum.

If you are interested in the rightful use of power, it seems that the challenge is to take up not just the right of power but also its responsibility, holding it as a steward under Christ and not as an independent despot or tyrant. Left to our own devices, steered by our own egos, that is what we become. Strength and power have to be redeemed. Men, your work is cut out for you.

Abortion, Pregnancy Transplants, and Artificial Wombs

A number of years ago I wrote some of the good folks of the American Medical Association, particularly some of them associated with the publication JAMA, regarding the feasibility of pregnancy transplants as an alternative to abortion. The replies I received made it clear that the recipients considered this to be the suggestion of a nutcase. I'm feeling an inch closer to vindicated now as we see discussions of technology heading in this direction.

Note that the pregnancy-transplant solution to unwanted pregnancies could address more than just the abortion-as-contraception scenario, but also the traditional "exceptions" for abortion such as when the life of the mother is in danger, or pregnancies due to rape where there's a chance that the pregnancy would be the tipping point in destroying the mother's ability to cope.

The author of the article linked here is a feminist, yet she is willing to admit that abortion is likely to be seen by future generations as barbaric, and that she has been disturbed by the photos showing the humanity of very young gestating children. She stops short of acknowledging that, in light of this, people are probably right when they oppose abortion-as-contraception here and now.

The Women's Movement: The Line between Justice and Revenge

I'll have to admit that, as a woman, I've lived all my adult life taking basic legal rights for granted. I can vote. I am in a job that was once considered a man's job, and it's been over a decade since anyone even commented on a woman being in my position. What did it take to get where we are today, where I can own property in my own name, hold a job outside the traditional women's ghetto, be admitted to institutions of higher education, vote, sign legal contracts, and all the other things our founding fathers took for granted as men? I have to read about that in the history books. The first stage was justice, legal recognition, full personhood. It was much needed.

But we're only human. "Righting the wrongs" tempts us to go one better and stoop to revenge. Have we gone there? I see T-shirts in the stores: "Girls are smarter than boys," reads a T-shirt in the girl's section. The boy's section has no "Boys are smarter than girls" shirt. My children watch reruns of Wonder Woman on DVD: "Men are violent, our peaceful paradise has no men". I watch movies with my children: "They're just men, that's how men are" (the movie Mulan had some parts that were so anti-male that they offended me). I hear female comedians, "I don't like to blame men for their inadequacies. It doesn't seem fair. After all, they can't help it" (in Garrison Keillor's Pretty Good Jokes audio collection). Let's face it, too often we've stooped to revenge. If it was really wrong when they did it to us, then it's also wrong when we do it to them. The examples I've drawn are all taken from the mainstream; denigrating men in public, whether in broadcast or in writing, has become acceptable. Is denigrating someone for their sex really acceptable to us? Is it truly justice that we're seeking?

I've often tried to pinpoint the dividing line between justice and revenge. It's no simple thing to do. I don't claim to have solved the problem. But I'm fairly sure of this: when we say or do things calculated to hurt someone we hardly know over a wrong that most of us can hardly remember, we're on the wrong side of the line.

Abortion, Choice, and Wisdom

With the confirmation hearings underway for a new Chief Justice for the U.S. Supreme Court, it is inevitable that political conversation has turned toward abortion. The discussions of legality are important, and I hope to blog about different aspects of that in future posts. But for today I'd like to focus on wisdom.

In the Declaration of Independence, we find that our forefathers considering fighting for independence from Britain were not prepared to make such a momentous decision for "light and transient" reasons. In general, serious and permanent decisions should be made for matchingly serious and permanent reasons, not comparatively light and transient ones. When it comes to abortion, the decision is momentous and permanent. Given that abortions are legal, we are asking: are they wise?

A coworker told me she was struggling with whether to have an abortion, and though she was distressed because she wanted the child, for financial reasons she chose abortion. A friend from high school had two abortions. Years later, she would still tell me how old each of her children would have been, would even talk to the fathers of her children about how things might have been. Another friend of mine who had an abortion admitted to still having nightmares about it years later.

I know these women, friends and coworkers. What do all these abortions have in common? The women later regretted them. They second-guessed themselves, knowing that they could have made some sacrifices and kept a child -- their own child. If the only ones who ever questioned abortion were people who never faced the hardships of raising children under tough conditions, then we might more easily brush off the criticism. But the most heart-rending reasons against abortion I've ever heard are from friends who have aborted their own children. Looking back, they considered their own reasons to have been insufficient -- at least in comparison with their child's life. They're living with deep regrets, wishing they could undo something that simply cannot be undone.

I think it does reflect a problem with our land when an abortion is available for any reason at all. The decision is permanent. When stacked up against your own child's life, most reasons just won't do. Even for those who believe that this genetically unique human is somehow not yet human while still in the womb, there's reason to ask: your decision is permanent; how sure are you that your reasons will be permanent as well?