Judgmentalism

Super Christian Homeschooling Ninja Moms of Death

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Mother's Day is this weekend. According to the restaurant industry, it's the single busiest day of the year for most sit-down restaurants as guilty husbands and children treat mom to a freakin' break for one day. And moms deserve it, too. Most Hallmark-derived holidays are bogus to the nth-degree, but I think it's hard to argue against Mother's Day.

(And yes, I know that Hallmark didn't come up with Mother's Day. I am blaming them for Sweetest Day, though.)

On the heels of the two-part "Speed Kills the Christian Soul (1 & 2)", I feel the need to address an issue that few women are willing to discuss. Being a profound extrovert, and also not a woman, maybe I can put into words what many married Christian women today are feeling, but are afraid to say:

  1. "I'm burned out, burned up, and the ember that is my personal existence is running on fumes—
  2. —yet I have to keep up appearances."
  3. "While I will say in public—public being church—that my husband is the rock of the household, I'm the one holding our home together."
  4. "I'm petrified to admit I'm barely holding on."
  5. "I'm terrified of letting anyone else know that I question whether this is the abundant life or not."

If that's you, I have a word for you: Grace. My prayer is that you receive it abundantly.

I don't understand what we're doing to women today in the Church. The pressure to conform to a lifestyle that incorporates one part Beth Moore, one part Martha Stewart, one part Jessie Wise, and one part Salome astounds me. And don't even toss in that proverbial woman from chapter 31 that every female is told she must aspire to. That's a whole 'nother post.

Is it any wonder that so many Christian homes are struggling? What woman wouldn't struggle underneath that burden? And as I noted, as she goes, so goes the home.

Frankly, I'm angered at the expectations and the pressure to conform that many women endure. We men don't have that same burden. Yes, our lives our hectic and we're overburdened, too, but we can always opt out and claim we're "just being a guy for the day." Fire up the tube and plugin to six hours of football and no other man will accuse you of being a jerk. We'll all nod and say as one, "Yep…."

But let an Evangelical Christian woman tell her compatriots that she thinks it might be easier to send her kids to public school this year and you'll witness a shunning worthy of The Scarlet Letter.

Honestly, I wonder why there are so few married women in mental institutions today, what with all the pressure to conform they must endure. It's looks, household abilities, childrearing skills, teaching ability, and a million other lines on the checklist. Fail to tick off one and you might as well drop out of church—at least some churches.

I understand it gets worse the farther south you go. Yeah, a few tongues may wag up in Lake Wobegon, MN, but by the time you hit Atlanta, they haul out the pillories that Sherman left behind. That "Well, bless her heart!" that you hear tossed at the mom who microwaves most of her dinners and sends her kids to one of "those schools" actually means, "She's sullying the good name of motherhood."

This may be extraordinarily coarse of me to say, but I wonder if for all the talk of female empowerment we prattle on about in some sectors of the Church today, that we're not subconsciously holding out The Stepford Wives as the sine qua non of feminine existence—albeit with the additional knack for rightly dividing the Scriptures.

Too harsh? I think if we could peer at the unveiled souls of women in our churches today, we'd be surprised how many are suffering silently.

If you're a man, I want you to think about a few things. If you're insisting on homeschooling your kids but you're not carrying at least a third of that load, then you're shirking your responsibility and should perhaps give up the homeschooling idol. If you think it's okay to rush off to your cave (be it the TV room, a Christian men's group, your garage, or the Internet) after dinner at night without asking your wife how you can make her life easier before you do your own thing, then consider that you might not deserve to be married. As much talk as I hear about men being the "prophets, priests, and kings" of their household, I hear far less about being the "servant."

Tammy Wynette may have sung the line, "Sometimes it's hard to be a woman…," but countless women in our churches today are living that reality, and they're barely holding on. This week, let's find ways to strengthen their grip, not only on their daily existence, but on the Lord.

And don't just quote a Bible verse at them, either.

{Image: (Update) Travis Seitler comes through and tells me this is Donna Troy (AKA Wonder Girl), an Infinite Earths variant of Wonder Woman from DC Comics, drawn by the exceptionally talented George Perez. I should have been able to recognize Perez, as he's long been a favorite of mine. Now I'll probably be sued for using the pic, since a friend of mine wrote a book on comics and the Gospel and DC wouldn't let him use any images (though Marvel had no problems). Hey, I'm giving the attribute here, DC! The full-sized version is nicely done.}

Measure Given, Measure Received

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Eye Meets Log

For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.
—Matthew 7:2 ESV

On Monday morning, I left a comment over at Slice of Laodicea that as of the time of this writing (after midnight on an early Tuesday) still wasn’t posted. I can tell you why.

In “The Fundamental Failure to Understand What ‘Church’ Is,” an article is quoted that posits an imaginary conversation between a “real” Christian from the 1st century Church (1STCC) and one of those Emerging/Seeker-Sensitive “modern Evangelicals” (MOD-E) from a contemporary church. The conversation goes something like this:

1STCC: “What happened at your church today?”

MOD-E: “Oh, we had impressionistic dance, a dramatic presentation, a puppet show and a short message. What happened at your church?”

1STCC: “Two people were judged by God when they lied about their giving; the whole church has been overcome with awe over the wonder of God’s holy and powerful work in our midst; and while the community around us has been gripped with much fear over these things, still the Lord is constantly adding to our number… but uh, no puppet shows…and what’s ‘impressionistic dance?’“

Now I’m no fan of the silliness that often passes for “ministry” in some churches in America. There are some highly questionable gatherings masquerading as churches today. They’re often crossless, Christless, and a whole lot of other “-lesses” that should never be the case in any church that advertises itself as being Christ’s Church.

Still, it’s not hard to imagine a similar conversation between a modern day member of a “Church That Believes It Is Doing It Exactly Right” (CTBIIDIER) and that same 1st century churchgoer:

CTBIIDIER: “Unlike those pseudo-Christians in the Emerging and Seeker-Sensitive Churches, in OUR church service we sang a hundred year-old hymn accompanied by our church organist, prayed for fifteen minutes, sat quietly for an hour-long message, everyone had a thimble-full of grape juice and a sliver of dried bread, and we left knowing that we were doing church exactly as our Lord intended.”

1stCC: “We met in the house of Daphne and shared a bounteous meal together, breaking bread and partaking of the Lord’s Supper. We praised the Lord, too, with tambourine and cymbals, just as it is written in the final of the Psalms. We heard the word of God expounded, then one of our prophets stood up to tell us that we needed to prepare to send relief to Asia because a famine was coming. A dear sister spoke in a tongue and the interpretation was given by her daughter, edifying the whole gathering. Our dear brother Romulus requested prayer from the elders for his lameness. They prayed over him, anointing him with oil, and he was healed. There was a word of knowledge given that one of us was cheating a brother out of money. That man came forward, confessed, and was forgiven. While we were praying in the Spirit afterwards, the Lord spoke to us and told us to set apart Augustus and Ephraim to minister the word of God to Egypt, and this we did, sending them off with great rejoicing.”

CTBIIDIER: “Oh.”

You can take a point so far…and then you can take it even further.

We who stand in judgment of others must ensure that we understand that the judgment we use to judge others is the same judgment we must be willing to accept against us. I know that I try to be exceedingly careful what I say on this blog, because I understand that it truly is a preaching and teaching tool. The Lord will hold me accountable for what I write here. And I never want to say anything that will bring dishonor on Him or on His True Church. I take that responsibility seriously.

So I don’t understand other blogs that are so keen to get it right that they slam everyone who is not them.

Folks, there is a way to correct and there is way not to. It takes no effort to tear into a ministry that needs rebuking. We’re experts at rebuking in today’s Christian circles. On the other hand, it takes the grace of God to approach people who are wrong and correct them with the measure we would want given to us when we stumble.

I may have already crossed the line and been uncharitable here. I really loathe writing these kinds of posts anymore because it is so easy to be meanspirited.

What measure do we want to boomerang back to us? That is the very measure we should be using with anyone who claims to be a Christian.

Tags: Judgment, Hypocrisy, Humility, Church, Faith, Christianity, Jesus, God

On Millstones and Disconnects, Part 2

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DisconnectToday, I’ll wrap up my rant that began in “On Millstones and Disconnects, Part 1” with the hope that we’ll find a better way to bring biblical truth into everyday reality.

Recently, I was prepping for a small group Bible study I would be leading, when I pulled out some old reference material I had from a well-known, well-funded, conservative Christian organization. Their emphasis is on preventing further erosion of a particular societal and biblical norm. I’ve had a lot of respect for that group over the years, and they were formerly headed by theologians I admire.

As I was looking through one particular section of the material, I ran across something that was highly condemning. Worst of all, it was highly condemning of our situation. So I contacted that organization to tell them our story, to ask them what we should have done differently, and to ask what their organization was actively doing to ensure that no family found itself in the same situation we face, the very situation they condemned.

Their answer was to recommend a book on how to find a Bible-based church.

Total. Absolute. Disconnect.

Here’s what I would love to see the Church do. I don’t think any Christian pastor, teacher, parachurch organization, or Christian group should ever admonish people on any topic unless they have some means of drawing alongside those folks to ensure they have some means to carry out that admonition.

  • If we oppose abortion, we better provide some way of helping pregnant women take care of the children they’re considering aborting should they elect to keep them.
  • If we want dads to be more available for their families and their churches, we better provide a way to help them cut back their hours at work without losing their jobs.
  • If we want moms to be at home with the kids and dads to be the breadwinners, we better provide a way for that to occur in families who are fighting for their economic lives in the midst of massive upheavals in a new global economy.
  • If we want to reach the lost, we better provide a way to live out the Gospel instead of just talking about it all the time.
  • If we say we want to instill a Christian worldview in people, then we better be able to speak to any issue, no matter how divisive, difficult, or sectarian it might be.
  • If we want people to fall in love with Jesus, we better provide a way for them to be head over heels in love with Him to the point that nothing else in this world matters but Him (even our lives, our families, our worldviews, our money, and any other thing that doesn’t belong to us but to God alone).

But instead, we love those easy answers. We love telling people what they should be doing, even if we make no provision to help them to do what we say. It’s all deserving of having a millstone tied around our necks and a permanent dunk in the ocean. Just how many people are we causing to stumble because we tell them what they must do, but provide no clue how to do it?

I’m going to pick on a pastor/teacher/author now. I want to say ahead of time that I believe his books are important and that everyone reading this should read them. I have no personal grudge against him, but I want to use his advice as an example of how we can make it hard on people to meet the expectations that Christian leaders suggest.

Randy Frazee, who has now moved on to Willow Creek, wrote two good books. The Connecting Church is about reaching out to our neighborhoods, opening our homes and lives to our lost neighbors. Making Room for Life is about adopting a Hebraic daily schedule that shuns the 24/7/365 lifestyles we’ve adopted. On the surface both of these books are outstanding in that their focus is exactly right. I would recommend that everyone read them, if only for the issues they raise.

But Frazee’s books reveal a stark idealism that afflicts the modern American Church, creating more disconnects than they resolve.

The first disconnect is that Frazee, like many pastors in this country, has been professional clergy most of his life. Career pastors have no personal experience with what it’s like to live—like most people do—in the real business world. For instance, Frazee says that employers will have no problem if you let them know ahead of time that in order to maintain a proper Hebraic daily schedule you’ll only be working 40 hours a week or less. What planet is he living on? The average work week is 50 hours and people who don’t work it are the first ones gone when the downsizing comes. I’ve seen that a million times. Same goes for those who work from home. They have no office presence, therefore no political standing in the cubicle farm, so they’re the first ones cut when “dehiring” rolls around.

Locale is an issue, too. Frazee says that we should live within about fifteen minutes of where we work. But now that companies have no employee loyalty, career experts are claiming that people should be happy with two to three years in a specific company before they be required (or elect) to move on. I’ve never once had a job within 15 minutes of my home; most have been 40 minutes or longer. If by this standard I can expect to have more than a dozen jobs in my life, that would necessitate moving a dozen times or more to be true to what Frazee presents. Now ask what kind of lasting fellowship anyone can expect to enjoy when one is moving around that much! Worse yet, if we factor in Frazee’s The Connecting Church ideas here, how can we possibly have any Christian impact in our neighborhoods if we’re forced to move all the time just to find work or to be close to it? Frazee himself left Texas for Illinois for work-related reasons. How did that affect the neighborhood he lived in, the one he described in his book?

Just today, I spoke with a man who has seen his regular overtime cut back to zero. As a result, his wife, who was working part-time, is now having to work full-time for them to make ends meet. When both spouses are working like this, how do they have time for their church, much less for a Connecting Church like Frazee describes? I don’t know. That’s the disconnect. Those spouses instead become two ships that pass in the night, one working day shift and another working night. It’s a miracle they can keep their own family together much less be actively reaching out to meet the needs of other families in their neighborhood.

This same man told me that everyone he knows is struggling with lost wages due to changes in the economy. The Wall Street Journal just last week trumpeted the fact that Silicon Valley is hiring again. Hurrah! But wait. The average salary in the Valley is now $69,000 a year compared to the $80,000 a year it was eight years ago. Is this progress? Gas is running $2.50 a gallon where I am. I can only imagine what it costs in California. And we got out of California before the electricity rates doubled. Honestly—and some of you in other parts of the country may not grasp this—$69,000 a year is NOT a livable wage for Silicon Valley. Even $80,000 is shaky. (Our rent alone on a two bedroom apartment was $1950 a month when we left in 2000. Taxes, too, are insane in California. ) With those salaries, both spouses work or they have to leave town. And if their specific work skill is linked to Silicon Valley, where else do they go that’s not similarly oppressively expensive?

It may seem I’m talking too much about economics and jobs. But many of the issues that confront the Church today are rooted in the fact that our employment (with commute) takes up more time during a week than anything we do. Most everyone I know barely has time to do anything but work. Families that were adamant about having only the husband work (because this is what the Christian message is) are now requiring mom to work full-time just to make ends meet. What does that mean for volunteering at church, or for spending quality time with our families, or any of the other myriad things Christian radio, our pulpits, or Christian books tell us we must do in order to be good Christians?

The disconnects are massive. We need more radical answers. To the organization who told me the answer to our problem was finding a Bible-believing church: I haven’t run across a single Bible-believing church that is speaking radical answers to these issues. If an organization such as their own that exists solely to provide biblical answers to these issues can’t speak to them in a practical way, then how is any heavily diversified church going to, no matter how Scripturally accurate they are?

Here’s what I see:

  • Some Christians force themselves not to think about these disconnects and are just carried around on the winds of change, even if those winds blow them into a foul place.
  • Some Christians think about these disconnects, but they routinely fall back to doing it the way that they’ve always done it, even if that way doesn’t work anymore.
  • Some Christians fall into a sort of Christianized fatalism, saying there’s nothing that can be done, so they’re just putting in time till heaven rolls around.
  • Some Christians self-destruct because they can’t make what they’re hearing from Christian leaders fit with their own daily reality.

Want to know what’s truly sad about those folks? None of them will make a lasting difference for the Lord in their generation. Instead, we need Christians who are willing to acknowledge reality, address it in the light of Christ’s truth, and provide biblically-based, practical solutions to entrenched problems, changing the world in the process.

Those kinds of Christian change agents are rare because they must speak against the prevailing wisdom, which is actually no wisdom at all. Sounds like a prophet, doesn’t it?

Lord Jesus, send us men and women of vision who are not satisfied with answers that never intersect the reality of most people’s lives. Your Church needs them now more than ever.

Tags: Vision, Disconnects, Culture, Work, Jobs, Business, Wisdom, Church, Faith, Christianity, Jesus, God