Am I my brother’s keeper?

I just read a wonderful message on Revive our Hearts about womanhood and modesty. Here is a clip from the transcript:

A young girl walked past, and she was dressed very, very seductively. She was spilling out everywhere. She walked past, and it wasn’t just what she was wearing, it was the way she was walking. She kind of gave my son the eye. So I asked him, “What do you think, and what do you feel? Like, what do you think when you see a woman like that?” That’s a pretty daring question. I thought he might avoid it. And he said to me, “Mom, to be perfectly honest, she arouses the male in me, but she does not appeal to the man in me.” “That’s a good answer, sweetheart.”

Did you catch that? Do you see the difference? The “male” and the “man” are two different things. This young man set a distinction between being “male” and being a “man”…and the alluring appearance arouses one but not necessarily the other…interesting thought. It seems to me that it is quite easy to arouse the “male”, but appealing to the “man” is something totally different and much deeper.

Now, I’m not going to go about trying to tell men how to be men, for obvious reasons. I am not a man. But I do want to say something to my fellow women folk…we need to listen to what this young man is saying and think it through. Do I want to arouse a “male”, or do I want to appeal to a “man”? Before I go any further, I do need to state at the outset that my ultimate purpose is to live for Christ, not for man. But in the course of things, and in the context of male/female relationships, I need to ask myself that question. As a single woman relating to men – both single and married – what message am I seeking to convey? Am I being respectful to the man I am interacting with by being careful to not unnecessarily arouse the male in that man.

Please hear me clearly: I am not responsible for whatever a man chooses to do; but I am responsible for what I can do as far as it depends on me to encourage my brothers in Christ. And it is really not a matter of “limiting” my freedom in Christ; it is a call to love my brothers by doing what I can to not put a stumbling block in their path.

Too often when we as women read these kinds of things, we grate against them as if they are implying that we somehow are the keepers of men’s moral compass and are responsible for their moral behavior. Again, we are not. But we are responsible for our own. And there are too many mandates in scripture about modesty; about removing even the hint of sexual immorality; about purity for us to use this objection as our excuse. We are called to purity – irrespective of the response of anyone else. But in our seeking purity, we are called to care for the purity of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And let’s be honest ladies…sometimes we can complain and dog out a man for being “male”, when in actuality, that is all that we have really tapped into in the way we interact with them. Men are sinners (clue in: so are we…), and sometimes, it doesn’t really matter what we do or don’t do; they are just not going to act correctly. But, there are other cases where we can do things that encourage a wrong response, and if what we are doing appeals to that base nature the response will be sinful. But if we are seeking to honor that man as a human made in God’s image; and then, if that man is our brother in Christ as a fellow co-heir in Christ, the response will be much different.

Just something to think about…more later…

Grace and peace…

Back to this question of identity…

Before I took my writing hiatus (not self-imposed, by the way, but I’ll talk about that another time…) I began to write down some preliminary thoughts I have had about what it means to be a godly woman. I have been listening to Nancy Leigh DeMoss for a number of years and frequent her ministry website, Revive Our Hearts. Last year, a conference was held in Chicago called True Woman. I was not able to attend the conference, but I did purchase the audio messages, and have been truly blessed by them.

A I quick perusal of my blog will demonstrate that much of 2008 was about my wrestling through questions of identity, first racial and then in terms of gender. The “gender identity” question has been dominating my thoughts lately even more so than the racial question. This is no less true in 2009 than it was in 2008, perhaps even more so.

Today I decided to begin a “30-day Challenge“  called the True Woman Makeover. I have been distracted by many things in the last months, and have not focused my heart as I would like on this topic. So, I decided that this would be a good way to renew my focus on this question that has been swimming around in my head for months now: What does it mean to be a godly woman? a woman after God’s own heart? For this is what I truly long to be.

Each day, an email will be delivered to my inbox. And, as I meditate on the things I learn from these emails and messages, I will share as I am led. I already know I’m in for it: the Lord is challenging me to meditate on Proverbs 31 each day for these 30 days. Oh boy…with Day One’s reading under my belt, I know my journey is going to be rewarding and difficult…here goes nothing!

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Day One: I shall title this day “Proverbs 31 and the counter-cultural woman”. I want to begin my meditation of Proverbs 31 at the end because there is one verse that is the key to it all:

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (v.30 ESV)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). And what does it mean to “fear the Lord”? First - to recognize His sovereignty, His holiness, His perfections. To gaze upon His splendor and be in awe of Him. When Isaiah did this, he was undone (Isa. 6:5) – the breadth of the chasm between a holy God and sinful man struck him with the fear of death. How could he gaze upon such beauty and splendor and live? He knew in that moment that he was completely unworthy to see the purity and holiness of God. Our greatest achievements are filthy and spent when compared to the radiance and brilliance of God’s holiness.

Second - to “fear the Lord” is to see myself in light of who God is and to respond appropriately. God has ultimate authority in and over my life – if I call Him Lord then I must submit to Him. He defines me, not the other way around. I want to camp out here because this is huge! He defines me. I am a creature – a created being, which means I derive my existence from a source outside myself. I do not have the luxury of deciding why I was made. My life was formed by God and for God. To Him, through Him and for Him all things were made (Rom. 11:36). That includes me.

What was the temptation the serpent presented to Eve (and Adam)? “You will be like God. You will get to decide what’s good and what’s bad. You will be master of your own life!” Is this not the same old, tired siren song? We hear it everyday – promising something it will and never can deliver.

I do not get to tell God what to do, or even how to run my life. Or what I need to move me toward the goal of Christlikeness. A heart that is molded by God toward that end is eternal – its beauty does not fade with time. It becomes more radiant, more pure as time goes on…as it draws closer and closer to the Lord and is shaped into the image of Christ, its beauty glows brighter.

I was blessed with what many call “good genes”. None of the women in my family ever look their age. My grandma did not start looking her age until the last year of her life when she became very ill. I have relatively blemish-free skin. The gray hair is slowly showing, but I can easily hide it (at least right now!). But I will get old; I will look my age one day. I pray that the radiance of drawing near to God will be what marks me as a beautiful woman. 

So…this fear of the Lord – this reverence, awe, wonder and worship of the Lord – should shape how I live. I will seek to live in a way that honors Him if He is Lord of my life. And let me be clear – He is not Lord because I acknowledge Him as such. He is Lord – period. And my life ought to reflect my acknowledgement and surrender to the reality of who He is. Everything in my life will flow from this…

Lord willing, I will walk and work through what that means in every aspect of my life in these days to come.

Until then,
Grace and peace…

And we all fall down…

I want to be very clear at the outset: I know that the issues that feminism addressed and continue to address are very real. I am not in any way disputing that there were serious inequities and injustices that were and are being addressed by the movement. What I am concerned about is how feminism has adressed them and the underlying assumptions that drive the movement.

I am reading Radical Womanhood by Carolyn McCulley. This is my second read through this book – yes it’s that good. Carolyn’s first order of business in the book is to give a summary history of the three waves of feminism. During her discussion of the Second wave, she focuses on french philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, an examination of the status of women in the society. I was so struck by a direct quote from Beauvoir: “[woman] is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other”. Her final assessment was that “all male ideologies are directed at justifying the oppression of women, of keeping women imprisoned in roles that leave them subordinate to me. These roles include that of wife and mother.”

My problem with this argument is that it places man (gender = male) in the place of creator and woman the created. This is problematic for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that man – male or female – is not the creator of anything. Both are the created that point to Another who created us both in His image…

The most important problem in my view is that this line of thinking focuses on the symptom rather than the actual problem. The problem is not man (gender = male), but man’s desire to usurp God’s authority and take His place as ruler. In a word, the problem is sin. I use “man” both in the generic (male and female) sense and gender-specific sense in the previous statement because this sin thing is universal; neither gender exceed the other in that department. Remember what Genesis 3 says about the consequences of the fall. In terms of our relationships with each other, men became a usurper by seeking to rule and subordinate women; women became a usurper by seeking to dominate and control men. Both could blame the other for their condition and response…which seems to be the natural course of things in our fallen state. But if both are seeking to take the place of God and sinning against God, which of us really has a leg to stand on?

So – it is not that feminism does not address a legitimate reality. I argue that it does. But does it rightly interpret that reality? I would argue that it does not for the simple reason that it removes God from the equation. Or, if He is considered at all, we define Him instead of allowing Him to define us. In doing so, we become our ultimate reality, the source and finish of our own existence. Without the ability to refer to something or someone outside ourselves, we go about the task of defining ourselves, each doing so according to our own desires, interests and location. But what happens when those interests and desires clash? Who or what is the final arbiter that determines what definition will stand as valid?

So…perhaps the problem is that man (gender = male) has sought to define woman in a way that subordinates her and woman’s (gender = female) response is to seek to define ourselves and by default redefine man in the process. But does this solve the dilemma, or move it to the other side of the street? Perhaps…just perhaps, there is a solution that trumps each gender seeking to define and control the other. That solution requires that both genders turn away from ourselves and look to our real Source…that would change everything.

More later…

Grace and peace…

Unexpected journey…

I have been debating for a few weeks now whether I should write this post or not. I finally (obviously) made the decision to blog through my journey of discovering God’s true design for me as a woman. Not that I think I am so very important, or that my insights are just so wonderful that everyone must know what I have to say…but this is a way for me to organize my thoughts as the Lord takes me through this process. And, if the Lord wills, encourage other women who are on this same journey or are on the verge.

My journey began during last year’s presidential primary season. The topics of discussion that arose from a woman and and African-American man being the front-runners of a major political party created quite a stir among the people I work with, and people I worship with. Being that I am both a woman and an African-American, the question that would always come up for me was, “So, how do you decide who you’re going to vote for?” Of course, the assumption was that I would be voting Democrat, and so with that question out of the way, how would I make my choice of which Democrat to vote for? The natural first question I would have in response was always, “Who says I’m voting Democrat to begin with?” That question would always raise eyebrows…but that’s another story for another day (wink, wink).

The thought behind the question had nothing to do with issues – which candidate from which party I most agreed with or felt would be the right candidate to lead our country for the next four years. The question that was really being asked of me was which identity will govern my vote – my race or my gender? What is more important to me, being a woman or being Black? 

There are so many things wrong with this line of thinking I don’t even know where to begin. The first being – why am I voting for a candidate based simply on race or gender? What kind of criteria is that for selecting who I will support? The question and subsequent discussions that it would raise started me on a course that brings me to the present day, and my stepping over the threshold of shedding old ways of thinking and walking in the light of Scripture in a new a deeper way. In the last year, the Lord has been upsetting my apple cart something awful, and in ways that were totally unexpected. I can’t say the journey has been easy – or even that it is close to being over. But as I look at the twists and turns of these last months, I am amazed at how awesomely God weaves things together to bring us exactly where He wants us to be.

Now, my default position in the past when these kinds of discussions have popped up is to engage in an analysis of how my racial/ethnic identity intersects with my identity in Christ. This is familiar terrain for me. I have spent much of my life asking the identity question as it pertains to race/ethnicity, and after I became a Christian, how my new identity as a believer changes the answer to that question. But I have never thought much about my identity as a woman, and how that is affected by my identity in Christ. And even when I did think about it, I lived and thought by the world’s definitions of what a woman ought to be.

I was born in 1972; I have never known a world without the Feminist Movement. I have never known a world without abortion rights, or equal pay for equal work, or Title Nine, etc. My world has been shaped by the conversation that has been raging about a woman’s role – our role in the family, in the workplace, and in the church. Even after becoming a Christian, the question of a woman’s role has been in the forefront – and my assumption was what is wrong with the church? We need to get our act together and stop holding women back. We need to allow women to do whatever they want, whatever we feel God has called us to do. The way that I viewed the questions even in the church were shaped by the world’s definition of femininity, womanhood, leadership, authority, etc…

But something about the question of who would I vote for between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton caused me to look at things in a different light. Why – I can only say because the Lord saw fit to open my heart to a new way of looking at this issue of identity. I lived in the Chicago area at the time, and the True Woman Conference was gearing up to be held there. My church promoted this conference, and the flyer on the bulletin board caught my eye. At first glance I decided that I did not want to have anything to do with such a conference. But the Lord would not leave me alone about it…and this became the starting point for asking myself: What does it mean to be a woman? I was startled to discover I wasn’t as sure about that answer as I assumed.

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the True Woman Conference – but as I began to ponder this question of womanhood, and explore the idea of biblical womanhood, I knew. I knew that the Lord was calling me out of something. I knew He was calling me into a new way of thinking and living. I knew that he was calling me to unlearn what I have been taught to assume, and be transformed. He was renewing my mind and renovating my heart.

So, a year later, I sit back and think about the terrain I have covered, and how vast the terrain I have yet to explore. I know it will take my entire lifetime to reach my destination…

A light topic

Lately I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about race/ethnicity and gender. My thoughts about gender have led me to a sustained study of complementarian and egalitarian views of women, as well as the history of feminism in the U.S. Very light stuff, I know. Ugh! Sometimes, my brain hurts…at times I can hear it crying out for mercy! But still, I push on…

Anyway, here’s a question I posed in my journal a few days ago: 

Why does “distinctive roles” necessarily equal “different worth”? 

In other words, why is the assumption that limiting the role of women to exclude positions of “leadership” (i.e., pastor/elder) in the church means you are saying that women are unequal in their value before the Lord? Our worth or identity is not determined by the roles we play in society. This, I would argue is a carryover from our culture, which places high premium on position, title, power, money, etc., to determine a person’s worth. This is not a biblical notion – it is a cultural one. To assume this to be true and then impose this so-called “truth” onto the church is to usurp the truth of the Word and make the church in the culture’s image.  

The co-opting of cultural understandings of worth placed in external things such as titles and roles leads us to false conclusions. The Word teaches a completely opposite reality, which calls into question the struggle that women engage in to have equal access to positions of perceived “power” within the church structure. In doing so, we are conforming to the image of this world, not being transformed by the renewing of our minds.  

So as I work to reprogram my mind in this area, I must renounce the ideas that worth resides in the position that I hold in a social or cultural structure. Worth resides in my creation as an image-bearer of God. This image is the same regardless of the social position I may hold. As I read through the arguments for egalitarians and complementarians, I see the appeal to cultural reality over against biblical truth in the egalitarian view. They are imposing an unbiblical worldview onto scripture that brings them to wrong conclusions.  

Here is an excellent quote to that end from Dorothy Kelley Patterson in an article she wrote for www.cbmw.org:

“Viewing a person’s worth solely according to his role and perceived status in society not only is not biblically based but also is a poor criterion for interpersonal relationships. Who I am ultimately is not determined by what I can do. My ultimate worth is found in who I am in Christ—a woman created in his image. I may be unable to do certain tasks physically, emotionally, socially, or even spiritually (because of biblical boundaries), but God is interested in my obedience—to his written word more than to what I feel he is revealing to my own understanding.” 

This is my humble opinion…may God continue to guide me as I walk through this.

More later.

Grace and peace…