Tag: christianity

Communion and the Church

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In my last blog post, “Giving Up or Growing Up?” I wrote “I love the idea of the church. A group of people who in gathering around a shared meal of bread and wine commit to being one body—one family devoted to the disciplines of love and forgiveness and the commitment to make the ways of the realm of God present on earth as in heaven. I will always be part of that community” even as I declared that I am done with participating in religious structures that harm others. Interestingly, a common response I received to that post was “So, you’re giving up going to church?”

I get that in our culture the term “church” refers to a place or at best an event. I get that trying to hold fast to the idea that the term ecclesia refers to the people – gathered or called together for a purpose (mattering not if they are physically together in any particular place at any given time) – can be a losing battle these days. But this is one of those things I have to hold fast to. We do not go to, get together for, or do church, we are the church.

That matters.

Oh, it is trendy to talk about being the church, but such discussions quickly dissolve into how we do church. There must be rules and schedules and planned activities and (most importantly) codes of hierarchies and etiquette that must be observed. It’s like being roommates with Sheldon Cooper. It’s not about community, but about staying within the bounds of predetermined appropriate patterns of behavior.

With such responses to my post fresh in my mind, I then read (and got really annoyed by) Preston Yancey’s post “When if the Eucharist is just a symbol, to hell with it.” It hit me that we do to church what we have done to the Eucharist. The historical shift in Christianity from the Body of Christ being the people for whom the bread and the wine were a blessing, to the Body becoming the actual elements removed agency and identity from the people. Adding pseudo-magical ideas like transubstantiation and consubstantiation to theologically back-up that shift (yes, I know I just pissed off most of Christendom…) further distanced people from an identify as being the church to those who do church. Now there can be people arguing that if the elements of the Eucharist are just a symbol of who we are and not something mystical in and of itself, then to hell with it.

We have obviously lost ourselves along the way.

But the critique and the confusion got me thinking. If we are the church that lives in community and choose to demonstrate that we are part of this family together by breaking bread and sharing wine together, then maybe we need a third way between mystical elements and mere symbol to think about that act. Something that moves beyond the lists of rules that set strict boundaries for who we permit to share our bread but which also helps us be and not just do church.

(And this is where I let my nerd show.)

Linguists talk about the power of certain forms of language to perform in their utterance that which they mean. Referred to as speech acts, the idea is that by saying something, we do something, as when in saying “I promise” I actually am making a promise or when a minister joins two people in marriage saying, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” We have mystically applied this idea to Eucharist (by saying the elements are blessed they become so), but what if Communion (and yes I used this term deliberately) was seen as being like an actual speech act. In breaking bread and drinking wine together (in whatever form that actually takes) we are performing the act of being a community, a family, the Body of Christ. It isn’t the symbolism of or the rules around the ritual, but the fact that bread and wine are shared that matters.

Communion is more than a symbol because eating with each other is a vital part of life. And it is not something mystically transformed and delivered by only the one invested with the power to say the right incantation over it. It is far more powerful and active than that. We are a community when we commune with each other and since we are human, that is almost always around food. In the church I used to serve, we called this being foodal (a riff on missional). We did life together over food. We were the church when we were being a community around a table. Over the years, I’ve affirmed my identity as part of the body of Christ by sharing Doritos and Mountain Dew with teens in a youth group. I’ve affirmed this identity by raiding a diaper bag and sharing juice boxes and animal crackers. I’ve affirmed this identity at potlucks, in taking meals to families with newborns, and having dinner with friends. I remember the ways of Christ through such communion, but live it directly in simply being in community. And yes, sadly, I’ve had people refuse to commune with me because the bread wasn’t of the correct type, because the food didn’t pass through the hands of an ordained priest, and because I lacked a penis and therefore could not offer them the food of our shared table. But more often than not I’ve broken bread and shared the cup in joyous ways with my brothers and sisters.

I am not giving up on being the church. I will continue to break bread and share wine as an act of community with those who have chosen to follow in the way of Jesus and live out the dreams of God on earth (or who simply want to join in the community of those who do). For in eating that bread and drinking that wine with whoever so desires to share the table I live into my identity as part of the body of Christ – I am the church.

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Alleluia, The Doctor Returns

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As posted at The Huffington Post Religion blog –

believeI’ll admit it: I was more excited about the return of “Doctor Who” than about Easter. Some may say this makes me a poor Christian — that it should be the communal celebration of the Resurrection that my hearts yearns for the most — but honestly, in the past few years it has been in this story of a self-proclaimed madman with a box that I have encountered the most meaningful depictions of the divine. Easter in many churches these days has become more about creating the most perfect liturgy, scientifically trying to prove the resurrection, or demanding that one must believe in divine child abuse in order to be saved than about celebrating a God whose healing love inspires us to believe and go do likewise. For that I have “Doctor Who.”

“Doctor Who” is one of the longest running television shows in history with its first episode airing in November 1963. In 2005, the BBC rebooted the show with a postmodern audience in mind and it has since gathered a worldwide fan base. The show follows the adventures of a witty and hyper-intelligent humanoid alien “Time Lord” known simply as The Doctor, who travels the universe in his time machine, the TARDIS. The Doctor generally travels with a companion and, as his title suggests, often finds himself in situations which are in need of healing and repair. One cannot argue that “Doctor Who” is necessarily a Christian or even theistic show (despite its habit of having Christmas and Easter specials) or even that the Doctor is intended to be equated with God. The two men who have creatively led and written many of the episodes of the BBC reboot of the show, Russell Davies and Stephen Moffat, are both self-proclaimed atheists. Yet, as producers and writers, they frequently address religious themes and use the character of the Doctor to challenge hollow and dangerous conceptions of God. It is in their attempts to use the Doctor to deconstruct inward-focused religion which has little relevance in a world full of injustice and pain that an alternative, more meaningful, vision of God emerges.

Jack Caputo has argued that a God that makes sense in our postmodern era is a God defined by weakness instead of strength. By weakness he does not mean a “weakness that lacks the power of faith or the courage for action” but a weakness that stands on the side of the powerless, that participates in the reversals which displace the high and mighty and lift up the lowly, and that keeps hope alive when life appears to be hopeless. Caputo writes in “The Weakness of God,” “You see the weak force that stirs within the name of God only when someone casts it in the form of a narrative, tells mad stories and perplexing parables about it.” It is in these mad tales that resonate with the imagination of the age that many of us are encountering an image of God more meaningful than what is being presented in many churches these days.

As we watch “Doctor Who,” we encounter the story of one who far from being above humanity, comes alongside us to not only suffer with us, but inspire us to do the hard work of creating a better world. We see in the tale of the Doctor an example of a figure who calls followers to lives of adventure and wonder, practices radical forgiveness, and welcomes the marginalized and defends the powerless. It is an potential image of the divine that inspires hope, and which (for me at least) grasps what it means to live the way of life Jesus modeled far better than do the pointless attempts to orchestrate the perfect worship service or defend the plausibility of miracles.

So, as the show returned this Easter weekend, I eagerly anticipated immersing myself once again in a narrative about one who saves the world by calling it to participate in acts of healing and love. I wish I could say that I knew I could encounter the same in churches this Easter. As a committed Christ follower, I am tired of Easter being reduced to mechanics. I want more than marathon services or reiterations of the details of Christ’s death and resurrection that try to convince me that merely believing that something happened is the purpose of being a Christian. I want to be called to join in on the adventure of healing the world, in welcoming the marginalized, and living in the revolutionary way of Jesus. Thankfully, “Doctor Who” is brave enough to tell such mad tales even when the church is not.

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The Danger of the Light

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For Lent this year the church I attend is exploring the idea of light – of entering into the light, of letting light illuminate the truth. As much as Christians like to talk about the light shining into the darkness, we often forget how dangerous light can be. Light reveals things that we would rather keep hidden. Light forces us to face truths we would rather ignore. We forget in our haste to claim Jesus as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path that carrying a light in the darkness isn’t safe. In the world pre-electricity, to go out into the darkness with a lamp or torch was not an act of the wise. Walking around in a pitch-black night with a torch made you a target for wild animals or other ill-intending creatures of the night. Hiding one’s light under a bushel is safe, shining a light is dangerous.

lachish_ewerAs I listened to the discussion last Sunday, the illustration that came to mind was the repeated attempts one reads of in the Hebrew Scriptures to remove the lampstands from the Temple. Granted, the scriptures speak of removing the presence of the pagan goddess Asherah and tearing down the poles or trees erected to her in the Temple, but as archeology shows, those poles in the temple were the lampstands or menorahs. Asherah as a symbol of the feminine and embodiment of sexuality and reproduction was depicted by a tree with seven branches in bloom (to represent fertility) as shown in the picture, exactly the way lampstands for the tabernacle/temple are described in Exodus 25. It was this symbol of the female and of sexuality that was repeatedly removed from the temple, only to return again and again.

I couldn’t help but think about the symbolism of this act of removing a lampstand of the feminine from the official place of worship. Light is dangerous. It illuminates structures of oppression and reveals the truth and beauty of women and the body. Such things are scary to a culture trying to cling to hierarchies of patriarchal power. It is easier to extinguish the light, throw the lampstands away, than to gaze upon that which it reveals.

This idea returned to me this week as I was discussing the scriptures read in the early church in one of my classes. The canon of books and letters Christians read pre-Constantine was significantly different than the established canon we have now. Most interestingly was that they included accounts of martyrdoms (like The Martyrdom of Polycarp) in the texts they looked to for worship and comfort. The point was made that pre-Christendom these texts of martyrdom that gave comfort to those suffering persecution as well as encouraged them to resist the ways of empire although popular in the early church were kept out of the canon once Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. Illuminating the oppressions and temptations of empire became too dangerous. It was easier to extinguish that light than to see what it revealed.

Even now to hold up lights illuminating the voice of women, the beauty of the body, or the ills of empire is dangerous. It is scary to have the truth revealed under the light. Doing so makes one a target of ridicule and accusations of heresy. Light makes it impossible to continue in the darkness of the status quo, once truth is revealed it cannot be ignored, only rejected. But that is the risk we take when we embrace the one who claims to be the light.

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On Disability and Sola Scriptura

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And now for the disability post.

During the Q&A time with Phyllis Tickle at the Emergence Christianity gathering a woman who uses a wheelchair asked what I thought was one of the most important and telling questions of the event. She commented that even though emergence Christians talk about LGBT folks being the last great “Other” that the church needs to accept, in reality it is people with disabilities who are still otherized the most by the church and asked Phyllis what can be done about that.

I applauded her question.

That’s the thing to do in these sorts of gatherings. When someone dares to bring up the elephants in the room or be a voice for unrepresented voices one applauds if one cares.

I was the only one in a cathedral full of people who applauded her question. It was literally just the sound of one hand clapping.

Phyllis responded that disability is not a truly otherizing or controversial concern for the church because it doesn’t challenge the conception of sola scriptura, next question. I think Phyllis is spot on with her theory that the issues that challenge the church the most are those that shake up our perceived understanding of scripture. If we cling to sola scriptura and our interpretation of that scripture is that slavery is okay, women cannot teach in church, or that same-sex relationships are a sin then to accept those things is to disrupt our entire conception of the scripture. Given the philosophical framework of most Protestants and the lingering predominance of sola scriptura, I fully agree with her description of why such issues caused such turmoil for the church.

What I don’t agree with is that disability is not a challenge to sola scriptura.

I would argue that people with disabilities are in fact the most otherized group of people in the church. Whether it is dealt with well or not, most Christians would agree that racism is wrong and that we should love people of all colors of skin. Many churches would also say that sexism is evil and quite a few even allow women to serve as pastors. It’s trendy to engage in interreligious dialogue and LGBT advocacy is the undisputed cause of the moment. Not so much when it comes to welcoming and showing support for the differently abled.

Basically, we are not and never will be cool. While I fully acknowledge the damaging effect positive stereotypes can have – there is something to be said for the hip factor of Queer folk in advancing their cause. But no one brags about their cool disabled friend they go shopping with. We don’t have Pride parades that end up being the most fun event of the season. There are no sitcoms about witty and fabulous disabled people. Not that this is a competition, just the facts that we are hard to like. We are the awkward ones. We are the ones who are so used to the stares and the pointing fingers and the laughter that we’ve learned to brace ourselves as we enter most social situations knowing that we make other people uncomfortable. For better or worse we have never had the option of a closet to hide in to escape the taunts of the world. We are the freaks and it will never, ever, be trendy to advocate for us much less see us as something other than Other.

Secondly, standing in solidarity with us is costly, literally. If a church starts talking about offering programs for the disabled or even putting in an access ramp they quickly encounter the hard data of the cash it will cost them. Most decide that it is more fiscally responsible to just ignore us. Yes, I get that churches that chose to be welcoming and inclusive of the LGBT community know that there might possibly be a financial cost to that decision. But as members leave and take their tithes with them, the blow is softened by knowing that the loss of income came because the church chose the moral high ground over bigotry. It is easier to accept potential cost than swallow the price tag up front.

But beyond those factors, what I have discovered regarding why disability advocacy is not a cause emergence Christianity (or any form of Christianity really) cares about is that the traditional biblical notions about disability have not yet been challenged the way ideas about slavery, women, and Queers have. Instead of seeing people with disabilities as whole people to be equally welcomed in the body of Christ, there is still a ruling belief in the church that we are broken people in need of healing. We are people to be served and changed, not people to be included and fought for.

Think about the songs we sing (even last week at the Emergence Christianity gathering). The lyrics are all about the poor and the blind being made whole or about rejoicing that “I once was blind but now I see.” If we were singing “I once was gay but now I’m straight” or “I once was Native but now I’m civilized” there would be an uproar, but no one sees any issue in singing such about the differently abled. It is still permissible to assume an absolute normative and cast anyone who appears different as the incomplete other that must be healed and made whole before they can be accepted like everyone else.

church disabledThe church still repeats the cultural mores of the biblical worlds. Those with imperfections of the body were barred from serving in the Tabernacle and the Temple. Even animals with defects could not be offered up to God in sacrifice. Only those who appeared normative, unblemished, could be accepted as pure and holy sacrifices to God. People with disabilities could not even enter the Temple to worship, but had to remain in the courtyard of the women and the Gentiles. The imperfection of our body made us unacceptable to God. Over time Gentiles, women, and slaves came to be seen as whole persons made in the image of God and therefore worthy of service, but the stigma of incompleteness remains on those with disability.

Phyllis was partially right in her response. Disability isn’t an issue challenging sola scriptura. But that’s because there has yet to be a vocal and vibrant call within the church to challenge ancient cultural assumptions that continue to cast us as Other. And honestly, I don’t know if there ever will be given how “uncool” we are and how costly it is to welcome us fully. That one could even state that how the church conceives of disability isn’t an issue is quite telling of how little attention is given to us at all.

It’s uncomfortable to be the sole person clapping for this cause in a room full of people who generally seem committed to being as welcoming and inclusive as possible. And it’s indicative of how far we still have to go.

–

See also J.C. Mitchell’s response.

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Creation as Liberating Act

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I recently read Mercy Oduyoye’s classic work Hearing and Knowing. It is one of the best introductions to theology that I have ever read and I was especially drawn to her exploration of creation as liberating act. Oduyoye explores the way God responds to broken situations in the world by creating (or birthing) something new in their midst. For example, God so loved the world even in its brokenness that God sent Jesus into that very brokenness. By being in the midst of that suffering, Jesus suffered with the community and through that brought healing to the brokenness as he worked to make all things new. The call to be new creations, defined by shalom instead of brokenness, came out of the being withness of community.

Oduyoye then illustrates how the community can live into the power that creating something in order to find liberation offers. She writes –

Among the Igbo of Nigeria, to be creative is to turn the power of evil, sin, and suffering into the power of love. When things are not going well in a community, in order to restore harmony and mutuality of existence, an African community requires artists to camp together, to work together to heal the society by their sacrifice. The creativity of the artists is the sacrifice required for righting wrongs in the community. The artists fashion a model of a whole community and all that they have in a house, and the house and its artifacts are left as a sacrifice, which will renew the community. … The artist symbolically recreates the clan in its pristine state through artifacts and the result is salutary for the real clan. It becomes once again a wholesome people in a wholesome community. (p.92-93)

Jesus willingly entered into a community of suffering in order to create with them a way to be liberated from that suffering. Yet that vision of shalom was not imposed from the outside upon people against their will. It involved solidarity, creativity, and sacrifice. Jesus was with the community, suffering with them. Creativity was required in order for the community to envision the liberation into a better world that becoming new creations would bring. And it required not only the selfless sacrifice of Jesus, but the sacrifice of the old patterns of brokenness in favor of the new vision on the part of the community. Like the Igbo in Nigeria, those open to creative re-envisioning had to live in community together and make sacrifices in order to bring about the healing that is needed.

I love this idea that it is sacrificial creativity within community that brings healing and shalom. All too often healing is reduced to simply an economic transaction or state of intellectual assent. If a person just believes or thinks a certain way, or follows the right set of rules, or refrains from certain actions then they will magically find liberation. Even if others continue to suffer in brokenness, they can still be assured of personally possessing the key to freedom. While these systems are easy to impose upon others and also make it easy to blame individuals for the continued brokenness in the world, they miss the point of something truly new being created. If as the Bible claims, God is working to make all things new, unless one is seeing new healed and liberated communities emerging from where there was once suffering and brokenness, then God’s work there is not yet done (and sometimes has barely even begun).

As Oduyoye comments “God actually searches for us and suffers until the community is complete… Salvation for an elite who have no responsibility to the community at large is contrary to the meaning of the Christ-event” (p.96). The liberation is not simply something for the few to opt into intellectually. Full healing and liberation occur amidst community and involve both sacrifice and creatively imagining a better world. Jesus created an entire alternative way of being in the world he termed the Kingdom of God – a way to live differently than the systems of suffering and oppression the world offered. Rejecting the ways of the world in favor of this new way of being requires one to sacrifice the privileges and entitlements the world offers in exchange for the liberation and shalom of the whole community. It is easy to be told what to do in order to secure one’s personal safety and comfort. It is a lot harder to stand in solidarity with the suffering of the community and do the creative and sacrificial work of together envisioning something new. Yet, as Oduyoye reminds us, God’s plan for liberation was to send Jesus to do just that.

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Discovering Christian Feminism – Part 2

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This week as part of Rachel Held Evans’ One in Christ series I am posting the story of my journey to Christian Feminism – Read Part 1 here.

Finding out about all that stuff they don’t teach you in school because of the negative stigma our patriarchal culture has attached to feminism, actually helped make a lot of sense out of the whole movement for me. But isn’t that how it usually goes – the fear of the unknown must first be removed before it can be understood for its true self. So here’s a crazy brief and over-generalized overview of the history of feminism. It’s obviously not the full picture, but I hope it’s enough to help you see what I saw – that feminism has a rich history full of diverse voices.

Feminism in a Nutshell
The first historical fact that I discovered once I started looking was that there have been feminists throughout the history of the church. Okay, so they might not have used that term, but there have always been people who have been using their voice to advocate for women even in the face of opposition. There were the young Christian women in 3rd century Carthage who tried to overcome the stigma of being female by pledging to remain unmarried (and therefore perpetual virgins) and forego the veil which was the symbol of women’s shame. Sadly, they were met with the response that not even virginity or baptism could transcend the shame of being a woman. Then, in the 12th and 13th centuries, during a time when a woman’s only options were commitment to an arranged marriage or lifelong enclosure in a convent, a lay movement called the Beguines arose which offered women a third way. Women could commit to living in community with other women where they would engage in spiritual and intellectual endeavors without having to commit to lifelong chastity. Think of it like an early college for women during a time when most women weren’t even deemed worthy enough to be taught how to read. Living in community, discussing theology – sounds like my kind of ideal dorm life experience (yes, I am a bit of a theology nerd). Unfortunately, many of these women were accused of being heretics and burned at the stake for their pursuit of the life of the mind. Then, in 1617, Rachel Speght became one of the first women to publish a pamphlet under her own name (as opposed to a male pseudonym) in which she challenged a popular theory of the day that claimed all women were corrupt and therefore must be despised. Her pamphlet implores men to stop showing ingratitude to God by treating the women around them as less than the equal partners God created them to be. Although they often faced dire opposition, these voices are a historical testimony that the barrier to women answering the call to serve and follow God wasn’t always accepted without question. These women saw themselves as children of God and pleaded with the world to honor God before they honored philosophies that silenced and restrained God in the name of silencing women.

I personally was amazed to discover that one can look back on almost any period in history and find evidence of voices resisting the totalizing messages of patriarchy. But I also realized that feminism as a movement didn’t fully begin to coalesce in the Western world until the nineteenth century. When we use the term today (really use it, not just as an insult or a stereotype), it actually refers to what historians and other cultural observers have designated as three separate waves (or historical periods) of this movement to advocate for, give voice to, and empower women.

So if you were like me (and just about every other person who grew up in America) you saw the movie Mary Poppins as a kid. Amidst the spoons full of sugar and chim-chimneys you caught a glimpse (albeit a negative one) of one of the main purposes of first wave feminism – getting women the vote. While Disney portrayed Mrs. Banks cluelessly marching for the vote as evidence of how she neglected her children (and then turning her “Votes for Women” sash into a kite tail once she reprioritizes her life), they at least planted in the minds of a generation of kids the reminder that women had to fight for the right to vote. Yep, for most of our country’s history women were not considered intelligent or capable enough to have a say in who made the laws they had to live by.

If you can recall from your 5th grade social studies class, when the Founding Fathers of the fledging American nation declared our independence, they proclaimed that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The unspoken but assumed footnote at the time was that “all men” only referred to white males who were rich enough to own property since they were the only ones allowed to pursue those unalienable rights and have a say in how the country was run. Women, the landless poor, and people of color were generally considered more as property to be owned or, at best, protected. From the horrors and abuses of slavery, to the limits that kept women and free minorities from owning property, opening a bank account, going to college, or voting in an election, those rights were obviously not available to America’s “second class” citizens.

It was from our nations’ churches that the cry of “this isn’t right” first arose. Many Christians who took seriously the command to love others and who believed that in Christ there is “neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28) started speaking out for equal citizenship for all. Many of those early abolitionists were also the early feminist voices – some pushed towards that cause when, as women, they were denied the right to speak out on behalf of abolition. They cared so deeply about freeing those held in physical bondage that they saw the need to help women escape from bondage as well. In 1848, a group of some 300 men and women met in Seneca Falls, NY to demand freedom and rights for women. Their declaration concludes –

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation–in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.

This is where the official feminist movement began – with a small group of people trying to apply the same ideas about human freedom that pushed them to fight for the end of slavery to women. Nothing evil or scary, just a plea for basic dignity, freedom, and respect. These were freedoms which, at the time, were actually becoming more and more elusive as the culture at large bought into Victorian ideas regarding the role and place of women. As the industrial revolution created the new social categories of working in the home vs. working outside the home (previously unknown since, in agrarian cultures, everyone worked at home in the fields) the idea was spread that women (meaning white women) were solely domestic and therefore belonged only in the home. Many women knew they didn’t fit this imposed role and came together to resist this societal impetus to place them in such a cage. In standing up for the freedom of both women and slaves, the emancipated slave Sojourner Truth in 1851 delivered her famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech dismantling the hypocrisy of this cult of domesticity.

I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

You have to admire the audacity of a black woman in that time standing up to patriarchy by calling it out on its inconsistencies. Women like her helped change society. And other women joined the early feminist movement because they believed that if women had a voice then they really could change society. In 1870, Julie Ward Howe called for the celebration of the first Mother’s Day asking women to come together as one and use the combined power of their voices to help end the strain war had on families. Think of that, next year, when you send the sentimental card and flowers or take mom out for brunch (it could at least make for some interesting conversation – “Hey mom, did you know that Mother’s Day started as a feminist anti-war protest?”). Others joined the cause as a way to advance their work for prohibition to ensure that their husbands no longer drank the paycheck away, destroying their families in the process. For these women, working for rights for women, especially the right to vote, was utterly rooted in a desire to help make the world a better place.

By the early 20th century, as women still didn’t have the right to vote, the outcry became more vocal. Huge marches were staged demanding that women be given this most basic right. These women risked beatings and jail time to fight for this cause. They were generally met by the very large, and very well-funded, anti-suffrage movement, which argued that women didn’t really want to vote and weren’t qualified to do it anyway. But finally, in 1920 with the passage of the nineteenth amendment, women in the United States were granted the right to vote and have a say in their own government.

To be continued tomorrow.

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Dangerous Hope in The Hunger Games

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The Hunger Games is a story about hope. What begins as a hope to merely survive turns into hope that a better world is possible.

In the face of starvation, oppressive government, economic inequalities, the people of Panem have very little hope. And the ruling Capitol knows that. As the Capitol reaps children from the districts as tribute for its sick and twisted spectacle of the Hunger Games, it dangles the smallest thread of hope in front of those who have no choice but to go along with the Capitol’s mandates. For even as twenty-four young people are sent into an arena to fight to the death, the Capitol offers the hope of a life of luxury for the victor. All that person has to do is play the Capitol’s game, slaughter the other contestants, and give the watching world a good show and he or she can grasp that better world he always dreamed of.

So I loved this scene with President Snow and Head Gamemaker Seneca Crane that was added to the film version of The Hunger Games –

“Hope… it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective; a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine – as long as it’s contained.”

A little hope can keep people in line. Offer people rewards in heaven someday after they die as long as they are good submissive people now and you keep them subdued. Promise people a secure society as long as we write them a blank check to invade other countries and torture people and you can do whatever you want. Encourage people with, “may the odds be ever in your favor,” and some will actually train for the chance to win the Games.

The Capitol knows how the play the Games. It is a festival in the Capitol and something to be endured in the districts – a perfect balance of entertainment and dread that ensures nothing will ever change. One of the most disturbing images in the film was not of the Games themselves, but of a child in the Capitol opening a gift of a toy sword from his father and then using it to play-act at slaughtering his sister as if he were in the Hunger Games. When death is celebrated to the extent that it is truly child’s play or it is something that must be endured for the chance of survival and freedom – the people are effectively contained.

And we wonder why Jesus made Rome so uneasy that they publicly executed him as a warning to others. He offered people real hope. Not just the hope of a happier future someday in heaven, or the empty hope of violent rebellion – but a completely different way of living where no one went hungry, the oppressed were set free, and the marginalized welcomed. His followers were accused of turning the world upside-down and they sparked riots for how they disrupted unjust economic systems. Instead of encouraging the poor that if they too exploited others they could be rich someday, Jesus called the rich to end their practices that took advantage of others. His wasn’t a hope that ensured the status quo never changed; he offered dangerous hope, a spark that kindled into a movement that truly did turn the world upside-down.

This scene with President Snow in The Hunger Games of course sets up the story for the next two movies. The girl on fire becomes the spark that sets the world aflame – plunging Panem into violent rebellion. It is a hope in a better world that cannot be contained. Yet ultimately, as Katniss discovers, it is not the fires of rage but the hope of love that is most needed. The violence only continues the Capitols’ Games, with the districts play-acting like that child with the sword. But just like the Capitol citizens who were so brilliantly portrayed in the film as brightly colored and made-up facades – devoid of any substance or character at all – the violence too proves to be an empty hope.

Winning the games costs everything you are as Peeta later confesses to the people of Panem. It is not worth gaining the world and losing your soul. There is no hope in that. Where hope is found in The Hunger Games is in the image of the dandelion in the spring – the image of rebirth that sustains life. The dandelion is the symbol that one need not trust the Capitol for one’s daily bread, that self-sacrificial love is better than revenge, and that goodness survives even destruction. This is dangerous hope that declares freedom from being a piece in the Games. This is the sort of hope that got Jesus crucified. This is hope that cannot be contained.

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For more about how The Hunger Games can help us understand Jesus’ message of hope, see my book The Hunger Games and the Gospel: Bread, Circuses, and the Kingdom of God.

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Talking about The Hunger Games and the Gospel

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Things have been a bit crazy around here with the release of my book The Hunger Games and the Gospel. I loved the books (and can’t wait to see the movie), so it’s been a blessing to be able to write about the ways this powerful story can help us better understand our faith. As I wrote in the book –

To explore the intersection of The Hunger Games and the Gospel is to discover echoes of the good news in the pages of these young adult science fiction books. The good news that Jesus taught of the Kingdom of God offered tangible ways for how a world full of injustice and oppression can be transformed into one of hope—which was a message of good news back when Jesus first preached it and still is for us today. And it’s a message that resonates all throughout the imaginative narrative of The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is not the Gospel, or even an allegory of the Gospel story, but it reflects the good news, helping to illuminate the path of Kingdom living for readers today.

I wanted to share here a few of the things I have posted elsewhere about The Hunger Games as well as some of the things others have been saying about it. And for all my readers here – thank you so much for your support!

From my article The Hunger Games: An Allegory of Christian Love – Huffington Post Religion (their title, not mine).

After first reading “The Hunger Games” series, I was surprised to encounter the “Team Peeta” and “Team Gale” rivalry on many of the fansites. Maybe it is because I am not a teenage girl, but I was dismayed to see such a profound story reduced to the trivial level of Twilight’s love triangle. Yes, in this tale of young Katniss Everdeen’s struggle to survive in the dystopian world of Panem, her friends Peeta and Gale are presented as potential love interests. But “The Hunger Games” trilogy is not a mere love story; it is a story about Love.

While it might seem strange to say that a dystopian young adult novel about children killing each other for the entertainment of an indulgent privileged class is about love, as the trilogy unfolds love emerges as the theme holding the narrative together. This is not simply romantic love, but the kind of love that nurtures and sustains life. Those familiar with the teachings of Jesus would recognize it as the sort of love he requests of his followers. Love that sacrifices itself for the sake of others, that sees the hurt and pain in the world and offers healing, and that sees the hungry and feeds them.

From my article Life Under Empire – Sojourners April 2012

THE HOPE IN the face of oppression that Jesus offered is still good news for the world today. Defiant hope may be one reason Katniss’ story resonates with so many readers. We in the United States could be the new Roman Empire or the real Capitol. The districts that labor to meet our needs, often under harsh conditions and for little pay, are the countries of the developing world. Our wealth and power allow us to impose unfair trade laws and build unregulated factories in other countries so that we can live in relative opulence while others toil to provide our food, clothing, and electronics. And as in Panem, anyone who questions our supremacy may face dire consequences.

Praise for The Hunger Games and the Gospel

  • “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Julie Clawson finds everyday justice in the Hunger Games trilogy, but what may surprise and delight is that she reads the story so well and writes so beautifully about the lessons she finds there. Everyone who loves The Hunger Games should read this book.”
    – Greg Garrett, author of Faithful Citizenship, One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter, and The Other Jesus
  • “Are we living in the United States of Panem? The Hunger Games trilogy’s depiction of a wealthy, totalitarian regime that exploits its conquered neighbors is more than fiction. The series brings to life the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day and suggests a searing indictment of contemporary American imperialism. Using a framing structure of the Beatitudes, Julie Clawson powerfully explores Katniss’s suffering as a lens for understanding Jesus’ passion for loving our neighbors and building a better world.”
    – Jana Riess, author of Flunking Sainthood and What Would Buffy Do?
    Jana posted further comments at her blog as well.
  • “What happens when the dystopic world of Panem, ancient biblical faith and contemporary life in a consumerist culture all meet? You get a book like “The Hunger Games and the Gospel.” And it all comes down to living under the oppressive power of empire. Suzanne Collins’ wonderful Hunger Games trilogy cries out for precisely this kind of Christian cultural engagement. Always honoring the integrity of Collins’ work, Julie Clawson plays with the resonances and analogies that can be drawn between the trilogy, the Bible and contemporary life in empire. Working from a breadth of biblical knowledge and taking the virtue ethic of Jesus (usually named the Beatitudes) as her starting point, Clawson offers us a reading rich in wisdom, prophetic insight and hope for living a subversive life in the face of empire. I am very excited about this book–and it is sending me back to the original trilogy for yet another read.”
    – Brian J. Walsh, author of Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination and co-author of Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement 

    Brian also posted about the book at the Empire Remixed blog.

  • “There is no questions that The Hunger Games Triology has touched something deep in the psyche of its millions of readers, stirring up the questions and uncertainties that we all foster about our future. With sharp clarity and stunning insight, Julie Clawson not only helps us understand our visceral response to the series, but does so by interweaving it with Jesus’ Beatitudes. The result points realistic a hope for today and for the future.”
    -Jamie Arpin-Ricci, author The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis & Life in the Kingdom
  • A great review from Marty Alan Michelson
  • Rachel Held Evans writes –
    “I admit I am usually skeptical about books that claim to offer a “Christian perspective” on popular culture. But I trust Julie Clawson. And she does not disappoint. Not unlike the Hunger Games series itself, I read The Hunger Games and the Gospel in one sitting. Clawson does a fantastic job of reminding readers that Collins’ world of occupation, oppression, excess, and poverty is not so far removed from our own, and that it is exactly the kind of world in which Jesus himself lived.”
  • And mentions in the Desert News and the National Review.
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Why International Women’s Day is Important

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When Abby Kelley, a 19th century abolitionist, expressed a desire to address the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society this is how a local minister argued against her right to do so –

No woman will speak or vote where I am moderator. It is enough for a woman to rule at home… she has no business to come into this meeting and by speaking and voting lord it over men. Where woman’s enticing eloquence is heard, men are incapable of right and efficient action. She beguiles and binds men by her smiles and her bland winning voice… I will not sit in a meeting where the sorcery of a woman’s tongue is thrown around my heart. I will not submit to PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT. No woman shall ever lord it over me. I am Major-Domo in my own house. cited here

When I read that quote recently, it at first of course angered me and made me grateful to not be living in those times. Then as I reflected on it, I began to think on the ways a similar message is conveyed today. The words may be different and the attitude less contemptuous and harsh (but not always), but the effect is often the same.

So, it bothers me when a passage like this is read and the first thing a guy does is make a “joke” about women needing to be taught their place. It bothers me when women desire to have a voice in conversations about social justice but are told that in advocating for women’s voices they are drawing attention away from the really important issues. It bothers me when women get accused of slandering the body of Christ for simply sharing quotes like this. It bothers me that women are attacked and dismissed as too divisive for daring to ask men to refrain from or apologize for slandering women.

The irony is that this quote came from an abolitionist minister – one devoted to the work of freeing the captives and proclaiming the way of the Lord. And it is often those in the church today, even those committed to working for justice, making these responses. Such failure of the church to be the church is telling. It means hearts still need to be changed; there is still work to be done. That is why I celebrate and uphold International’s Women’s Day. Even the small reminders that women still need advocates, that women’s voices must be heard, are helpful. There is much work left to do, but whatever can focus our attention on helping instead of ignoring or hurting is a blessing.

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The Hunger Games and the Gospel

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My new book, The Hunger Games and the Gospel, is soon to be released as an ebook through Patheos Press and I’m excited to finally get to share the cover. Pretty awesome.

As most of you know I am a huge sci-fi/fantasy geek and fell in love with the Hunger Games trilogy as soon as I read it. Writing this book not only allowed me to spend time with a story I deeply appreciated, but to connect it to my Christian convictions and passion for justice. Stay tuned for more details, but for now I’ll leave you with a brief overview of the book –

In a globalized world full of uncertainty and injustice, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series has captured the imaginations of readers looking for glimmers of hope. The tale of Katniss Everdeen’s journey of survival in the post-apocalyptic country of Panem, where bread and circuses distract the privileged and allow a totalitarian regime to oppress the masses, parallels situations in our world today. Our culture’s hyper-consumerism and obsession with constant entertainment as well as the worldwide economic and political systems that prey upon the weak and the poor are evidence that the imbalances and injustices described in Panem don’t just exist in speculative fiction. At the same time, the series’ themes of resistance to oppression and hope for a better world, portrayed honestly as messy and difficult endeavors, echo the transformative way of life Jesus offered his followers.

The Hunger Games and the Gospel explores these themes in the Hunger Games that have resonated so deeply with readers by examining their similarity to the good news found in Jesus’ message about living in the ways of God’s Kingdom. Taking the rich statements of the Beatitudes which serve as mini-pictures of God’s dreams realized on earth as in heaven, each chapter reflects on how those pictures are exhibited both in the narrative of the Hunger Games, and in Jesus’ time, and then explores their significance for our own world. Readers are invited to allow the inspiration of the Hunger Games help them live in the ways of the Kingdom of God by discovering how they too can work towards to possibility of a better world.

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