Anger: My Inspiration, Or: Why the Tim Keller article in CT finally made me start my blog.

I have long meant to revive the habit of blogging that I began in China. However, I have long been too lazy busy to do so. However, three things have finally provided the necessary momentum: 1. I just read a number of articles which upset me deeply. This caused me to post one on facebook, and proceed to write one paragraph describing it, followed by 2 paragraphs commenting on my own article. It occured to me that this is not the appropriate use of the “status update” box (similarly, Twitter only allows one 140 characters–try figuring out how to condense 3 paragraphs into 140 characters).  2. This week I have been bored out of my mind. Mostly, I have used my break from school to sleep til noon, and then lie around all day. Thus, at night I have trouble falling asleep, and I stay up thinking about all the thoughts I want to share with the world. I figure this combination (boredom + racing thoughts) could produce a blog! 3. I have been working on setting up a website for George–my husband, who is an artist–and this has gotten me back into the swing of updating something regularly.

So, now, here is what I was so worked up about on facebook: I woke up early this morning (9:45 AM!!), and glanced through bleary eyes at my Twitter feed, wherein I saw that Christianity Today had done a cover story on Tim Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church, with this tantalizing sub-title: The pastor of Redeemer Church is becoming an international figure because he’s a local one. It seemed like local-movement-meets-my-favorite-preacher, or grass-roots-community-organizing-meets-fabulous-church, which are all things dear to my heart. For those of you not familiar with Keller, check out the Newsweek article, or the CT article above for a more thorough/evangelical angle. Anyway, I love to listen to TK’s sermons, have grown immensely from them, and he–along with Jurgen Liias at Christ Church, Hamilton and Paul Smith of my first church, WSPC–has been one of the preachers with the greatest impact on my life. What I love about the Redeemer model is that it is deeply invested in cities. As someone who has always felt a strong draw toward the vibrant, multi-cultural, intellectually-diverse, socio-economically-diverse, artistically-rich life of the city (any city), I am excited by churches, pastors, and leaders that believe that Christians and their churches have a central role in urban life: to influence, to minister, to learn, to share, to offer hope, to engage in works of compassion, to challenge, etc. In addition, since being at Regent, and especially since sitting under professor Rikk Watts (cf Rodney Stark’s work on the early church and cities), it has become clear to me that cities were integral to the growth of the early church, and the same should be true of the Church today, if we want to have anything to offer the world.

Also, in terms of content, Tim Keller and those like him have insisted that churches do not have to be “relevant” or “cool” to attract young people. In fact, it is quite the opposite: many in their 20s and 30s have had enough of being treated as consumers in every area of life. We want substance, truth, beauty, wisdom, and depth. For me, this means I want intellectually challenging, in depth preaching; I want to sing hymns, and I want a connection with the traditions of the church. So far, I have seen 2 great models of this: 1. Christ Church, Hamilton (now self-destructing in a tragic split, and located in the suburbs, so not a fit with my call to the city) and 2. Redeemer Presbyterian (although there are a couple big problems here, which I am coming to, shortly). While I also have deep affection for West Side Presbyterian Church, Seattle, I am specifically getting at churches that draw large amounts of young people, as well as those with an emphasis on influencing and cultivating arts and culture.

Anyway, here is the problem/the thing that made me actually tear up today: Redeemer Presbyterian is part of the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) which, despite being–in my view–where the most interesting work is being done in urban church planting and engagement with arts and culture, is absolutely clear in its commitment to “complementarianism”, which, for the fortunately-uninitiated is the Christian philosophy asserting that men and women are equal in worth, but have “complementary” roles, which sounds nice, until you learn that the complementary roles are “leader”/”head” (men) versus the submissive partner (women/wives). While these terms are often cushioned with additional descriptives, such as “servant-leader” or “gracious, joyful submission”, this is just window dressing.

In the article, there was a strong emphasis on “influencing the influential”, as below:

Keller recalls a “Wall Street guy” who found Christ at the DeMoss House. “I said, ‘What in the world led you to come here and go to the Bible study?’ He said, ‘I lacked a spiritual center. But it wasn’t until I came to New York and came under the pressure of New York that I realized it. New York is so big and scary and difficult. And I realized that I really didn’t know what I was living for.’

“Suppose,” Keller says, “you are the best violist in Tupelo, Mississippi. You go to Manhattan, and when you get out of the subway, you hear a beggar playing, and he’s better than you are.” New York attracts the best and the most ambitious. The sheer density of competition, along with the diversity of points of view, makes for a “culture-forming engine,” says Keller. It also exposes the weaknesses of those caught in it.

However, I kept thinking to myself, “what would be the experience of a high achieving, influential woman–an artist, a lawyer, a professor, a musician, a Wall Street banker with an MBA–who was drawn in by the substance, hope, freedom, and purpose of the Gospel, started attending church, and then found out that she experienced a degredation in status when she walked through the door?” No, no one would say that she was worth less, but she could only do certain things, and could not do other things, like serve on the Session, the board of elders responsible for governing the church in the Presbyterian tradition. She could make decisions, hypothetically, influencing world events (cf Mohler et al who supported Palin as vice-pres but ostensibly not as pastor), but not influencing her place of worship. Redeemer does this (along with Tenth, in Philly) in a kinder, gentler way, by at least “commissioning” (note: not ordaining) female deacons, but if this imaginary woman moseyed on over to the denominational magazine’s website, ByFaith, she would find that this was hotly debated, and that Keller has to reassure everyone that these deacons are commissioned rather than ordained. That he has to use deeply conservative language to reassure everyone that he continues to toe the line. I do not mean theologically orthodox, biblical language, which you would expect, and which Redeemer promotes itself as being, but language familiar to the complementarian world, which is rooted in an anti-feminist movement that urges women to be stay-at-home moms and derive primary worth from life in the home, and service to husband and family–a movement which Redeemer does not outwardly promote itself as associating with. This is not hyperbole, as you will note if you check out the movement’s website, which is notably made up of many in the PCA: The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. It pains me to even post this, because it will drive every non-Christian I know away from the gospel, but it deeply upsets me that the same denomination responsible for wonderful churches like Redeemer, which are selling the message of engagement with culture, cities, and non-Christians, is also responsible for the message and many of the members of this organization. Redeemer and places like it may be “soft patriarchy”, but “soft” patriarchy is still patriarchy.

Why is this so important to me, and why does it upset me so much? There are so many reasons, both obvious (sexism) and less obvious (implications and connotations regarding my denominational future), but here is the one I want to touch on quickly, in this post: the whole thing is very personal. I became a Christian when I was 12 years old, through the sovereignty and leading of God, but not through my family or community, who were predominately agnostic (at most), thoughtful, high achieving political liberals. I was raised with wonderful values–social justice, education, nurture of one’s intellect, athleticism, etc.–but grew increasingly unsatisfied with a purely humanistic basis for these values, and began exploring a possible spiritual foundation for them. I came to faith in Jesus, put my trust in Him, and have rarely looked back. He changed my life, and I thank God every day that He met me, even at such a young age, and has remained with me through what has been an intensely challenging young life. One of the things that meant so much to me, then and now, was the fact that God made me who I am, but also that, through Christ’s victory over sin on the cross, I am empowered to be my true self, set free from sin and death (“It is for freedom that Christ set you free”). Over the years, I became cognizant of the fact that, actually, as a woman, I was not AS free to be myself. As a woman, I was supposed to be a certain way (gentle, submissive, domestic, etc) that I quite clearly was not. In fact, I was good at speaking in public, good at socializing, good at learning (though not always at studying), and good at processing and conveying information. I felt, in many ways, called to be in pastoral ministry. Obviously, this has not been clear cut for many personal reasons, that many readers are probably aware of, but I also felt that, in certain ways, I had particular gifts that I wanted to use in the service of God. What I am trying to say is–it felt like a personal betrayal to find that this group I had joined–Christians–in order to worship, serve and grow in Christ, who had set me free, actually was made up of many who wanted to limit me, to put me in a box, and to tell me to be someone who I was not; wanted to tell me that I should take my gifts elsewhere, to check them at the door on Sundays (perhaps in the narthex?). Over the years, I have been blessed with so many people who have supported me, encouraged me, and exposed me to orthodox, sound egalitarian teaching on gender–for which I am deeply thankful–but sometimes, I remember how it felt to find out that this faith that I embraced apart from my family was so bitterly divided over my role, worth, and equality as a human being, how it felt like being punched in the stomach. How it felt when the college boyfriend I was so devoted to loaned my a Bible to take to a Wisdom Lit class at Gordon, and I saw the notes in the margin “hierarchy in creation,” or when a wonderful friend and mentor said, “don’t you think you could use those same gifts as a college professor?” (again–kinder, gentler sexism, but still sexism)

I remember these things, and I feel so sad for the hypothetical–but no doubt with real-life incarnations–lawyer, doctor, professor, or college student who walks through the doors of Redeemer, who falls in love with Jesus and the gospel message, with beautiful hymns, with the Word of God, with the message of cultural transformation and love for city preached with great intelligence from the pulpit, but who will one day open her new denomination’s magazine, and find a debate about whether she can serve as a deacon, or whether she should be working outside the home at all. Worse, I feel sad for the 12-year-old girl who is looking for answers at Redeemer or great places like it, but who may one day feel betrayed, all because she once thought that she could be a preacher.

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