Glocal Christianity

Pair to stand trial over 'prayer session' rapes

ABC News has reported that "Two Sydney men accused of sexually assaulting a woman during 'prayer sessions' have been committed to stand trial ... The woman said they posed as spiritual leaders and she paid them up to $100,000 for prayer sessions because she thought they could cure a curse put on her family."

I am just wondering how to unpack that. Apart from the awfulness of the crime, and the questionability of Third Wave curse teaching (which I am presuming may have something to do with this), in an age of do-it-yourself spirituality what does it mean to be a recognized spiritual leader?

Hermaphrodite Reflections

If you have been reading the news you've probably heard that world athletics is in crisis with tests showing champion runner Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite - a person with both female and male sexual characteristics.

As a Christian blogger I have to ask the question, what is the Christian community to make of this? Personally I think our first response must be compassion. I can't imagine how awful it must be for Semenya, to have this personal tragedy played out in the public sphere.

But beyond that, I wonder what Christian fundamentalists make of it? Whatever the truth of the genetic basis of homosexuality, there is no doubt that hermaphroditism is genetic. On the other hand, I wonder what Christian liberals make of it? No one is suggesting this condition is one to be celebrated. It would seem hermaphrodites challenge many homespun truths.

I wonder, how would Jesus counsel a hermaphrodite who came for help?

Burning Times as Scientific Pogrom?

Religious intollerance is often blamed for "the burning times" ... but could scientific intollerance be just as culpuble?

For my counselling course I was reading an interesting article by Heather Gridley, senior lecturer of Social Sciences and Psychology at Victoria University. In the article, "Psychology, Spirituality, Religion and Culture - Harvesting the Gifts of All Our Ancestors", she made the following remarks in relation to the scientific revolution:

Nature was of course assumed to be feminine and passive, awaiting the gaze and penetration of the male scientist-adventurer. Europe's first universities were now well established, but the Malleus Maleficarum (hammer of the witches), the manual of the Inquisition on the Middle Ages, had ensured that women took no part in the cultural and scientific Renaissance, except as artist' models - any women who dared to 'cure' without having studied (from which they were banned) was declared to be a witch, and so the healing knowledges of midwives and others fell outside "the academy" of the emerging male profession.

I have heard such suggestions before, that professional rivalry was a contributing factor to the witch burnings, but the full implications of that had not hit home before. Without minimizing the responsibility of the Christian community, it would seem the scientific community needs to do some repenting of its own. 

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Is pro-abortion always pro-women?

In the west we often speak of "pro-life" and "pro-choice" as if pro-abortion naturally means pro-women.

But I wonder, what if we invited Chinese women into the conversation?

I get the impression that for many of them "pro-choice" and "pro-life" aren't opposing positions.

Could it be that the western debate is too polarized, too blinkered?

Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?

Mark Gaili of Christianity Today has written a very thought provoking article on gay marriage that I would recommend you all read. While Mark comes out against gay marriage, in the process he says:

We cannot very well argue for the sanctity of marriage as a crucial social institution while we blithely go about divorcing and approving of remarriage at a rate that destabilizes marriage. We cannot say that an institution, like the state, has a perfect right to insist on certain values and behavior from its citizens while we refuse to submit to denominational or local church authority. We cannot tell gay couples that marriage is about something much larger than self-fulfillment when we, like the rest of heterosexual culture, delay marriage until we can experience life, and delay having children until we can enjoy each other for a few years.

In essense, Mark has evangelical individualism firmly in his sights, suggesting we extract the plank out of our own eyes before we get too excited at the speck in the eyes of our neighbours.

Is God mysogenistic?

From a conversation I had earlier: To whom did Christ appear first? Actions speak louder than words. In an age where the testimony of women was not trusted, the God we know through Christ entrusted the good news to women first. It was they who told the men. Is that the mark of a mysogenistic God?

Homoeroticism in the Biblical World

In my researches into the intersections between sexuality and spirituality I recently came across a very interesting and provocative book by Martti Nissinen, entitled, “Homoeroticism in the Biblical World”.

In the opening chapters Nissinen teases out the differences between sexual orientation, gender identification, gender roles and sexual practice, going on to observe how, in the ancient Mediterranean world, homoerotic practices were regarded as role constructions between active and passive partners, in a way that is quite foreign to how we think of “homosexuality.” Nissinen suggests this should shape how we interpret the ancient Torah codes and the writings of the prophets.

For example, in interpreting the destruction of Sodom (Genesis 19:1-11), Nissinen suggests it is very important to understand honour / shame codes:

“In a patriarchal society manly honour largely is equivalent to human value, to offend which is a grave shame. Gang rape of a man has always been an extreme means to disgrace one’s enemies and put them in their place. Its purpose is to disgrace one’s manly honour, to reduce one to a woman’s role…” (Nissinen, 1998, 48)

In interpreting the relationship between David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18-20 and 2 Samuel 1:26), Nissinen distinguishes between homoeroticism (which involves sex acts and active-passive roles) and homosociability (which has more to do with the mutual expression of feelings between men).

“Modern readers probably see homoeroticism in the story of David more easily than did the ancients. In the contemporary Western world, men’s mutual expressions of feelings are more restricted than they were in the biblical world” (Nissinen, 1998, 56)

Examining Greek and Roman culture, Nissinen notes:

“What was common to both Roman and Green homoeroticism was the basic structure required an active and passive partner … in Greece this often meant adult men’s relationships with young boys … in Rome homoerotic relationships normally occurred between a slave and master.” (Nissinen, 1998, 70-71)

In other words, as we read there ancient stories and law codes it is very important for us to understand the power dynamics operating beneath the surface. The ancient Romans and Greeks regarded paedophilia as more socially acceptable than egalitarian homoeroticism precisely because of the power dynamics. 

“Attitudes towards homoeroticism in antiquity were not based on an assumption of two distinct identities and orientations, “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality,” between which one made a moral choice.” (Nissinen, 1998, 79)

“Because masculinity was not a birthright but rather an achieved state of paramount moral significance, there was always a danger of loosing it … homoerotic relationships were a delicate issue, managed by a subtle moral code, the honour of a free born citizen being its primary concern. Thus, ‘what might appear at first sight as tolerance reveals, in fact, the comprehensiveness of the codes adopted by the elites.’” (Nissinen, 1998, 79-80)

“The acceptability of a person’s homoerotic behaviour [in Rome and Greece] depended on one’s social role and status, not on one’s personal identity. (Nissinen, 1998, 129)

So, were the ancient Pagans really more tolerant than the Hebrew prophets? Or were they actually more exploitative, at least as far as men were concerned? I think these are questions worth exploring for Christians and Pagans alike.

But enough of the past, what is the way forward? Nissinen observes,

“The catchword ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ has had only meagre results … love is not about striving for an objective good but about putting oneself at risk for another human being. Stepping in the other person’s shoes, we can see ourselves in that person and love him or her. This means understanding the other person from his or her own point of view, even when the person’s lifestyle or opinions appear strange or wrong.” (Nissinen, 1998, 140)

I feel challenged, from reading this book, to recognize that the homoerotic practices the Bible condemns are at some variance to contemporary homosexual practice, that they're grounded in honour / shame codes that are quite foreign to westerners, that the prophetic protests were more related to male degredation issues than I realised. I also feel challenged to question the much celebrated "tolerance" of the ancient Pagans. Most of all though, I feel challenged to take more risks in terms of how I relate to the gay community today. I think Nissinen is right, love involves risk.

'Generation sex' as norms shift

I thought I may as well get all the taboos out there for discussion this week. In the wake of football sex scandals in Australia, attention has also focussed on the group sex practices of the young and shifting attitudes towards it. Yet dischordant voices are still heard. One young woman confesses, "It felt really good at the time but afterwards I felt cheated and used." So I have a question: in a post-Christendom era, what should the Christian stance be towards non-Christians?

Will a co-redemptix make everything warm and fuzzy?

Pagans over at the Wild Hunt Blog have been celebrating suggestions that the Pope may be moving towards officially recognizing Mary as co-redemptrix. Even if this is true I think their celebrations may be premature if they think this is equivalent to a shift towards feminism. If anything the Papal line against feminism seems to have hardened in recent years. Personally I see this as a way of controlling and domesticating feminist impulses within the Catholic church.

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Mother's Milk

YHWH's word is mother's milk

Little one, drink deeply

Bridal Mysticism Gone Too Far

Earlier this week I spoke of the hazards of drawing on sacred marriage symbolism carelessly, particularly in the conversations between Pagans and Christians.

At one point I stated, "God as husband has great explanatory value in a patriarchal culture, where vertical understandings of marital relationships are taken for granted. God as husband is an utterly confusing metaphor in an egalitarian culture where they are not, where marital relationships are understood more horizontally."

Well, there are other ways in which sacred marriage symbolism can be drawn on carelessly, and cause confusion, and that is in the context of worship. In an article entitled, Jesus is NOT your boyfriend! Bridal Mysticism Gone Too Far, End Times Prophetic draws attention to a disturbing new practice that has emerged in some North American charismatic circles: Pseudo-orgasmic worship, complete with Jesus sex fantasies.

According to Paul Gowdy, Carol Arnott, a leader at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, reports that “she had her bride experience where she was taken into the very presence of Jesus and said that the love that she experienced was even better than sex”.

“A woman whom I see to be very Spirit filled, was talking to us at the dinner table about being taken into the “upper chambers” where Jesus laid her down on a bed of roses (because He is the Rose of Sharon He can do that, she said), and that He made love to her. She described to me this whole scene as if it were out of a romance novel.

I’ve heard reports from Kansas City of men being speaking of being “ravished in their hinder parts” by Jesus. While this may not be the viewpoint of leadership there, it reflects the sordid depravity behind the doctrine, and the logical end of such thinking.

This is what happens when you draw on the sacred marriage metaphor in a hyper-individualistic, hyper-sexed culture without sufficient attention to the scriptural and cultural context in which the metaphor was originally used. It all goes pear shaped. The metaphor, used so immaturely, then obscures rather than enlightens.

Homosexuality as a Peripheral Concern

I have been asked by one of you if I can write about same sex marriage. I am not sure if this counts, but I am going to write about why I avoid writing about same sex marriage. The reason is simply this: I have deep concerns with the way homosexuality has come to dominate public conversations about Christianity.

You see, homosexuality is not a dominant concern for me. Nor do I think it should be. And the best way I can demonstrate this is by not writing about it. Some of you may object, "But the prophets talked about it!" Sure, that's true, but they talked about many things and homosexuality was just one of them. They never used it to define orthodoxy, they never made it so central.

So, I think others have said enough without me much adding to it. I find public conversations about homosexuality and religion often generate more heat than light and I'm reluctant to add fuel to the fire. I am only writing this publically now because I also avoid turning down a direct request.

So, what's my position? No one is good except God alone. I welcome you as God welcomes me. Maybe that's too double-sided for some of you. For me that's just the way the Way is.

The Sacred Marriage in Pagan and Christian Dialogue

Is YHWH unbalanced without a wife?

I recently had a conversation with a number of Pagans and Christians that was very helpful for me in crystalizing my thinking on gender and God and why Pagans and Christians often end up talking past each other on God and gender issues. I now think a significant piece of the puzzle is the way Pagans and Christians draw on sacred marriage motifs in very different ways. About half way through the conversation I summed it up this way:

Try this as a summary. As I see it one of the crucial points of difference between Paganism and Christianity is that Pagans employ the sacred marriage motif "horizontally" whereas Christians employ the sacred marriage motif "vertically".

The Pagan understanding leads Pagans to speak of balance between gods and goddesses (in a way that conflicts with the deepest principles of monotheism). The Christian understanding leads Christians to speak of the coming together of humanity and divinity as a kind of wedding feast (in a way that conflicts with Pagan understandings of justice, divine immanence and the direction of history or lack thereof).

An important challenge we Christians face, I think, is coming to terms with the power relationships suggested by this vertical use of the sacred marriage motif, living, as we do, within a culture that emphases male-female equality, which is a very different situation to that which the writers of the Bible found themselves in. As part of this I think it is important to recognize that, within the terms of this vertical usage, all divinities (including goddesses) are effectively masculine and all people (including men) are effectively feminine. So, we are not talking about literal gender here, only metaphoric gender within the terms of one metaphor. Even the most patriarchal Christians generally recognise that. As the husband-wife metaphor is one of many metaphors that Christians have at their disposal for exploring divine-human relationships I do have to question whether we'd be better off bringing altenative metaphors to the foreground in our context. The parent-child relationship is an obvious alternative from scripture that is not nearly so intrinsically gender based. That is something I would throw up for further discussion.

Later I followed that up with these comments:

The marriage metaphor is just a finger pointing at the moon. What is being pointed to is more important than the metaphor itself, which is why I am suggesting that Christians need to explore alternative metaphors in an egalitarian age like ours where this one doesn't communicate so well, and why Pagans need to allow us the space to do so.

Your confusion here [this is something which was explicitly expressed by the person I was responding to] is a case in point. God as husband has great explanatory value in a patriarchal culture, where vertical understandings of marital relationships are taken for granted. God as husband is an utterly confusing metaphor in an egalitarian culture where they are not, where marital relationships are understood more horizontally. It leads to communication breakdown. It leads to unintended and incorrect messages about how we [Christians] understand God. It leads to conclusions that a monotheistic God needs a Goddess wife and so forth. The finger is no longer pointing at the moon.

Now, the confusion you are experiencing above [there was a question about whether Jesus was the bride and God was the groom] is a consequence of mixing metaphors. Taken separately they work. God as husband, Israel as wife. Christ as bridegroom, Church as bride. Church as temple, Christ as foundation. Christ as vine, Church as branches. Christ as head, Church as body. They all speak of living community and life source.

Where the confusion comes in is where you introduce the metaphor God as father, Christ as son. That speaks of an entirely different relationship, of God eternal relating to God incarnate, of YHWH above us relating to YHWH among us. The metaphors break down instantly when you try and mix them together like that.

Crucial to any attempt to relate these two sets of metaphors - the God-God metaphors and the Creator-Creation metaphors - is the introduction of a third set of metaphors. Being both fully divine and fully human, Jesus embodies the divine marriage within himself. Within the terms of this metaphor Christ is both husband and wife. Forget that for an instant, then forget the whole exercise of trying to integrate it all.

No doubt this will leave some of you with your heads spinning, so I'll return to my earlier suggestion: we need space to allow alternative non-gendered metaphors to come to the foreground when discussing Christian understandings of God. Personally I like "messianic community as temple, messiah as foundation". Temples generally only have one foundation. There is no compelling need to invoke a second "opposite-gender" one. The gender of the messiah is quite incidental within the terms of this metaphor. The messiah could be male or female without it changing the essential relationship. It allows much more space to talk of the God we know through Jesus in gender neutral ways. The other one I like, and which I suspect may work better in conversations with people like yourselves, is Christ as vine, community as branches.

Now, I am not sure how many of you follow that but my basic argument is that the sacred marriage is not the most helpful framework for explaining the Christian understanding of God. It is not intuitive for egalitarians, it is not where they're at, it is not Christianity 101. Understanding it requires a reasonable grasp of biblical context and Trinitarian theology. Being scriptural it's not something Christians should shy away from, but it’s a more advanced teaching that we should treat with more caution. Very interesting in light of the fact that many emergents seem to be blogging on Song of Songs at the moment.

So to return to the original question, is YHWH unbalanced without a wife? My answer is, YHWH is balanced within himself, YHWH's primary relationship is with his people, and if ancient marriage metaphors aren't helpful for seeing that, find another metaphor that is.

Baptists condemn Westboro Baptist

The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Evangelical Alliance and a host of other UK evangelical groups have issued a joint statement denouncing the homophobic theology and actions of Westboro Baptist Church and its infamous pastor, Fred Phelps.

Westboro Baptist Church, notorious for its "God Hates Fags" signs, is planning to picket a performance of The Laramie Project in the UK on Friday. Evangelicals respond:

"We do not share their hatred of lesbian and gay people. We believe that God loves all, irrespective of sexual orientation, and we unreservedly stand against their message of hate toward those communities."

Good to see. The Baptist Union of Australia has previously issued statements along the same lines, and, yesterday had this to say about Westboro Baptist Church and its rogue pastor after it claimed the Australian bushfires were God's judgement:

"Mr. Phelps has a sad history of making bizarre and extreme statements that do not reflect a Christian position. His comments on the Victorian bushfires are biblically and theologically invalid, scandalous, and most regrettable."

For more read:

Christians condemns Westboro Hatred

Westboro Baptist: Fires Prove God Hates Australians

Over the years I have heard many Pagans and Atheists ask, why don't Christians speak out about this sort of stuff. Well, my answer is, they do and they have and will continue to do so.

No one is beyond God's love.

But, regrettably, not everyone can accept God's love.

Gender Differences in Blogging

After trying out the GenderAnalyzer, courtesy of TallSkinnyKiwi, I decided to get a bit more serious and see how it worked, or at least how it was supposed to work.

In the process I came across a number of articles, including What Men and Women Blog About and Of Men, Women, and Computers: DataDriven Gender Modeling for Improved User Interfaces. The conclusion? While some stereotypes are just that, stereotypes, there are gender differences.

One interesting finding was that women tend to use more pronouns than men, and younger men used them more often than older men. Another was that feminine writing focusses more on the days-of-the-week, while masculine writing tends to focus more on months-ofthe-year. Women, it would seem, are more here and now. But the big difference seemed to be women expressed themselves more in terms of particularities, men more in terms of generalities.

This would match my own anecdotal observations of Christian bloggers, that men tend to focus much more on theology and politics, women much more on personal stories and struggles. I suspect that's why men tend to dominate discussion on missional ecclesiology, its not that there's active discrimination against female voices, its that there simply aren't as many women interested enough in the subject to blog so extensively about it.