Is it Wrong for a Wife to "Let Herself Go" After Marriage? – Christ, Freedom, and the Law of Beauty

May 31, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

Recently a well known Christian blogger, Rachel Held Evans, offered some thoughts on concepts of biblical womanhood and beauty, responding in part to comments from Mark Driscoll and to books by Martha Peace and Dorothy Patterson.  Evans alleges that there is a fairly common de facto teaching in Christian circles that “is as clear as it is ominous: Stay beautiful or your husband might leave you.  And if he does, it’s partially your fault” (the bold type is hers).  This message inspired Rachel “to devote the entire month of February to studying everything the Bible says about women and beauty.”  (Wow!)  At the end of her study, she concludes: “I’ve found nothing in the Bible to suggest that God requires women to be beautiful.”  Instead, the Bible affirms what women everywhere know and experience: That bodies change (1) as they get older, (2) when they bear children, (3) when they get sick, and (4) as they experience joy, pain, life, death (certainly that!), victory, heartache and time.

Evangelical megablogger Tim Challies, not without trepidation, responded.  He agrees with the contention that the Bible does not require physical beauty of women.  ”The beauty the Bible commends is a beauty of character more than a beauty of appearance.”  That said, however, the outer beauty of a wife reflects inner beauty to a certain limited extent, insofar as it expresses her desire to care for the “Temple” God has given her (her body) and her desire to respect and please her husband by keeping herself appealing.  While what is considered “outer beauty” is culturally relative, and Challies makes clear that he is not speaking of a Hollywood-starlet conception of beauty, what is not culturally relative is that spouses (and Challies makes the same charge for men) ought (within reason) to do those things they know bring happiness and contentment to one another.

The conversation has continued.  Evans appreciates the “caution” with which Challies approached the issue, but is “disappointed to see him return to the familiar refrain that ‘outer beauty reflects inner beauty’ and that a good wife will keep up appearances for her husband.”  It would take too long to recap the rest, so let me get straight to my suggestions.  To some extent, this seems to be a classic case of two people arguing the opposite sides of the same coin — From “Yes X, but Y” to “Yes Y, but X,” where each is actually granting the other side but emphasizing their own side.  First, some points regarding Rachel Held Evans’ argument:

1.  Evans is coming at these questions from the standpoint of an observant woman who has seen far too often how devastating and oppressive societal standards of female beauty can be.  She is absolutely right that American culture (and, frankly, most cultures) establishes an impossible-to-achieve standard, legislates that standard across the board for all women of all kinds, and then ruthlessly mocks and demeans those who fail to meet the standard.  Let’s call this The Law of Beauty: you must be tall, large-breasted, slim-waisted, luminous-skinned, and utterly free of fat, wrinkles or gray hairs, or else you are not beautiful and therefore not attractive, not worthy, not valuable.  The Christian Church needs to make a special effort to distance itself, radically distance itself, from this conception of beauty and from burdening its daughters with it.

2.  No wife should be made to feel that unless she maintains a certain standard of beauty — especially when the only definition of ‘beauty’ countless women know is Vogue/Cosmo definition — then she will displease God and either lose her husband or cause his infidelity.  When men warn ominously that they might be inclined to stray if their wives don’t work a little harder to satisfy the Law of Beauty, they ought to be ashamed of themselves.  Is it true that men are, to some extent, influenced in their thoughts and behaviors by the extent to which their wives maintain a pleasant appearance?  Let’s be honest: of course it’s true.  But it is only a minor influence in a major sin, where men retain complete agency and complete responsibility for their actions.  The smell of cake might tempt me to eat more than I ought, but only a child would blame the smell or even blame the cook.  Precipitating factors are not causal determinants, and men need to take full responsibility when they stray.  ”You let yourself go” is never a legitimate excuse, or even a partial excuse, for infidelity.

3.  I also agree with Evans that there is no biblical injunction for women to be beautiful or retain certain standards of beauty.  Actually, this has nothing to do with beauty and it has nothing to do with womanhood, either.  It has to do with the consideration that two loving spouses ought to show each other.  Anything that pertains to women here also pertains to men.  Thus, framing this as a matter of “biblical womanhood” is, in my view, misleading.  It’s not a matter of biblical womanhood so much as the love for which all humans are created.  To the extent that men have used the language of “biblical womanhood” to enforce culturally-relative standards of beauty, and to force women to be more pleasing to them, they have sinned.

I actually don’t think that Tim Challies (though I could be wrong) would disagree with any of the above.  Here are some points in regard to Challies’ argument.

1.  I believe that Tim Challies is coming to the conversation from the perspective of a man who has seen the following story time and again.  Be forewarned: this is not pretty, and not prescriptive.  I am not saying this is right; I am saying that it happens.  Evans writes, “I have never in my life met a woman who did not want to be beautiful for her husband.”  To which I say: yes and no.  As a general rule, wives would prefer to be beautiful for their husbands.  But wanting to do something, and taking the effort or being willing to take the effort to make sure it happens, are two different things.  In any case, I have seen this happen — right or not — many times, and often hear it discussed by Christian men:

It may take two years, or ten years, or twenty, and it may take two children or four or none, but eventually the wife (in this story) no longer cares to look good for her husband.  As soon as she comes home, she puts on the old pajama pants and shapeless sweat shirt.  She may dress up for outings with their friends, but if it’s only a date for the two of them then she wears jeans and a t-shirt and no makeup.  In fact, over time, she might leave her legs and armpits unshaven, at least for long periods of time, stop bothering to make her hair, and so forth.  (None of which is sinful in itself, of course, but stay with me.)

How does this make the husband feel?  Neglected.  Disrespected, if she does not make herself presentable in front of others.  But most of all, he feels taken for granted.  The wife knows that he cannot morally satisfy his God-given sexual desires anywhere else but in their marriage, knows that hers is the only beauty he can enjoy in the most intimate way.  But she (in this case) no longer seeks to satisfy him.  He always understood that her physical beauty would change and fade; what irks him is not that her beauty is fading but that she is still beautiful but is doing nothing to show that beauty, nothing to give that beauty to him as a gift.  He may even wonder if just a little less security, a little less assurance that he will not stray, would cause her to try to please him again.  Or he starts to think that he can justify his flirtations with others, or even his adultery, by pointing to how little effort she seems to be putting into the physical/sexual/romantic (they’re all one and the same for the fellas) part of their relationship.  Ultimately, the husband feels physically rejected, sexually frustrated, and taken for granted.  Again, I’m not saying this is right.  I’m saying it happens.

2.  However, the point Tim Challies makes, but could have emphasized more, is that this holds true for both of the sexes.  How many men keep themselves trim when they’re trying to woo a woman, and then let themselves grow a big belly once their wives are under contract?  How many men eventually show no concern whatsoever for their physical appearances, and very little concern for basic hygiene and presentation, because they figure they don’t have to anymore?  Their wives are stuck with them, right?

It’s very important to emphasize that the basic moral imperative here has nothing to do with gender.  If it’s emphasized only or primarily from men to women, then it starts implicitly to give pseudo-biblical and -ecclesial sanction to the Law of Beauty.  This should not be a matter of what wives do for husbands.  It’s a matter of what people who love each other do for one another.  It’s a matter of spouses understanding what brings joy and passion and fulfillment to one another, and giving that to one another as a gift.

There’s no biblical injunction to be beautiful — and baptizing The Law of Beauty is indeed sinful and oppressive.  It fills the hearts of women with shame and resentment and insecurity.  But there is a biblical injunction for spouses to give themselves to one another.

3.  Finally, while Evans objects to the inner-outer beauty meme, I think Challies’ point is merely that the inner beauty of a woman, her wisdom and generosity and love, will tend to express itself in caring to please her husband, in the same way that what is beautiful within the soul of a husband should express itself in caring to please his wife.

Challies points to 1 Corinthians 6, which refers to our bodies as temples, and Evans objects that this “says nothing about women maintaining a certain level of beauty.”  But that’s precisely the point.  Challies is not really talking about maintaining a certain level of beauty.  He’s talking about taking care of your body.  Tending to it for the glory of God.  But what Challies might have pointed to (and Evans seems to think he was pointing to) is 1 Corinthians 7, where couples are encouraged not to deny each other intimacy because each belongs to the other.  As Paul writes in 1 Cor 7:4, “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband.  In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.”  Your body is a gift of God to your spouse, and if it pleases the spouse then perhaps you can, out of love, out of gratitude, out of a desire to fulfill your partner, offer that gift in a way that pleases him or pleases her.  This is what Challies means by “availability” (although I’m not a fan of the word here).

You might respond: 1 Corinthians 7 is about sex, not about dress or appearance.  Again: Yes and No.  It is about giving oneself fully to another, and it applies to sex as well as other parts of the relationship.  Rightly understood, taking care of your body may well be a part of “yielding” your body to your spouse out of love.

Men need to be careful that they do not manipulate the scripture in order to guilt their wives into different behaviors.  Men need to be very careful that they do not blame women and the natural aging process for their own declining libido and for the loss of a sex life that they had imagined for themselves.  Men cannot force their wives to want to please them sexually.  Ideally, each member of the relationship will be fully giving the self to the other in a way (within biblical bounds, of course) that pleases and fulfills the other.  If one member of the relationship feels that the other is not sufficiently giving, then that one member should give more, and by love bring love out of the other.  The beauty, the power, even the sacral significance of sex and marriage itself is found in this self-yielding, and apart from it sex and marriage lose their spiritually creative power.  The best that men can do, I believe, is model the sacrificial love that Christ showed for the church.

And here is where we circle back to Evans’ point, and the desperate need for a radical Christian critique of the modern western concept of beauty.  Christ, I have to believe, would want his bride to be free of a Law of Beauty that places a yoke of shame of disappointment upon his Bride’s shoulders.  If there is anywhere where a woman should feel free from the oppressive Law of Beauty, it’s in the sanctum of marriage.  If there’s anywhere where a woman should feel utterly secure and utterly loved regardless of her appearance, it’s in marriage.  Women need that haven from worldly pressures.

So men should be careful that, no matter what they are saying, women might be hearing them differently.  The word “beauty” has been twisted beyond recognition in our culture.  It may not be helpful here.  The men might only be saying that they would appreciate it if their wife still showed that they still cared to please their husbands’ senses.  Yet women might be hearing that they must fight the aging process, that they must lose weight, that they must look like her, or that they are no longer desirable.  Christ would not want that for his Bride.

Christ died for his Bride and gave her freedom.  If the Bride seeks to please him, it’s only because he gave himself for her fully even while she was rejecting him.  Christ loved forth the love of his bride.  In that way he is our savior, and in that way he is our example.

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Everyday Transcendence: The 99 Balloons of Eliot Hartman Mooney

May 30, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

Art, profundity, transcendence, these things come in many forms.  The entries so far in my “Everyday Transcendence” series have all focused on music.  Today I want to focus on the beauty of a life well-lived in the midst of suffering.

To bring a child into the world is to take an enormous risk.  I’ve written elsewhere that we have children because love overflows.  We’re created in the image of a God who is Love, a God whose love overflowed with creativity and compelled him to make creatures in his likeness.  So we do the same, and yet we run the same risks: that our children will reject us, that they will destroy themselves, that they will suffer illness or injury or even be taken from us in this life.  We run the risk that they will not even enter into life in full health, and that their brief days among us will pass swiftly and leave us with sweet memories but an aching sense of loss too painful for words.

The video that follows tells one such story.  You may have seen it before.  The Hartman’s learned when their son was still in the womb that he suffered from Trisomy 18.  A child receives a copy of 23 chromosomes from each parent.  Trisomy 21 — also known as Down’s Syndrome — occurs when a child receives three #21 chromosomes instead of the usual two.  In Trisomy 18, also known as Edward’s Syndrome, the child, with three #18 chromosomes, suffers from heart defects and the malformation of various internal organs.  Every cell in the body has this chromosomal abnormality.  It’s typically fatal before or shortly after birth.

Watch the video — try to get through it — and then see, below, the comments the father wrote shortly after the story was over.

I’ve enjoyed reading the journal the father kept throughout the experience, and after.  He speaks honestly about the struggles they endured.  This comes from the last entry posted before Eliot’s death:

We have heard repeatedly how strong we are, and we can only grin sheepishly and cut eyes at each other. We know we are not strong. We each know the tears and hurt of the other.

I fully expected at the outset of all of this to be mad at God…to have it out with Him. I’ve read enough of the Bible to know that He frustrates His followers and allows them to air their anger. But I am not mad. I am weary. Too dizzy to fight. I’m the boxer that does not know which corner is his own. I doubt. I struggle. I waiver. And that’s the truth…I am thankful to follow a God who does not discard the traitors.

In his words at his son’s funeral, the father says, “Through Eliot we experienced the paradox of joy and pain ablaze side by side.”  Then the couple took a vacation with friends, and he speaks of the joy, but…

With that said, one thing has become abundantly clear. We hurt. Whether in New York or home, busy or bored, together or alone. We miss him. There is a painful emptiness for which there is no cure. Our future hope has not dulled today’s pain.

…For believers, we do not want to push others away by admitting our horrible thoughts and pain. However, anything else is hypocrisy. It is our belief that our God will be glorified through a truthful accounting of our experience. It will be ugly, and revealing as to our weakness. And this is precisely why we need Him.

I have feared this post. Fearful that I have nothing to say. I struggle to have a complete thought, for they are always being cut short with doubt. As I have fought with how I feel, I will tell of what I know. Throughout this time, I can say with full confidence that God has been present. He has not come with thunder & lightning as I had hoped for. He was not the healer that I had prayed for. However, He was ever lingering, always surprising. Making an appearance in the most unlikely manner at an improbable time. Then again, I guess that was the theme with Eliot.

The couple brainstormed ways to tell Eliot’s story, and even started a nonprofit called 99 Balloons.  My favorite of the father’s reflections come from November 29th, just over one month after his son passed away:

Recently my thoughts have turned to hope. Hope is that which empowers us to make it through a day. To get out of bed, to look past the behemoth that is the now. The question that has been pressed upon me as of late is this: for what do I hope?

I had hoped that Eliot would still be here. That God would do a miracle. That he would be the kid that filled the pages of medical journals. I hoped that we would be a family for longer. I hoped that he was present at my funeral — just as it should be with a father and son.

I make no apologies for those hopes. Naïve as they are, I know a God who could have fulfilled these hopes with a single touch. But, today, we linger in a world that was absent that touch. So what is the subject of my hope now?

I hope that God is who He says He is. I hope beyond hope that His word is true.

Actually, this was my hope all along. God has not failed. I believe that one day I will be released from this body, and be at His feet. The questions will be answered and I will wonder no longer. Ginny & I believe that while we’re still here on earth, that something is waiting to be done.

My hopes cannot thwart God’s plans. And I am learning that this is a good thing. May His will be done. For therein lies my hope.

The couple keeps a new blog (and the wife blogs here).  In the years since Eliot’s passing, they have had two healthy children, they have begun the process of adopting a child from the Ukraine, and the father works for 99 Balloons to serve the interests of children with special needs.

I’ll close by citing the father’s reflection on December 13, 2006, less than two months after Eliot died. He reflects on the peculiar story of Jacob wrestling with God in order to receive a blessing.  He receives the blessing, but God touches his hip and disables him in such a way that he’s left with a permanent limp.

Here’s what I do see. Jacob got his blessing. He wanted it, asked for it, fought for it, and received it. But that is not all that he got.

Jacob left this encounter with a limp. Not a sermon often preached. However, Jacob’s story of blessing could not be told without the follow-up that he was never able to walk right again. That’s the funny thing about God, the blessing doesn’t always come as we expected and although we receive the blessing, we’re left to limp along.

Eliot was a blessing. We’ll never be all right without him. But he was well worth the limp.

Filed Under: Everyday Transcendence, faith, Inspiration, Parenting, Suffering Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Finding Spiritual Life in a Technological World

May 28, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

I cannot tell you how many times I have stood in awe before mountains and canyons, forests and cliffs, rivers and seas, marveling at the sublime majesty of God’s creation and the incomprehensible power and intelligence that must have been required to conceive such wonders and bring them into being. Yosemite National Park, the northern California cliffs, the towering redwood groves — all led my soul to magnify the Lord.  I remember laying in my sleeping bag atop Half Dome and watching as a meteor shower filled the sky with brilliant streaking lights and filled by soul with the presence of God.

But I can tell you how many times I have stood in front of a room full of computers and marveled at God. The number is not hard to remember — because it is zero.

It is not that I have never seen technological wonders. I remember well when I first saw a massive laser array at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I recall gawking at SR-71 jets, at supercomputers, at aircraft carriers, and at rockets and lunar landers. I remember seeing them — I just don’t remember being inspired by them, in the same way I am so often inspired by the works of nature, to marvel at God.

Why is that so? If it is extraordinary that God could make rivers, is it not even more extraordinary that God should make humans with the ingenuity to cross those rivers by designing and building bridges? If we should give thanks to God for the beauty of the ocean, should we not give thanks to God for the beauty — and utility — of the microchip? Is it not ingenious that God should make human eyes that can observe the regularities of nature, human brains that can penetrate those regularities to the laws beneath them, human imaginations that can devise new ways of making use of those laws, and human hands that can go about building and distributing new forms of technology? Technology has made shelters and irrigated fields, has crosses rivers and tunneled through the earth, has eliminated diseases and provided the means to overcome disabilities and handicaps, has given us undreamt-of powers of communication and organization.

Yet when I am driving in my car down the freeway, speaking (yes) on my cell phone with my sister across the country, who is using her computer to look up the map of the store where I am about to buy a new computer — why am I not praising God for all these things? To be sure, a bridge is not as beautiful as an oak tree, but the fact that we can build a bridge is beautiful and awe-inspiring. Perhaps the bridge or the computer does not point us toward God because we tend to take the glory for ourselves. Yet even though we made the bridge and the computer, we did so with powers that were given us by God. Or perhaps the bridge and the computer do not usher us into worship because we think they are “scientific” and God has no place in the scientific realm. Yet this would be a surprise to many of history’s greatest scientists, who sought to understand the physical world precisely in order to understand God’s glorious design. Science is only possible because we are creatures with powers of perception and intelligence, and we live in a world of God-given regularities and order.

One of the aspects of the monastic life I most appreciate is the way in which one is surrounded constantly by ‘pointers’ toward God. This is a deliberate, designed part of the monastic life. Wherever you turn, you are reminded–whether by a cross, by an icon, or simply by the spire of the church–to direct your thoughts heavenward and remember God. The pealing of the church bells, chanting the hours, everyday disciplines–everything became an occasion to remember God.

Habitual Reminders and the Monastic Life

It can be difficult, without such “habitual reminders,” to remember God in the midst of our daily lives.  There was a time in my life when I sought to create my own habitual reminders, from putting up crosses and icons, or significant words in places I would often see them, and I even sought to make it so that I would remember God whenever I tied my shoes.  The specifics may seem flippant, but the idea is serious: prayer is a discipline of attention, and the attention wanders.  Especially, of course, in contemporary society, where “attention spans” are famously short, it can be difficult to harness our attention and direct it consistently toward God.

Do you see the problem? The natural world is filled with “pointers” toward God, yet few of us work amidst the wonders of the natural world. More of us work amidst the wonders of technology, yet since we cannot see these things as pointers to God. Thus we are effectively cut off from God in our places of work. If we could sit in front of a computer and marvel at the work of God in fashioning a creation and creature for which such a computer is possible — then we would find ourselves surrounded by pointers to God.

And those who work in industry and technology, in chemistry and engineering, should know not only that they engage in the holy work of redeeming creation and making it fruitful but that the works of their hands give evidence of the creative power of God.

Yes, it is extraordinary that God should build a mountain. But it is more extraordinary still that God should make people who can move mountains.

[Note: this is drawn from two previously written pieces, here and here.]

Filed Under: Inspiration, Monastic wisdom, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Are Mormons Too Kooky for President? No.

May 28, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

A piece from our symposium on faith and the future of social conservatism — Warren Cole Smith’s explanation of why he does not believe that he, as an evangelical, can support Mitt — has upset some Mormon readers of Patheos.  And some non-Mormons too, for that matter.  My hope is always, even when people are offended, to continue the conversation and come to a better understanding of one another.  When it came to my attention that a response piece was posted at Evangelicals for Mitt, I asked for permission to repost it at Patheos and continue the conversation.  That permission was granted (by the author, I mean), but since it’s a long weekend and I wouldn’t be able to post it as an article until Tuesday or Wednesday, I thought I’d post it here at Philosophical Fragments.

So the following is from Charles Mitchell, “Are You Too Kooky to be Prez?” and I can’t help but include the tongue-in-cheek picture that he himself included (the caption for which is, “Mitt Romney is [too kooky to be President], according to Warren Cole Smith. And you know what? So am I.”):

I’m not kidding.  Check out Mr. Smith’s piece at Patheos, where David [French] also hangs out.   He writes the following:

For evangelical Christians, Romney has some additional explaining to do. On such essential doctrines as the Trinity and the role of Jesus in salvation, there are major differences between orthodox (biblical) Christianity and Mormonism. But the real problem is that Mormons believe and teach an American history that is in many particulars completely unsubstantiated and in others demonstrably false. Mormons believe that the “lost tribes” of Israel actually ended up in America, and that Jesus visited America and these tribes during his incarnation. These are just a few of Mormonism’s highly idiosyncratic views of history.

Does Mitt Romney believe these views? Why or why not? Does he believe historical facts are matters of personal opinion? More to the point, does he really believe that, if he were to become the GOP nominee, he would not have to answer these questions before the world? Romney will face a Hobson’s choice. He will either affirm certain beliefs about reality and American history that most Americans will find false or flimsy, or else he will reject them be thereby “outed” as a hypocrite or traitor to his own belief system.

Notwithstanding the fact that I don’t agree with the various oddities of LDS teaching, this is a profoundly dangerous argument.  Why?  Because there are countless things I hold dear that sound just as weird (if not offensive) to an outsider to my faith as what Mormons believe about Missouri.  Just to give you a partial list, I believe God actually created the world as described in Genesis, I believe a virgin in the Middle East actually bore God’s son as described in the gospels, I believe there actually was a flood that destroyed everything that wasn’t on an ark that a guy named Noah actually built, I believe a man named Lazarus actually died and was raised and that the same thing happened to the one who raised him, I like Jonathan “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” Edwards a whole lot, and I believe in unadulterated Calvinist predestination.  I’d be willing to bet Mr. Smith also holds to many, if not all, of those views.  I’d also be willing to vote for someone (for instance, Gov. Bobby Jindal) whose religion teaches that you can turn bread into flesh and that after you do so, you’re supposed to eat it, as well as someone (let’s call her Parah Salin) who belongs to a brand of religion that’s big on letting your tongue make noises that sound to others like a seizure but count in your mind as true worship.

So…is Mr. Smith’s argument profoundly dangerous because it would keep me from being elected president?  No.  If anything, we should have more arguments that keep me far away from the big, red nuclear button.  My point is that if you grant his premise with regard to Mormonism (it’s just so kooky that anyone who believes it has to explain it, and by the way it’s so kooky that you can’t) you will disqualify a lot of others, including probably yourself, from the presidency in the process.

Toward the end of his piece, Mr. Smith makes a related argument that I want to address, too:

I believe a candidate who either by intent or effect promotes a false and dangerous religion is unfit to serve. Mitt Romney has said it is not his intent to promote Mormonism. Yet there can be little doubt that the effect of his candidacy—whether or not this is his intent—will be to promote Mormonism. A Romney presidency would have the effect of actively promoting a false religion in the world. If you have any regard for the Gospel of Christ, you should care. A false religion should not prosper with the support of Christians. The salvation of souls is at stake….

The Mormon Church of today is, by the lights of biblical evangelical Christianity, a false religion. If Mitt Romney believes what the Mormon Church teaches about the world and how it operates, then he is unfit to serve.

There he really boils it down:  Anyone who believes a false religion is “unfit to serve.”

Here’s the problem.  If you can actually enforce this, at least if you’re as radical a right-wing reactionary nut as I am, you’re going to disqualify a whole lot more people than Mormons.  And furthermore, I defy you to enforce it, because you can’t tell on TV what someone’s deeply held theological beliefs are.

What I mean by this is simple:  Finding false religion isn’t just as simple as rooting out Mormons, Muslims, and Hindus.  The Bible I read indicates there’s a lot more false religion out there than that, much of it within what calls itself the Christian church.  The number-one manifestation of this I see is the gospel of works–the idea that you can earn your way into heaven by doing the right thing.  The God of the Bible rejects the sacrifices and despises the religious feasts of those whose hearts are far from him.  Yet most mainline Protestant churches teach this false gospel of works.  Are we, then, to refuse to vote for Episcopalians?

My guess is someone like Mr. Smith would respond that no, not all members of wandering denominations believe a false gospel.  That’s absolutely right.  But here’s the rub:  You can’t tell that much about a man’s heart on the boob tube.  You just can’t.  Unless you know a presidential candidate personally for years, you’re relying on soundbites and scripted debates, all screened by the media.  And if you do that, you open yourself up to being played for a fool by people who know how to speak Christian-ese well enough to make you think you know their hearts.

Guess what?  I don’t know what’s in Mitt Romney’s heart.  I’ve met him for less than five minutes total in my life.  I could tell you that he said some phrase to me that just made me sure, or that the Holy Spirit just reassured me…but the truth is, I don’t know and neither do you.  And you shouldn’t try.  It’s a dangerous game that leads nowhere.  Instead, look at his life–not to divine his secret theological leanings, but to see what kind of president he’ll be.

Look at his marriage and his family, which is a record of behavior lasting decades.  Look, too, at his political record.  Contra Mr. Smith, he’s never supported “gay marriage” and he fought it bravely and wisely in the most liberal state in the union.  He came around on abortion–which is the point of this whole pro-life movement, no?–and opposed embryonic stem cell research even though his wife suffers from M.S. and allegedly would have benefited from such research.  I recognize that’s not a perfect solution.  But the one Mr. Smith proposes (I’m sure with the best intentions in the world) would be disastrous.

[Note: See the piece at its original location for more information about Charles Mitchell."]

Filed Under: Christian Approach to Politics, Separation of Church and State Tagged With: , , ,

Harold Camping Needs an Intervention

May 27, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

Some of the intersections of faith and politics are so littered with landmines that it’s virtually impossible to navigate them without taking some shrapnel in the legs.  People of faith and good will must discuss them, however, if they’re matters worth discussing, lest we leave the conversation to those who simply enjoy or actually profit from setting off explosions.  So please bear with me.  I’m about to draw a parallel that could easily be twisted.  The parallel is not between Harold Camping and a terrorist Imam.  I have no respect for that kind of moral equivalency.  The parallel, rather, is between the way I feel toward Harold Camping and, in some limited respects, the way that some moderate Muslims seem to feel toward the preachers of Jihad.

So, to begin.  I’ve often wondered why, when we hear of another Jihadist terrorist doing another terrible thing, moderate Muslims are not stumbling over themselves to condemn him.  When an extremist Imam preaches for the downfall of America, the Great Satan, or teaching something that is completely and patently and destructively false — shouldn’t moderate Muslim leaders be angry at the harm the Imam has done to the reputation of their religion, and shouldn’t they be eager to condemn him, correct the record, and even seek to remove this Imam from power?

Some moderate Muslim leaders do speak up, of course.  And some presumably cannot penetrate the media din.  Still, even taking those things into account, I have often been surprised that we do not see and hear the majority of Muslims rising up en masse to carve this cancer out of the body of their faith and to bury it forever beneath a flood of righteous condemnation.  If peaceful Muslims are angered when non-Muslims regard them with distrust, shouldn’t they direct their anger first at the Muslims who have attacked the innocent in the name of Islam and planted the seeds of distrust in the first place?  Some moderate Muslims — including personal friends of mine — are openly frustrated when it’s suggested they should offer some comment or criticism.

Harold Camping and his ongoing doomsday debacle have helped me to understand the dynamic a little better.  There’s no equivalence between the wanton destruction of innocent human life and the proclamation of a false prophecy about the end of the world.  It would require moral obtuseness of the highest order, and abandonment of our powers of moral discernment, to equate a proclamation that the world is ending and all should take refuge in Christ with the attempt to explode school buses full of children.  So, as I said, I’m not at all equating Harold Camping with terrorists or with Imams who exhort their followers to become terrorists.

What are illuminating, I think, are the tensions in both cases between the periphery and the center.  (Of course, the more extreme critics of militant Islam will argue that the ultra-violent ideology that motivates the likes of al-Qaeda is not actually on the periphery of the Muslim world, but is more common and widespread than we care to admit.  While there are pockets around the world where those who sympathize with Jihadist terrorists outnumber those who do not, I don’t believe that’s true as a general characterization of ‘the Muslim world,’ and thankfully the Arab Spring is showing another way to struggle for reform.)

So, all qualifications aside, how is this comparison illuminating?

(1) What does he have to do with me? When I’m pressed by atheists and skeptics to respond to Harold Camping and his extreme ideas — not just the 1994 prediction and the May 21st prediction, but the numerology and the esoteric calculations, the notion of a “spiritual judgment” to justify the doomsday dud, and his teaching as far back as 1988 that Satan had taken possession of American churches — some part of me resents the association in the first place.  Why am I accountable for what Harold Camping says and does?  Why is the presumption that I am like him, unless I publicly demonstrate otherwise?  Why should I have to answer for him?  Are we even of the same tribe?

One part of this is justified.  There is no good faith from the skeptic who demands that I condemn him.  The skeptic ought to be able to see the significant differences between myself and Harold Camping; they are obvious in the things we believe and in the ways we act.  But the skeptic pays no heed to those differences because he does not really care whether or not I condemn Harold Camping; he just wants to paint me with the same brush as another Christian crackpot with crazy, irrational, unscientific ideas.  It irritates me that people cannot see — or the skeptics are not willing to see — that Harold Camping is not a representative of healthy, orthodox Christianity.  I imagine many Muslims feel this way: why should I be compelled to distinguish myself from the extremist, when the extremist does not represent my faith in the first place?

Harold Camping: Intervention Needed?

But another part of this is pride.  I don’t want to be associated with a Harold Camping, or a Terry Jones (the Koran burner), or etc.  However, as deceived as I believe Harold Camping is, insofar as he trusts in Jesus Christ (and I give the benefit of the doubt here), we are not only of the same tribe, we are of the same family.  As much as I resent the association, as much as I’m embarrassed by their actions and the ways in which they harm the credibility of the Church, the fact is that I am associated with them.

There are all sorts of crazy people in the Church; some of them have megaphones.  I am not called to ignore them and pretend they have nothing to do with me.  I am called to reach out to them, to listen, to rebuke and correct and restore, even as I explain to the world that they have misused the Word.

2.  I understand where he’s coming from. The truth is, even though we differ on some very important beliefs, Harold Camping and I have many things in common.  We read the same Bible and pray to the same God.  Some of our core beliefs and values are the same.  I believe that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the creator and author of all history.  I believe that history will consummate in judgment and restoration.

I was raised in a non-denominational evangelical church where some of the adults believed things I found embarrassing.  In various ministry settings, in the prisons and inner cities of the United States as well as on mission fields overseas, I’ve encountered countless Christians whose beliefs I found strange or implausible.  I’ve had some of the most intelligent Christians I know (objectively, dazzlingly intelligent, with doctorates and many accolades to their names) tell me that they believed Christ would return in the next few years — or that demons were active in their homes before they prayed them out — or that the world is merely thousands of years old — or that my broken neck would be healed if I believed it fervently enough.  And you know what?  They’re good people.  I love those people.  In most cases, I respect them too.  When you burrow deeper and deeper into a particular way of interpreting the world, you can find yourself coming to conclusions that seem very strange to people with different worldviews.

I’ve also spent plenty of time in places where my beliefs were regarded with suspicion and astonishment.  At Stanford, Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard, students and colleagues and faculty typically treated me with respect; I was good at what I did, good at what we did.  They knew I was no fundamentalist.  But they could not believe that an intelligent and educated person should be an evangelical, much less a conservative one.

So I feel a generous measure of sympathy for Harold Camping.  I know where he’s coming from.  I know how he came to believe the things he did, even though I find them (the beliefs and the methods through which they were reached) wrong.  And I imagine many moderate Muslims feel the same way.  Even though they deplore the violence of their fellow Muslims, they understand their sense of frustration, of disenfranchisement, of anger.  They’ve heard the criticisms of the west, of colonialism, of American support for despots, and they know those criticisms make a certain kind of sense to people who live inside of that worldview.

3.  It’s not always easy to cut out the cancer. As I’ve watched the Harold Camping travesty unfold, I’ve often felt, “Can’t someone put a stop to this?  Can’t someone intervene and show him the error of his ways?”  The answer that’s come back to me is: “Why don’t you do it?  If you’re going to call for other Christians to reach out to Camping and try to put a stop to the damage he’s doing to the church, shouldn’t you be willing to do so yourself?”

And yes, I should.  In the same way that moderate Muslims should do what they can to correct the Imams who encourage young men to go detonate themselves in crowded marketplaces, I should do what I can to correct a Christian teacher who is misleading his followers in destructive ways.  But it’s not an easy thing to do.

There are a number of reasons.  (1) Do I really want to get involved? Reaching out to Camping as a fellow believer implies that he is, indeed, a Christian leader of sorts who deserves the time and attention it would take.  It only makes the association between him and me even stronger in the minds of the skeptics and the mockers.  (2) Is there any hope of changing his mind? A man like Harold Camping believes wholeheartedly that he’s doing the right thing, and that critical voices are (perhaps literally) the voice of the devil tempting him to give up the task to which God has called him.  He’s not likely to be dissuaded, any more than an extremist Imam is.  (3) Could his influence really be curbed? Camping has substantial resources and a radio network at his disposal, as well as bitter-end supporters.  We live in completely distinct circles.  Short of physical or legal coercion, what could I really do?  (4) My life is overwhelming enough already. I have a wife, a child, another child on the way, a more-than-full-time job, side jobs and side projects, ministries.  Do I really have the time to reach out to someone I’ve never met and seek to dissuade him (as I did attempt to do, for instance, with Terry Jones)?

Some of the same reasons must come up when moderate Muslims are asked, “Why don’t you remove the cancer of Islamic extremism from your community?”  Moderate Muslim Americans are struggling to keep their heads above water, like everyone else, and may have no connections with, and no influence over, the extremist Imams.  It’s much easier to insist that the extremist does not represent your faith than it is to correct the extremist or remove him from influence.

These are some of the tensions between the middle and the periphery in religious communities.  Do you get angry at the extremists whose words and deeds tarnish the reputation of your faith?  Or do you get angry with those who use the extremists for their own partisan purposes to smear the whole faith?  Or both?  Do you resent the embarrassing association with the crazies on the margins, or do you accept the association, accept that there are crazies in all communities and do something to heal and restore them?  Do you confess that you understand where they’re coming from, or do you pretend there’s no overlap between their views and yours?  And are you bound to involve yourself in the near-impossible task of changing their minds or undermining their influence, when you are overwhelmed already with the life God has given you?

I think Christian leaders, rather than lobbing criticisms from a distance, or in addition to that (since it’s important to correct the record on what the Christian faith teaches), should reach out to Camping and see whether he can be persuaded to end this damaging charade.  And I should do the same.  Camping should be encouraged to repent, to seek forgiveness, and to make amends.  Even if it seems hopeless, it’s the right thing to do.  And you never know what might happen.  God has done much more astonishing things.

Filed Under: Harold Camping, Judgment Day, Peace Between Religions, Rapture, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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