Hippiemommy

Category: Christianity

  • Comfort foods

    Today I was reading in Mindless Eating about comfort foods and the differences between what women choose and what men choose.

    What’s the big difference between men and women? When asked why they preferred pizza, pasta, and soup over cakes and cookies, men generally talked about how good they tasted and how filling they were. But when we probed a bit deeper, many also said that when they ate these foods they felt “spoiled,” “pampered,” “taken care of,” or “waited on.” Generally they associated these foods with being the focus of attention from either the mother or wife.

    And women? Although they liked hot-meal comfort foods just fine, these foods did not carry the associations of being “spoiled,” “taken care of,” or “waited on.” In fact, quite the opposite. When women thought of these foods, they were reminded of the work they or their mothers had to do to produce them. These foods didn’t represent comfort, they represented preparation and cleanup.

    For women, snacklike foods–candy, cookies, ice cream, chocolate–were hassly-free. Part of their comfort was to not have to make or clean up anything. It was both effortless and mindless eating.

    Isn’t that interesting? Men chose foods that made them feel cared for or spoiled. As I think of Joe’s favorite foods, they are all warm and full meals. Mine are not. Last week I made lasagna because he asked for it, and I couldn’t fathom why someone would want lasagna when it is 99 degrees outside. I even talked to some friends at my yoga class about how all I want is a salad or to eat out. I need to keep our different preferences in mind, even if Joe’s tastes sometimes confuse me. I do this for my children, but I don’t always think a ton about Joe’s preferences, especially since he likes a lot of unhealthy comfort foods. Making those foods healthy and serving his comfort foods is another little way of honoring my family 🙂 I hadn’t really considered the deeper “why’s” behind that before.

    In Turansky and Miller’s Say Goodbye to Whining, they point out that the Bible tells us many times to love, honor, serve, and encourage others. I sometimes think of that as being a loftier goal than it is. The fact is that many of my day-to-day decisions can be done in a more honoring way. They say,

    It’s amazing how one family member can behin a chain reaction of change, resulting in a greater sense of honor. Maybe that one family member is you.

    There are so many little ways to show honor and love. I am glad that I am starting to recognize some more ways to do this. It blesses me to bless my family.  Who would’ve thought that a book on subconscious eating preferences would give me more ideas on how to bless my family?

  • God’s will be done

    Last night I had a terrible nightmare that included one of my children being hurt.  The thought of my children hurting is a million times worse than the thought of my own hurt.  Even if I consider the possibility of my own death, the part that pains me the most is the pain that my children would feel.

    So I awoke from my nightmare and started praying a drunkenly-tired prayer, which came out all wrong and only upset me more.  I am terrible when I am sleepy.  I know that lots of people do their best prayers at night, but I usually fall asleep trying.  I try to tell myself that it is like drifting off asleep on the phone with someone you love, but I still feel a twinge of guilt for falling asleep to the almighty King.  I checked on the kids and kissed them on their cheeks.  Then I came back to bed and asked Joe to pray with me.  My feeble attempt at a prayer had basically been one of protection.  Joe started praying, and his was all about the will of God.  I was struck by how his life experiences, including the death of his sister, have obviously given him a more mature perspective on prayer.  He also prayed that God protect the kids, but his focus was just so different than my focus.

    After his prayer, I fell asleep easily (and wasn’t crying anymore).  I woke up this morning and decided finish Facing East by Frederica Mathewes-Green.  I have learned so much from this book, and it has been great to get an insider’s view of orthodoxy.  I’m still not convinced that it would ever be a fit for me, but I view orthodoxy very differently than I did before I started.  I can also see how the desire for something more rooted and historical could lead a person to an Eastern Orthodox church.  For me this desire has led to my Jewish roots, but I think that the basic desire for depth is the same.

    In one of the chapters that I read today, she talks about what she will pray for in the upcoming year,

    As C. S. Lewis says of the Christ-figure Aslan in the Narnia tales, “It’s not like he’s a tame lion.”  All over the world, millions of times a day, people are praying, “Thy will be done.”  And I think I can dispute that?  Like, “Oh, I’m an exception.”  If I’m stubborn enough, I can get my will done instead?

    Isn’t it interesting that I was just thinking the same thing earlier today?  It really is humbling.  The truth is that if my dream were God’s will, then I’d have to accept it.  I think I can get really sucked into our whole name-it-and-claim-it inspired brand of Christianity that does not reflect the truth of God’s character at all.  I know many earnest Christians who did not want to die or be hurt and yet it still happened.  Desire doesn’t change it.  At least I can rest knowing that God knows best and that I do not need to fear.  Letting go is a tough lesson though.

  • My new favorite podcast

    I am always on the hunt for new podcasts.  I feel like I barely have enough hours in my day, and I love to multitask, so I am excited by any podcast that works my mind while I clean or fold clothes.  😉

    We recently had a thread on GCM about podcasts, and several of the moms recommended the pray-as-you-go podcast.  It is fab.  It is set to beautiful music and they read a portion of scripture and give some prayer prompts if you’d like to use them.  I’ve loved the Bible in a Year podcast for the past year and a half or so, but I adore that pray-as-you-go gives you time and nice music to reflect and pray as you listen to the Word.  If you’re looking for something a little more contemplative, then you should definitely check it out  🙂

  • Why do women hold women down?

    This morning I was going through my old emails, and came across an entry from one of “Laine’s Letters“. I often enjoy her letters, and her recipes are killer – I use a bunch of them. Some of her homemaking entries have inspired me on difficult days. The entry that I came across was called “A Gracious Woman Retains Honor“. It sounded good, so I started reading it.

    Laine goes on to list things she has learned about women from her Bible reading, and they include lots of great things and also some things that are completely out of context, like

    “She learns in silence in the church with all submission.”

    <big sigh>

    Luckily for me, I was reading a book that had nothing to do with women, as far as I knew. It is called What Paul Meant by Garry Wills. In today’s reading I came across his chapter on Paul and women, and I am so glad that he dealt with this issue so I can respond to Laine with a scholarly word, and not just my own ramblings, LOL. Here’s what Mr Wills said (after a lengthy discussion on the very important and egalitarian role of women in the early church)

    Prophecy is now popularly thought to mean prediction of the future. But the Jewish prophets were inspired denouncers of those who lapsed from the Lord’s ways, reformers and purifiers. The faults at Corinth had their excoriaters, and some of the prophets were women. Paul writes that in the gatherings there a woman “should not pray or prophesy with her head uncovered” (1 Cor 11.5)… He is just as strict in saying that men should not have their heads covered when they pray or prophesy.

    Well then, I suppose this was silent prophesy, no? Jewish prophesy does not align with learning in silence and sitting in full submission. I mean, it was submission in the way that all believers submit to one another, but not in the patriarchal sense of the term where women never speak up when they see something wrong. For the full debate, feel free to pick up this book, or any number of other amazing scholarly works. Email or comment and I’ll happily list some of my faves 😉 As a matter of fact, I was listening to a VERY conservative Christian podcast from some folks from Dallas Theological Seminary, and they agreed on some related issues. Its not just the crazy liberals saying this stuff. Laine’s list is SO long, and yet she doesn’t even address that one should cover her head while prophesying. Why is this? Why take away liberties that were given to women? The first century church was not like we think of church now. I’m guessing Laine may very well look at her links and pop over here, so if so, please comment 🙂

    And just to close, a few more thoughts from Mr. Wills on Paul’s associations with women

    Prisca even went to prison with him…  Phoebe is his protectress.  Another Sister is like his mother.  Chloe’s establishment keeps him informed.  His crack team assembled in Rome for the Spanish campaign includes ten women, at least three of them married.  He knows a woman emissary (apostolos), a woman attendant (diakonos), and women prophets.  He knows two women leaders in Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, who have become rivals, and he begs for their reconciliation (not their condemnation) at Philippians 4.2-3.  The later misogyny of the Christian churches would never have occurred if the spirit of Paul had continued in them.

  • Where is the church going?

    I just finished Monique El-Faizy’s God and Country: How Evangelicals Have Become America’s New Mainstream, and it contained a lot of different points that I’d like to discuss. It is really interesting to read an athiest’s view of the Evangelical world. She was a Christian until she went away to college and stepped away from the faith. Its kind of nice to be able to hear from someone who was both an insider and now an outsider to Christianity. It makes for an interesting perspective.

    I was going to write about her chapter on church history, but I just changed my mind. I want to talk about her discussion of megachurches and their future 🙂 So let’s jump on in:

    Despite the continuing success of megachurches, as they get bigger and blander some people are starting to look for a new kind of experience, one more immediate or transcendent. They’re finding it in some unlikely places, in the podcasts of sermons they download from the Internet, in cyberchurches, and in Bible studies at their workplaces, what Barna calls “marketplace ministries.” Many have left the church building and are meeting in parks and houses. In fact, the house church movement, in which several families meet on a regular basis in someone’s home, often to be led by the same person each week, is growing by great leaps.

    Even before I read this section, my mom and I were discussing this idea of alternate ways of attending church. I had told my mom that the Bible study group that we led last year in our house was the truest church I’ve ever attended. We were living lives where we could be accountable to each other, learn together, really probe into scripture with debate, and pray for one another. It wasn’t just a matter of showing up on Sunday and checking “church” off of our list. It was non-hierarchical and met in our home, and yet it fulfilled more of the ideas of church than any “church” (what we now consider to be a church) that I’ve attended ever has. Still we feel this pull that it was “only a Bible study” and that if we didn’t attend Sunday services in a big building then we wouldn’t really be in church.

    This is a seminal time for the church, a moment of reflection and self-assessment such as hasn’t been seen in decades. Its attempts to germane to society have been so successful that the church is in the midst of an identity crisis sparked by its own achievement. Long accustomed to being on the fringes, evangelical Christianity has become so big, so powerful, and so mainstream that many on the inside are wondering if they’ve lost their flavor and have abandoned what made them distinctive.

    I can definitely see this feeling spreading in the church. We are losing a lot of our flavor. We are giving many of our churches over to the pop culture of Christianity and the world. If you don’t attend a mega-church, then the far likelihood is that you attend a church that uses a curriculum from a mega-church. There is no local flavor. It is bland.

    The response to these concerns has taken several different forms. Many Christians are looking to put the sanctity back in church and are returning to the traditions that the megachurches abandoned. Where churches such as Willow Creek and Saddleback desanctified the physical church, others are looking to resanctify it, placing new value on incense, stained glass, candles, and other high-church trappings. They are reintroducing liturgy to their services, or moving into denominations that never abandoned it, such as the Episcopalian church (although there they opt for conservative congregations that are on the restrictive side of the split over gay clergy).

    I find this to be very true in my own life. I have started searching out more traditional ways of worship. We light candles for the Sabbath like my father’s family did, we recite the same prayers that were recited when I was young (and since the times of the early Jews), I am longing for more liturgy in service. I have even looked at denominations that still use liturgy, although I have generally been more drawn to Messianic Jewish congregations instead of Episcopalian, but the root desire is the same. The desire is to be a part of something deeper… something that isn’t just the flavor-of-the-day. I want a faith and a practice that stands the test of time, not just what gets people in the door today.

    Megachurches were invented by baby boomers and designed to appeal to that generation. They rely on the notion of choice and individualization and on the tools of marketing to hone and promote their product. This comes, though, at the cost of the idea that the church is a body, the needs of which supersede those of the individual. Along with defecting boomers, younger generations, which are remarkably religious, are beginning to rebel against the church of their parents’ generation and are looking for more direct encounters with the divine. They don’t need the pat answers megachurches provide but are willing to embark on their own personal spiritual journeys.

    The fact is that my parents and my husband’s parents were fundamentalists who switched to a more evangelical route when the tide started to change. They followed what was going on around them. In our attempt to return to a “deeper” spiritual experience, we are doing the same thing. We are doing what our generation feels prone to do. We’re not any different, the trends are just changing.

    I have a lot more to say, but my fingers are getting tired, lol. Next time I want to write about what El-Faizy sees as the different options in the post-modern and emergent church. I think you’ll find it interesting to read from the perspective of a woman who is no longer in the church (El-Faizy, not me, lol).

    My morning sickness seems to be coming at night, and I am starting to feel a little yucky. I’m relieved to feel a little sick though, because it gives some reassurance that this is a “sticky” baby. I’ve really been trying to put this in God’s hands, but it is so hard. I know I have no control over this little life growing in me, but at the same time I get a sense of control if I am thinking or worrying about it. I am trying so hard to give that up. I really appreciate everyone’s prayers for me, for the baby, and for the rest of our family. You’re the best!

  • So I guess God just made me weird…

    Currently reading:

    I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

    I believe that God puts certain desires in us that are neither good nor bad… they are just a part of who we are. They are the little quirks that make us special. We each learn the good and bad sides of them, and try to praise Him while using our special gifts.

    For as long as I can remember, I’ve liked to stand out. As a matter of fact, my “area of giftedness”, which was diagnosed very early, includes the fact that I don’t like to do things the way everyone else does. I am far from uncomfortable if people are looking at me, or confused by me, or intrigued by me. I really love it, actually. In high school I was a bit of a freak. I just liked to be strange in dress, in actions, in beliefs… DH jokes that he didn’t realize what he was getting when we met in college, but there was no bait-and-switch here. I was the only punk, electric guitar playing, skateboarding, vegetarian, spiked hair, football loving, computer major around, lol.

    Now as an adult, I still like to look different. I like to be different and make people think. We live a pretty typical (upper-?) middle-class kind of life. We parent differently though. We don’t really fit in completely with the secular world or with Christians.

    I noticed today that I was getting frustrated about not finding a church that agrees with me. I’m not sure why I have been so bothered by this fact. The truth is that I think I’m probably pushing too hard and asking for something unreasonable. Are there really that many AP-friendly, egalitarian, not-too-liberal-but-not-too-conservative, free thinking, Biblically based, Jew-friendly, environmental, “buy local”, give-back-to-the-community, Protestant churches out there? Um, probably not.

    I really feel like God has been nudging me to consider that I might need to go to a church that is not quite out-there, but not totally conservative, and just accept that this is another area where I am different. The things I disagree on are not essentials of the faith. Still I find it so hard to accept a church that disagrees about the way that I am a mother and a woman. Those do happen to be my two biggest roles, y’know?

    For any other weirdos out there, how have you found a church to call home? Do you search until you find one that you completely agree with or do you try to go change one with beliefs that you think are inaccurate? Is there some third option? All of my spiritual gifts are ones that are traditionally masculine, so I want to lead. I want to teach. I want to make a difference. I can’t imagine anything else. It wouldn’t feel like I was an active member of the body if not.

    Hmm, I guess I have a lot to think about. Why can’t there be a church of GCM? 😀 Crystal could be the pastor! Ahh, that sounds dreamy 🙂

    Oh well.  Have a great night, everyone 🙂

  • The Proverbs 31 Woman – A real “helpmeet”

    I would love to blog about this book a million times! It is great! Unfortunately my time is limited with it (it is a library book), so I guess I’ll just have to hit the main points that I enjoyed and that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere.

    Patricia Gundry writes this book so well, and does an amazing job at balancing femininity with strength. She provides a wonderful example for how this can be done, despite what many other books on this passage try to say. She tackles important issues for all women, including being a hard worker, trustworthy, strong, beautiful, not manipulative, a bargain hunter, a planner, an investor, a provider, and praiseworthy. I have read many other books on Proverbs 31, and none of them capture the context and the relevance of what is being said to King Lemuel the way that Gundry does in this book.
    Here are some of my highlights from a few chapters.

    On women who manipulate (re: Proverbs 31:12 “She does him good and not harm all the days of her life”)

    Women manipulate men… I always wondered why women are so tempted to do it… Why would women like Marabel Morgan or Helen Andelin justify it with Bible verses, case histories, and personal examples of their own approach to pragmatism in marriage?

    I think they do it because they live in a double bind. Women are the underdogs in the family and society. So they gravitate toward survival methods common to underdogs, methods that are as old as the Fall.

    Here’s how it works: the underdog is afraid to approach her superior directly. Though direct approach is effective some of the time, too often it is not. When dealing with a superior power that is also unscrupulous and unfair, being direct is often dangerous. Underdogs learn to manipulate in order to get along–or survive.

    Manipulation is demeaning both to the one doing it and to the unsuspecting victim. If you’re a woman, your actions say to the man you victimize, “You aren’t very bright, or honorable. If you were smart, you would see through my tricks. If you were honorable, they wouldn’t be necessary.”

    This kind of scheming has further disadvantage. It makes close, honest relationships between people impossible.

    Amen. I have read so many books for Christian women that only teach women how to be manipulative. They tell you how to get your way: How to convince your husband to do what you want without him knowing it. Its sick, and it makes me so sad that Christian women stoop to that level.
    On the Proverbs 31 woman and when she opens her mouth compared to other women

    I think inborn nature has nothing to do with the incidence of shrewish or razor-tongued women. It’s as simple as this: those who can’t fight with their fists learn to fight with words. We develop skill with the weapons we have. We also pick up the skill by observing the skilled practicioners who precede us. It is often passed from mother to daughter with success.

    Women tend to practice and gain skill on men who are vulnerable. Sometimes this involves practicing on male children who are extremely defenseless. They grow up to be easy targets for other female verbal assaults.

    I found this section really interesting. I have quite the razor tongue. As a matter of fact, even long after dh and I were married, I had never “lost” a fight. My quick wit and tongue allowed me to be a more skilled arguer than any boyfriends had ever been. I ended up thinking I was always right. It was a humbling blow to find out that not only was I often wrong, but I also manipulated situations because I could argue better.

    She goes on to address an interesting cycle she has noticed. I have seen this for myself, especially in church, which is so sad.

    We women are too easily tempted to vent our anger on male children. I have seen it happen so often. A family who lived near us years ago went through a weekly cycle. Over the weekend the husband harassed his wife. On Monday she terrorized their oldest child, a boy (who looked like his father and had the same name) about a year older than my daughter. On Tuesday the boy was out for blood and my kids got it from him…

    It is the old pecking-order sequence: we can’t hit back at those who are stronger, so we find excuses to take out our anger on those who are weaker. I firmly believe that much male hostility to women is a result of this vicious circle. Women are repressed and put down by men or by a male-dominated system. Mothers sometimes take out their resentment on their young sons; and teachers and others over children, on little boys in their charge. Those little boys grow up with an accumulated load of unconscious resentment toward women that has been years in the making. They then pass it on to the women who become vulnerable to them.

    I’ve never seen this addressed in writing before, but it makes me think of a family whose son was in the Sunday School class that I taught. I would see the end of the cycle, as the mother would take her aggression out on her son as they would walk through the church. He would then come into the class and take his aggression out on the other children. He would often make the other 2 and 3 year olds so upset that they would physically shake. I would have to remove him from the classroom to protect the other children. It was heartbreaking because he was only acting out on what he knew. He was only 3.

    I don’t want to make this too long, so I’ll just give one last quote from the end where she is talking about the translation of “helpmeet.”

    This verse has been traditionally understood to mean that God created woman as a kind of glorified girl Friday for Adam. A nice girl, but slightly substandard and needing a man to supervise her work. The words help and meet have been condensed by common usage into helpmeet. We have been taught that this means woman should be a helper to man, not his equal.

    But in Hebrew, the original language, the words ezer and neged do not have the connotations we have given them. Ezer means “help” all right, but not secondary help or assistant, as in assistant to the president. It means help in the way God helped Israel. The word is used in the Old Testament to refer to help by a superior force, such as help by God, as in Psalm 121:1,2

    I raise my eyes towards the hills.
    Whence shall my help come?
    My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

    The word ezer is never used elsewhere in the Old Testament to refer to subordinate or inferior help.

    Neged (“meet”) is a preposition in Hebrew and cannot be translated as a preposition in English and still retain the sense. It means “corresponding to,” “fit for,” “meet for.” In other words, God created woman as a real help to Adam, someone who was like him, suitable in every way. There is no hint of inferiority for woman in the original account.

    Good stuff.

    This book also has a ton of practical advice. She talks about keeping your home, ways to find your passion for a cottage / work-at-home industry, time management strategies, and ways to enjoy your work and bless your family. I really highly recommend it 🙂

  • Grace Vs. Works

    I had already planned on having this as my next post, but it works out really well considering that the comments from the last post went in this direction 🙂

    I want to say before I even start quoting that I almost completely disagree with the author’s description of Palestinian Jews vs. Hellenistic Jews, but oh well. I’m using his version in order to discuss.

    From Chapter 2 of Church History in Plain Language

    The Palestinian Christians, steeped in traditional Judaism, said, “Tell them that unless they submit to the Jewish law, in addition to believing in Jesus, there is no hope for their faith.”

    OK, I agree with most of his description, but not so much the use of the word “steeped”.

    Paul, however, found this impossible. His own experience pointed another way. If a person could gain the righteousness of God by obeying the law, said Paul, I would have been the greatest in the kingdom. But righteousness by personal effort can only lead to failure. Man can be accepted as righteous only through God’s undeserved mercy. That is grace. And grace always arises from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    Hmm, so perhaps a middle ground?

    Many Christians thought Paul was impossibly optimistic. They were deeply troubled by the decline in Christian morality they felt sure would come in the gentile churches. If you teach justification by faith alone, they argued, people will imagine that once they have accepted Christ by faith it does not really matter how they live.

    Again, this is too much either-or thinking. This is exactly what punitive parents say about grace-based discipline. “If you show grace, then people won’t behave appropriately.” Obviously God didn’t feel that way! I almost feel like Bruce Shelley is missing that you don’t have to say that the law was done away with in order to say that we are saved by grace. As I’ve heard it said before, I believe that people who are growing in Christ become more Torah observant whether they know it or not. The spirit of the Torah is all about grace, all about love, and a privelege, not a duty! As Crystal Lutton said – “To the Jewish mind the Torah isn’t restrictions, it’s guidelines, boundaries, the way to be holy in an unholy world!” And I think Shelley is missing that.

    On the contrary, said Paul, if they really have accepted Christ by faith, then they have accepted the way of Christ and the mind of Christ. The man who really loves God can do as he chooses, for if he really loves God he will choose to do the will of God.

    As my friend said

    Paul rebukes the Judaizers. They taught that Gentiles could not be saved UNTIL they became Jewish converts and were part of God’s chosen people. Peter and Paul both experienced God making himself available to Gentiles while they were still Gentiles. Pre-Cross there were Jews, there were converts, and there were God-fearers who lived according to Torah without actually converting. Cornelius was a God-fearer The Jews taught that if they were Torah observant they’d get in to heaven, but they were not allowed to be part of the community in this world. This is what the Judaizers were mixing up. They wanted the Gentiles to be part of the community of faith so they thought they had to BE Jews first. Paul and Peter taught that the Gospel was now for the God-fearer too–that conversion to Judaism was not necessary!

    BUT they NEVER taught that what was part of Torah was unimportant or not for the Gentiles too. When I studied the letter from the Council of Jerusalem I found a little gem in the discussion  They were talking about what to require of the Gentile in order to *become* part of the community of faith and they settled on the four things. Interestingly, I did a little study into the elements of the pagan communion and it was highlighted by these four things So they had to *abandon* being pagan Then James, I think it was, says, “The rest has been taught in the Synagogues since the time of Moses.” Remember that at this time “The Way” as it was called was a sect of Judaism and they were meeting both in the Synagogues AND in home churches of only believers. (I also believe that the purpose for women being told to stay silent “In Synagogue” was because the non-Christian/Jewish women were not allowed to speak and this was giving them a bad name!). But the new believers were going to learn everything else in time and that was enough according to the Council at Jerusalem.

    The ironic thing is, once you actually go and read what is part of Torah, and start talking about the Spirit of it, most people ONLY come back with, “I do all those things already. Just don’t think I could give up pork and lobster” And, tbh, I do believe that the dietary laws are not in effect for cleanliness (though NOT based on Peter’s dream!!!) but I believe everything in Torah to be Wisdom and part of God’s standard and when I studied pork and lobster I realized I didn’t *want* to eat them

    I’ve been in the midst of a fascinating discussion with some of my friends on whether or not we have “two natures.” Once we have become a new creation in Christ, are we still naturally inclined to sin? I feel like Shelley is dancing around this topic.

    For fellow GCMers, if you haven’t seen the discussion that I’m referring to above, I can send you a link 😉

  • Church History – Why don’t we know?

    I am once again reading Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley. This is actually my second time through it, but this time I am taking notes and really studying it rather than just pleasure reading.

    This re-reading has really reminded me of how frustrated I am that we, as a Christian community, don’t know our roots. There is this ridiculous gap between the early church and the Reformation, and it seems like much of it is just skipped over or ignored. It drives me a bit batty.

    As I was reading today about the early church and how much Christian life stood out compared to pagan lives. This has given me a lot of food for thought. I had already been thinking about this after a recent discussion on standing out in the world. I think we really miss how big of a deal it was to be a Christian in the Roman empire. We are spoiled today. As Tertullian put it in Apology, “We have the reputation of living aloof from the crowds.” Is that really true anymore? Somewhere between 77% and 86% in America consider themselves Christians. Riiiight. We’re really living aloof from the crowds. :/
    Shelley discusses it as such

    The word used to describe the Christian in the New Testament is highly significant. It is the term hagios, often translated “saints.” It means holy ones, but its root suggests different. So a holy thing is different from other things. The temple is holy because it is different from other buildings; the Sabbath day is holy because it is different from other days. The Christian, therefore, is a person who is fundamentally different.

    I’ve been thinking about this ever since I read it. It seems like modern Christianity doesn’t really embrace this line of thinking except to condemn those outside of the church. We point out others differences rather than being different within ourselves.

    Fundamental to the Christian life-style and cause of endless hostility was the Christian’s rejection of the pagan gods. The Greeks and Romans had deities for every aspect of living–for sowing and reaping, for rain and wind, for volcanoes and rivers, for birth and death. But to Christians these gods were nothing, and their denial of them marked the followers of Jesus as “enemies of the human race.”

    So to be a Christian meant that you could very well be rejecting part of every aspect of life. That’s tough.

    One simply could not reject the gods without arousing scorn as a social misfit. For the pagan every meal began with a liquid offering and a prayer to the pagan gods. A Christian could not share in that. Most heathen feasts and social parties were held in the precincts of a temple after sacrifice has been made, and the invitation was usually to dine “at the table” of some god. A Christian could not go to such a feast. Inevitably, when he refused the invitation to some social occasion, the Christian seemed rude, boorish, and discourteous.

    I wish I had read this back in high school. I think I would’ve felt a little better about blowing off parties. :/

    The Christian fear of idolatry also led to difficulties in making a living. A mason might be involved in building the walls of a heathen temple, a tailor in making robes for a heathen priest, an incense-maker in making incense for the heathen sacrifices. Tertullian even forbade a Christian to be a schoolteacher, because such teaching involved using textbooks that told the ancient stories of the gods and called for observing the religious festivals of the pagan year.

    Yet another reason to homeschool 😉

    We might think that working with the sick would be a simple act of kindness. But even here early Christians found the pagan hospitals under the protection of the heathen god Aesculapius, and while a sick friend lay in his bed, the priest went down the aisle chanting to the god.

    In short, the early Christian was almost bound to divorce himself from the social and economic life of his time–if he wanted to be true to his Lord. This meant that everywhere the Christian turned his life and faith were on display because the gospel introduced a revolutionary new attitude toward human life. It could be seen in Christian views of slaves, children, and sex.

    Can you imagine if we lived that way today? Its not like our current culture is so wonderful and “Christian” that we should be embracing it. I think that many of us have come to take our faith as just something to be weaved into the rest of life, rather than a new frame for our entire life.
    I have tons more that I want to write from the early chapters of this book, but this will do for now 😀

  • Romancing Your Husband

    A few years ago, my mother-in-law gave me this book and deeply encouraged me to read it. I was a bit |-| because, hel-lo, I was a newlywed and plenty of romancin’ was going on PAs I was listing some old books on paperbackswap, I came across this one. I thought I’d give it a chance and read it. Here’s my early thoughts.

    Why is it that so many (Christian) marriage books attempt to boost the marriage at the expense of the family? This drives me nuts!!! I realize that my MIL doesn’t have any kids around the house, so she probably didn’t think about this. Consider this quote from Chapter 1. Here she talks about how she planned for a getaway to a bed and breakfast with her husband and how she managed to get her kids to a friend’s house so they could get away.

    This doesn’t sound like much, but we had adopted our Vietnamese daugher, who was two at the time, and had only had her about six months. Pulling her from the orphanage deeply disturbed her and she screamed for almost two years after we got her. The whole time I was preparing to leave, Brooke was following me around the house, screaming as if she were being attacked.

    Come, let us reason together. WHY WOULD YOU ABANDON A SCREAMING CHILD WHO OBVIOUSLY HAD SOME KIND OF ATTACHMENT DISORDER SO THAT YOU COULD GO WALK AROUND NAKED AT A BED AND BREAKFAST?!?! (The naked part is later discussed.) Couldn’t she have romanced him in a less traumatic way for her new daughter? Couldn’t a solution have been found where no one had to suffer? Why does it have to either be the marriage or the whole family unit? This all-or-nothing thinking seems common in this book, and its driving me a bit batty.

    Our lives are full of seasons. I am not currently in the naked-at-the-Victorian-bed-and-breakfast season. Is that so hard for people to accept? The above scenario was the ONLY suggestion for romancing your husband.

    [Sigh] I hope it gets better.

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