It turns out the northeast suburbs of that city weren’t really looking for authentic, enthusiastic people from the Midwest to deliver their spirituality.  (If they were, then perhaps we were profoundly bad at marketing.)  For two years we did a lot of setting up and tearing down and talking (mostly to each other) about living this certain kind of life.  After a while, we quit.

I’ve been attending church my whole life, but in recent years I’ve not really participated in meaningful roles.  Today, I’m contemplating whether or not to help launch a new church.  I don’t know if I have the spark.  I don’t know if I care enough one way or the other.  Church is demanding and tiring.  I want to do it because there are so many churches just wasting people’s time and I want to see more that don’t.  But church work, well, I’m not that enthusiastic Jesus-loving 23 year-old anymore.  Am I still enough Christian to lead a church?  Do I believe in church? Do I think the local church is the hope of the world? Or at least some source of hope?  I think these are the first questions that need to be answered.

So the baby will be baptized at just over a year old and the big boys will be 8 and 5.  Whatever. I just want them to be fully part of our church community.  Also I get to put them in cute clothes and take pictures, and that’s always nice.

Anne, I know you don’t even get baby dedications, but you know me and my rituals.  How about other readers?  If you’re a parent, did you have your babies christened?  Is it odd that I’m waiting so late to do my kids?  Or is it odd that I even want to partake of such an old-fashioned ritual?

I think my uncomfortableness with communion goes back to my childhood.  I was raised that you had to be right with God to partake.  I struggle, so I don’t feel right.  I have been to a Disciples of Christ church where the minister said communion was a new beginning.  Each time it was admitting our weaknesses and trying to become better.  That seemed less overwhelming, and I did not feel uncomfortable there.

http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/q-r-evangelism-and-evangelists.html#more

I am pleased to report I had no instances of wanting to throw the book against the wall this week while reading Brian McLaren’s latest offering, A New Kind of Christianity. (Although I was challenged to repent of my us vs. them mentality and characterization of Calvinists—touché!)  Instead, I was inspired and reignited by McLaren’s discussion of ten questions he identifies as those perplexing many Christians today.  He asserts that the conversation we have about these issues can (and will) reshape the future of our faith and our ability to function within it with integrity.  I wholeheartedly agree.  I’m sure there will be plenty of book reviews to devour if you need to know all the details of the book before (or without) reading it.  I’ll spare you the outline, and hit a few personal highlights.

Two overarching premises that begin the book were extremely helpful to me:  1) a concise and accessible overview of Greek philosophy and a description of how its belief system has come to dominate our understanding of God and the Christian story, and 2) a plea for the image of “community library” to replace “constitution” as the dominant metaphor for our approach to reading scripture.  (I especially appreciate the articulation of this “constitutional reading” approach which I have never had adequate vocabulary for expressing.)  With these tools as a presupposition, I saw the other questions from new angles and with fresh perspective.  McLaren selectively intersperses Biblical passages and exegesis throughout, and his comments have the weight of sound study and a gentle pastoral voice.  I was particularly moved by his very simple but profound description of the purpose of the church (p. 164): “…to form Christlike people, people of Christlike love. It exists to save them from the great danger of wasting their lives, becoming something less than and other than they were intended to be, gaining the world but losing their souls.”  (In a nod to McLaren’s quest for common ground, I was struck at how similar this vision is to a call often issued from esteemed Calvinist pastor John Piper.)

I found great sensitivity and wisdom in McLaren’s exegesis of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch as a starting point for our discussions about sexuality and the sexual “other,” rather than the decontextualized verses often thrown around on this topic under a constitutional reading.  His astute insight regarding “my Father’s house” in John is also worth pondering.

There is much to like here.  More importantly, there is much to contemplate…and to act upon.  McLaren has no shortage of critics, his words continue to stir up.  I count myself among those already convinced of his vision, and I hope the reading of this book will result in more “converts” to the quest.

I have only been observing Lent for a few years now. I think I started some 5 or 6 years ago, but I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure I started even before I attended an Anglican church while living in England.  I became interested in it while reading the book Girl Meets God (recommended by our own Judith).  The girl of the book gave up reading for Lent (I’ve still never tried that one).  I was so inspired that I in turn decided to try a Lenten fast.  I think my first attempt was giving up TV.  That one was hard because my husband did not give it up with me and I didn’t want to leave the room every time he turned it on, so I ended up just leaving it off if he weren’t home and not asking for certain shows if he were home and watching.  I have also done things like give up sugar and chocolate.  For the past few years I have given up non-essential shopping every Lent.  That means I can still shop for groceries (that’s obviously essential since I have a family to feed as well as myself) and if one of my kids suddenly desperately needs something like new socks, I can get that, but otherwise no shopping.   So no browsing Amazon for books, no waltzing downtown to my favorite little boutique, no traipsing through the mall peering at clothes at The Loft or smelly stuff at Bath and Body Works.

So that’s about the giving stuff up, but as I said, I think Lent should be more than that.  It’s also about adding in more time given to spiritual disciplines, more time to think of others, more time with family.  This year I plan to try something new — something described by the priest this morning at the Ash Wednesday service I attended. He talked about how a good Lenten practice would be to look in the mirror every morning and think about the things you like about the person looking back at you, and also how to make the person in the mirror better.  He said it more eloquently, but I like the idea.  I plan to try that — a little lesson in being merciful to myself.  I have also ordered some Anglican rosary beads so when those get here I’m going to start praying the rosary — an Anglican/Episcopal version I found online.

For those who do observe, what will your Lenten practice be this year?

If I have something to say, if I really do want to put myself out there—teaching, speaking, writing, etc. then I need to be prepared for the kind of conversations (and accusations) that will surely await me.  I am not argumentative by nature, and I have many friends I care deeply about who place themselves squarely in the Reformed theology camp.  They idolize (er, admire) men who make me want to spit, curse and throw things.  Truthfully, I care mostly about this issue because it means so much to them.

But I can not reconcile their beliefs (i.e., their interpretation of Scripture) with my own interpretation, observation, tradition, and experience.  I simply can’t.  And maybe that’s just where I should respectfully leave it.

I’d love to hear some feedback on this one.

So you may have heard (well, I know Anne and Judith have heard) that I recently had a baby.  Actually he’s almost 3 months old now, so not so very recently.  Anyway, now it’s time to decide if we want to have him christened at our Episcopal church.  My husband and I are now Episcopalian, but he was raised Baptist and I was raised a weird combo of Assembly of God, Church of Christ, Baptist, etc.  So this christening/infant baptism thing is not really part of our own heritage.  In our previous churches babies are usually “dedicated” which is basically a commitment by the parents to raise their children in the faith, but there’s no baptism by water involved.  Then when a child is older he’s encouraged to “accept Jesus” and follow it up with baptism by immersion. (Click here to read a previous discussion about baby dedications.)

I’m ready enough to have the new baby baptized — and would like to have the other two thrown in for a 3-for-1 deal. I checked with our priest and he’s cool with that.  However, my husband has never warmed to the idea of infant baptism.  I haven’t pressed him much yet about this baby (planning to broach the subject next weekend when he’ll have the free time to discuss thoroughly) but I know how he felt with the last baby. To me it’s equivalent to a baby dedication (don’t tell my church — it’s probably not a good Episcopalian thing to say) and confirmation is sort of equivalent to the older child getting saved and baptized in a Baptist church.  The first (baby dedication/christening) is about the family committing to raising the child in their tradition; the second (confirmation/older baptism) is about the child embracing that tradition of their own will (though we could get into whether many children are actually doing it of their own will or just responding to parental/peer pressure).

My point? I’m not sure — just sharing a minor struggle of someone who has left one tradition for another. It’s not even like I converted from a whole other religion, but it can still be tough to decide how much to embrace the new tradition. My husband holds back a bit and is not as crazy about the new church, and I feel I can’t jump in and do something significant like this with our children without him agreeing to it as well.

Does anyone have a well-thought-out opinion about these things? Did you have your babies dedicated or christened? Is it really any big deal? Is it really a matter of salvation either way? If you’re pro-christening, how do I convince my still-somewhat Baptist husband that we should do this?

I have a lot in common with Campbell.  I grew up in small towns and in my early years attended a church of Christ.  Also, like in my family, it was her stepfather that brought the family into the church of Christ, though he seemed less committed to it than my own stepfather.  My stepdad was a school principal but he was also a church of Christ preacher–sometimes just a spare lay preacher and sometimes the only preacher, depending on the need, so he was very involved.  My mom married my stepfather when I was just 2 so I was brought into his church very young.  I was also baptized by full immersion in the church of Christ.

Throughout the early part of the book, her experiences resonated with me, reminding me of my own history.  I remember realizing I didn’t rank as high as boys not just at church but at school.  I remember declaring I wished I was a boy.  I tried to be a tomboy, though it actually didn’t come naturally.  I joined the boys at recess when they played football and my big brothers taught met to wrestle and play basketball.  I was not the athlete Campbell apparently was, but I did give it a try.  I remember being offended that if we played football in P.E. the teacher insisted it was just tag football if girls were involved (often just me) but the boys could play tackle football if I sat out.  So the boys (though good friends of mine) really preferred if I didn’t play so they could tackle.

Like Campbell I also noticed that I didn’t rank as high as the boys spiritually.  Even though (again, like her) I could beat any boy at a Bible Bowl competition and memorize scriptures like nobody’s business, my brothers were the ones asked to pray before dinner, while the girls were just expected to help make and clean up after dinner.  Men always did the speaking and the preaching at church, though at home I liked to line up my stuffed animals in rows and preach to them.

Unlike Campbell, though, my mom was not willing to stay in the church of Christ, particularly because of the fact that instrumental music was not allowed in services and my stepdad disapproved of her even playing hymns on the piano at home (though she did manage to have her own piano, at least).  To this day it surprises me that she ever attempted to join his church when she so loved to play the piano and the organ (and she can play beautifully by ear).  By the time I was around 12, we started attending other churches, thugh we remained on the fundamentalist end of the spectrum.  My mother was raised Assembly of God so I spent some time in AG churches, later we joined a church called a Christian church (actually came out of the same roots as the church of Christ but a bit more open-minded–at least allowed instruments) and finally we became Baptist (she’s still Baptist).

Still, whether church of Christ or Baptist or Assembly of God, like Campbell, I immersed myself fully in church–teaching Vacation Bible School, knocking on doors (though like her also rather reluctantly), etc.  I had a few more opportunities once we moved on to other churches.  In the christian church I was a key leader in my youth group and sang and spoke in front of the church.  In the Baptist church I sang and spoke in front of many churches on revival teams with the Baptist Student Union or during “summer missions”.  Still, we learned that there was a limit–we couldn’t be ministers–we could only “testify” at the pulpit and not “preach”.  (This is not true of every Baptist church–there are female Baptist ministers, but it’s not nationally embraced by the Southern Baptist Convention — see our previous post about Jimmy Carter.)

During college my friends and I began to question our second class citizenship within the church, just as we questioned many other things our fundamentalist friends took on simple faith.  However, unlike Campbell we remained within the church, at least a church, if not the one we grew up attending.  I have found a good home within the Episcopal church, as I’ve said before.

So, I’m rambling a bit, but basically I could relate to Campbell’s early life experiences.  It actually started to drag for me after she got out of her childhood. I never quite understood when exactly she stopped attending church. Apparently she went as far as to go to seminary before dropping out, but I don’t remember anything more specific.  Then she not only left the church of Christ but left church altogether.  Still, she talks about being “haunted by Jesus”.  She can’t quite get Christ out of her system in spite of rejecting that so long rejected her based on her gender.  She still feels she is a Christian, though she knows people from her childhood church wouldn’t recognize her as such.  I felt a little sad for her, actually.  I can’t imagine being without a church entirely, even though I’ve drifted so far from those I grew up in.  I still have that community and that identity and I don’t know if I could ever give it up, even if my doubts one day overwhelmed my faith.

Overall, this memoir touched me as the story of a kindred spirit — a woman who really wanted to embrace the faith her parents gave her, but ultimately couldn’t reconcile it with her own sense of what is right and just and true; a woman who loves and devotes herself to Jesus, only to discover later she’s embraced the wrong Jesus; a woman who discovers that the real Jesus is so much more than the one she’d first been taught to follow.