The second woman I encountered through the pages of her book was Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  Born in Somalia, Hirsi Ali experienced the horrors of revolution and war as a young girl.  She was the daughter of a prominent revolutionary leader and only saw him for brief periods during her childhood.  Her family’s and country’s instability resulted in moves to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, a variety of financial and educational barriers, and a strict Muslim culture always in the foreground.  When Ayaan Hirsi Ali was forced into an arranged marriage with an unknown distant cousin, she fled to and received asylum in The Netherlands.  Her book, Infidel, chronicles her story in an intimate way and recounts her budding enthusiasm for learning and Western life.  Hirsi Ali studied and graduated from University in The Netherlands, became a parliamentarian, and devotes her life to protecting and freeing women who are physically and mentally imprisoned in unloving Islamic families.  There are many challenging issues in Hirsi Ali’s story.  One, in particular, for me is her staunch belief that individual rights trump cultural ones.  Because of this driving ideology, she has found a home in more conservative political circles after becoming frustrated with the “multicultural” mindset of the liberal party.  She argues vigorously against special accommodations for conservative Muslim groups and strongly believes Muslims in the West should assimilate into Western culture.  I give her view credence because of her experiences, and they have forced me to reconsider my views on such things as the proposed burqa banning in France.

The third woman I have thought much about this summer is me.  What kind of a woman am I?  These stories call me to stand in solidarity with women worldwide.  I may never be in a position to lose my freedom or suffer at the hands of despotic governments, but as a woman, it is important for me to hold these stories of my sisters close to my heart and respond.  I’m not sure what that looks like from my quiet coffee house and uncensored internet, but I hope this is a start.  I want to start by sharing these stories…and then, perhaps, some more.

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.

Then I found this Politics Daily article (found via Episcopal Cafe) and read this:

The question for Carter — and for others who find themselves at odds with leadership — is, when a group you’re deeply involved in starts to move away from your own core beliefs, do you stay and try to change from within or, at some point, do you have to look for the exit? Carter did give the former a shot — in recent years publicly criticizing and distancing himself from church leadership, while staying involved with his church. Now, he’s seeing if absence might do what presence did not.

I knew immediately this is something we needed to discuss here, as it’s the kind of thing Lynnea, Audra, and I have discussed before–to stay or go in our conservative churches.  I went, but originally out of geography rather than because I was taking some stand.  I believe both Lynnea and Audra are still Baptists, though Lynnea is in a more moderate church.  Am I right about this?  What do you all think about leaving instead of sticking it out and changing the church from within?