PARSE regular Mandy Smith brings her wisdom to our site again, this time with a three-dimensional musing on a paradigm and a parable. – Paul
Last week, someone asked me if I thought Christians should call themselves feminists. In responding to the question, I realized how much—in areas far beyond that question—I work within the world's conceptual frameworks.
Asking, "Should a Christian call her/himself a feminist?" makes a dynamic life trajectory into a flat, either/or choice. It oversimplifies a complex issue to a point on a spectrum that most people percieve as between Dyed-in the-Wool-Feminist and Feminism-is-a-Dirty-Word-Non-Feminist.
Spectrums like that are limited, two-dimensional planes where we can only slide to one end or the other. They're places to plot ourselves within a linear order. Like in the two-dimensional world of the novel, Flatland, where every shape looks like a line, sometimes, in our world, every charged issue looks like a line. It's important for Christians to engage the issues that seem pressing but could we bring more to such conversations than just a familiar point along the same old scale?
Playing pipes, singing dirges
In Luke 7:31-35 Jesus says,
"To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:
'We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.'
For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is proved right by all her children."
In short, he's saying, "You tried to force us to play the game your way. We didn't fit into your preconceived ideas of what people from God would be like so you rejected us as people from God. No matter what we did you weren't happy because you wanted us to fit into your expectations." These people around Jesus had pure truth standing in front of them but they were too caught up in their preconceived spectrum to see him. God walked among them, but in their false question they missed the fullness of his reality. They confused knowledge for wisdom. Their knowledge got in the way of wisdom.
Jesus wasn't limited to propositional truths. Through him we have access to a fuller truth—the kind that is light and grace and freedom; truth that expresses itself in beauty, in listening, in sacrifice, in openness.
Real wisdom recognizes truth beyond the simplistic, and it knows how to respond. Scripture and the Spirit give us access to that truth, that kind of truth that goes beyond propositional statements. Jesus wasn't limited to propositional truths. Through him we have access to a fuller truth—the kind that is light and grace and freedom; truth that expresses itself in beauty, in listening, in sacrifice, in openness. That kind of truth reveals itself in ideas lived out, (which is why he talks about wisdom in this passage).
How would engagement with that kind of truth bring that kind of freshness to our engagement with the world?
Blowing up the spectrum
I'm encouraged to see Christians wrestling with the important issues of our time. Sometimes we engage by researching how to defend our own end of the spectrum. Sometimes we're genuinely interacting with other parts of the spectrum to stretch our own approach. But rarely do I see Christians blowing up the paradigm of the entire spectrum like Jesus does here. Usually the important conversations revolve around whether we should be "for" or "against" a given hot-button topic. But how much, when we take that approach, are we working within the world's broken framework? How often are we playing pipes and singing dirges, forcing truth to dance to our thin tune?
Throughout his ministry, many people approached Jesus with those kinds of questions ("Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor . . . or not?"), but every time, instead of answering according to their preconceived spectrum, he blew up the paradigm. He wasn't being evasive. He was expanding a two-dimensional framework.
Counter-culture categories
What if we were so immersed in God's deeper kind of truth that the very way that the world categorizes issues began to look strange?
Often we think that to be counter-cultural, we just have to land on the less-popular part of the spectrum. But what if we were so immersed in God's deeper kind of truth that the very way that the world categorizes issues began to look strange? Could immersion in God help us discern his truth? Could it not only explode our own response to the big questions, but also give us something new to bring to the way the world sees? Instead of being seen as the belligerent ones, Christians could be seen as the ones who see with fresh eyes, who bring new insights.
I don't see all Christians doing this. But all the people I've seen do best it are Christians. They have a strong sense of their own identity—which gives them security to step outside of too-narrow frameworks. They see a larger reality, which they pull into our world with simple questions. With a few words, a two dimensional plane can explode into a multi-faceted place; more complex but also more beautiful and expansive; more challenging and freeing than ever before.
There are several pressing cultural issues that I would love to have a simple response to. But I don't. Sometimes, I have a feeling that the answer to one question will be another question, exposing assumptions, widening our view. Revealing the heart of God for his creation.
I suspect that for many issues, true insight, the wisdom of Jesus, comes from stepping out of the way the world thinks altogether.
A leader's usual reaction when faced with challenging issues, is to read more, talk more, take in more opinions; either to decide their position or justify it. Ironically, this is rarely counter-cultural. I suspect that for many issues, true insight, the wisdom of Jesus, comes from stepping out of the way the world thinks altogether.
It seems counter-intuitive to disengage right when a big question comes our way. But if knowing deep truth is our best hope for blowing up the spectrum, for injecting light and grace into the hot topics, then being absorbed in the deep truth of Jesus is our best hope of a new perspective.
Those of us who believe that the world needs truth may not find it in new arguments or old propositions, but in finding a way to live so fully in the truth that our speech and lives are a doorway to a world of new dimensions.
Dancing to a different tune
I'm a woman leading a church. I desire to see all people have opportunities to live fully as God intended and for us to work out ways to elevate each other's needs. So I'm interested in women's rights, and grateful for the hard work of the women's movement. Both because I'm a woman, and because I see deep inequalities in the world. But does my desire to see all women treated with respect also mean that I have to demand my own rights?
What if we could work, and even suffer, for the rights of others without concern for our own? What if I, as a privileged, Western woman, were willing to work to raise up a poor, underprivileged woman while, at the same time, not feeling I have to fight for my own interests? What if we stripped off the political baggage and could divorce women's rights from left or right ends of the political spectrum? What if it became about so much more than life or choice? What if it was about elevating our sisters so that they could live in the fullness of the life that their Father had created for them? And what if it leaked over into longing for this kind of restoration of all human beings, regardless of gender?
So am I a "feminist?" I don't like the question.
I'd really like to dance to a different tune.
Mandy Smith serves as lead pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is the author of Making a Mess and Meeting God: Unruly Ideas and Everyday Experiments for Worship.
