Carolyn Custis James

This week Forbes released another top 10 list based on surveys by E-Poll Market Research—this one touting (of all things) the NFL’s Most-Disliked Players and crowning Eagles’ starting quarterback, Michael Vick, as number one.

To be sure, Michael Vick has made some mistakes—some serious mistakes. Being promoted as the “next big thing” can go to the head of any young athlete. That seems to have been the case with Mr. Vick. However, I am flummoxed that after four years on the straight and narrow he would top the list of the NFL’s most disliked players.

I happen to love stories of redemption. One of the hallmarks of Christianity is the message of redemption. In the broad sense, the Bible is largely a collection of one redemptive story after another. If one gets nothing else from reading the Bible they cannot miss the overarching theme that there is always hope no matter how far a person has fallen.

Consider Judah, for example, son number four of the patriarch Jacob. According to patriarchal practices a man’s firstborn son is privileged with a double inheritance and priority in rank over younger siblings. Judah is outraged when his father Jacob flagrantly violates ancient patriarchal protocol and bypasses ten older sons in favor of Joseph, son of his second wife Rachel. Judah comes unhinged and actually sells his younger half-brother to slave traders. We call that human trafficking today.

Then there is the Apostle Paul who in his pre-apostolic days was a religious terrorist—tracking down, terrorizing, and persecuting Christians, then agreeing to their murders.

Compose a list of the “Most Disliked Men in the Bible” and Judah and Paul are both in the running—significantly outdistancing any NFL player considered by Forbes.

But God’s redemptive powers are at work in both stories, and both men make dramatic U-turns. Judah later puts his own life on the line to rescue the youngest of Jacob’s sons. Paul becomes the great apostle of the Christian gospel and will eventually suffer martyrdom in the movement he once fought to crush. The reversals are staggering, but much needed reminders that no one is beyond hope.

Redemptive powers are at work in the Michael Vick story too. Animal lovers (who presumably are well-represented among the 1,100 fans polled) may have a long memory, but the lovers of redemptive stories will find much to celebrate here.

I don’t think its overstating things to say Michael Vick’s story is possibly the most significant story playing out in the NFL today.

Naming Vick as the most disliked NFL player of 2013 serves no useful purpose and cheats us all of the kind of hope his story offers—the kind of hope we need to hear when there is so much in the news to dishearten.

Vick’s U-turn sends a message of hope to countless young men who have gotten off-track and need a story like this to remind them there is hope for them too. The beautiful father-son relationship between Vick and the highly esteemed Super Bowl winning coach, Tony Dungy, is a welcome breath of fresh air in our father-hungry culture. The Philadelphia Eagles’ offer of a second chance to a gifted athlete underscores the possibility that there can be new beginnings. With God’s help, Vick is turning his life around. Four years and counting, he is moving steadily forward.

Rather than pointing to the past, wouldn’t we all be better served to be cheering him on? For that matter, maybe Forbes could use a little redemption too—a polling U-turn by throwing out the “Most Disliked NFL Players” poll to consider polling the “Most Redemptive Stories of 2013.”

Published on the Huffington Post:  http://huff.to/18QJNSW

Every once in a while we catch a glimpse of the Blessed Alliance. This time, it comes in song and includes warrior language for the woman. This is a great reminder of what we can be to one another as brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ and what we all need.

This weekend, I’ll be Chicago for the annual Redbud Writer’s Guild retreat. I am looking forward to a weekend with great friends I’ve known for years and to making some new some new friends.

I can’t imagine anything better than spending time with this talented and highly motivated group of women. I share their passion for “The Feminine Voice” and am grateful for the ways they’re using theirs. It’s safe to say we can all expect a lot more to be coming from these gifted writers.

Then on Monday, I’ll be over at Moody Radio for a face-to-face interview to discuss Half the Church on Midday Connection with two other important feminine voices—good friends Anita Lustrea and Melinda Schmidt. I’m expecting great conversation before and after the broadcast too.

If you’re interested in tuning in, you can locate a station here.

While I’m away, I’ll be pulling for the Red Sox in the American League Division Series and keeping an eye on their progress against the Rays!  The long-standing three-for-three James Charm is on the line.

“The mindset that leadership is someone else’s responsibility means our guard is down and we may not even notice the kingdom battles God is calling us to fight.”                         

My college roommate and I were studying in our dorm room, when a girl burst through the door to alert us that someone was in trouble. We jumped up and raced down the hallway into the bathroom where a freshman was bleeding profusely from a deep laceration on her hand—not, as we first thought from a suicide attempt, but from a glass bottle that had accidentally shattered in her hand during a water-fight.

Without hesitating even for a second, I grabbed a towel, pressed it over the wound, and held her hand firmly to stop the bleeding. I didn’t release my grip on her hand until we reached the hospital.

 I don’t think she lost another drop of blood en route.

Once in the Emergency Room, however, everything changed. She wasn’t my responsibility any more. Doctors and nurses were there to take over. While she waited for the doctors to phone her parents, I sat by the bed where she lay quietly waiting and noticed that her cupped hand again began to fill with blood. As I started to feel woozy, a doctor stepped in, took one look at me, and urged a nurse to “Get her out of here!”

When God designated human beings as his image bearers, not only did he confer on us the highest possible honor as his representatives, he also placed squarely on our shoulders enormous responsibility for what goes on in his world. We are to be his eyes, his ears, his hands, his feet, his voice.

Suffering in this world is our business, and he intends for his image bearers to take action in relieving it.

As women, we are often encouraged to embrace a smaller vision of God’s calling on our lives. Much of what we are told tends to narrow our focus to our own spiritual health and making sure our personal lives are on track. Rarely is our attention drawn beyond hearth and home to consider others who are in desperate need of our care and advocacy. We draw the parameters of our responsibility far narrower than what God has in mind. Sometimes, we even embrace a notion that is utterly foreign to what it means to bear God’s image in this world, namely that responsibility for those kinds of things belongs to someone else. I was dumbfounded to hear a gifted, competent 30ish single business woman complain, “I just want someone to take care of me.”

Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to shatter our small thinking of how far our responsibilities extend. Every person in the parable—the priest, Levite, and the Samaritan—had responsibility for the injured man at the side of the road. The fact that the despised Samaritan took pity and acted completely redefines the definition of “Who is my neighbor?” as a borderless concept.

A young woman in Dallas with several of her friends read through Half the Church. She told me, when they finished reading, “We wanted to change the world.” They felt responsible to do something and they did—initiating a city-wide awareness campaign to combat sex trafficking during the 2011 Super Bowl.

I’m stunned in the difference it makes in me when I feel responsible and when I don’t. Responsibility leads to action. But when responsibility belongs to someone else, I can watch someone bleed and become a problem myself by going limp.

According to statistics, women make up at least half of the church. Think how the kingdom of God would be advanced if we took up our calling as God’s image bearers and acted on the responsibility he means for us to carry!

[Originally published in the FullFill  {Think} column and reprinted with permission here.]  

Pastor Matthew St. John

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I get all sorts of feedback from people who are reading my books. Some pretty surprising responses have come from men.

One of the earliest ones came from an elder in my church after he read my first book, When Life and Beliefs Collide. He pulled me aside and said, “I know you wrote that book for women. I didn’t read it for women. I read it for myself.”

Lately, I’ve been hearing from pastors who are using The Gospel of Ruth and Half the Church as commentaries for sermons. One pastor wrote, “The Gospel of Ruth was the best commentary on Ruth I have ever read and was used powerfully in my life by God. In fact, it’s in my book bag right now to take to my weekly prayer-and-accountability partner who asked today if he could borrow it for a week.”

Back in June I posted a sermon by Pastor David Swanson (First Presbyterian in Orlando) on the ezer titled, “More than a Helper.” If you missed it, go to “The Ezer-Warrior Message will Preach.”

The latest email came from Pastor Matthew St. John of Bethel Church in Fargo, North Dakota thanking me for my book, Half the Church, and alerting me to the fact that he was preparing a sermon series on the ezer-warrior entitled “Warrior: A Study of Biblical Womanhood.” They even produced a trailer which I posted earlier here.

Needless to say, that one made my day!

So if you’re looking for encouragement, Pastor St. John’s bold series will give you plenty.  I’ve already heard from one friend who heard the entire series and told me it brought tears to her eyes to hear a pastor preach about women like this to his congregation.

Here is the series:

Warriors: A Study of Biblical Womanhood
Warriors: To be Reckoned With
Warriors: Bearing God’s Image
Warriors: Called to Change the World

Recently Nicholas Kristof and his 15-year-old daughter hiked the spectacular 200+ mile Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon.

As an Oregonian, I couldn’t agree more with his daughter’s description of the region as “the most beautiful place in the world.”

After soaking in the wonders of creation by day and drifting asleep night after night under the open skies counting shooting stars, the awestruck NYTimes journalist wrote,

“We imbibed from glacier-fed creeks, startled elk, and dallied beside alpine meadows so dazzling that they constitute an argument for the existence of God.”

When the iconic sufferer Job was wrestling with some of the biggest questions any human being ever asks about God, God responded by taking his beleaguered child on a nature walk. This wasn’t a tactic to distract Job from his problems by changing the subject. To the contrary, God was getting straight to the very heart of the questions bothering Job.

God pointed to nature and unexpectedly turned the questioning back on Job. What Job learned from nature brought him to his knees with these words,

“You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  —Job 42:3-6

My week began by reading a blog on science by Peter Enns. “Thinking about God just makes me want to keep my mouth shut” is a mind-bending contemplation of the marvels modern science is uncovering and what those marvels are telling us about God.

Enns’ blog opened with these staggering statistics:

“Smart people tell us that the universe is about 14 billion years old and about 46 billion light years across. Light travels about 5.87 trillion miles a year (you heard me). Multiply that by 46 billion. My calculator broke. I came up with 2.70231100992E23. According to my extensive 10 second Google research, the numbers before the E are to be multiplied by 10 to the 23rd power.

I think this is what God laughing at us looks like.”

From the beginning of creation, God has revealed himself through nature. Professional theologians call this “general revelation,” and it is accessible to every human being. But please don’t mistake general revelation as “theology for dummies” or entry level theology from which we’re supposed to graduate to the more advanced courses taught in seminary classrooms and from pulpits that focus solely on the special revelation of the Scriptures. Of course, both are gifts. Both are important. And the combination of the two, well it’s simply mind-blowing.

But it’s the subject matter, not the classroom setting, that throws us into depths where we’re all in over our heads. As Dr. Enns explains,

“To take this all in, as far as I am concerned, is above our mortal pay grade. Those of us who believe this kind of God exists should feel put in our place, pretty much walking around with that ‘I can’t believe what I just saw’ look in our eye.”

So where is science taking us? Does it take us away from God and destroy our faith as some evangelicals fear? Or does it draw us to him with a force that is stronger than gravity?

Natural science compelled Nicholas Kristof to ponder the existence of God.

A nature walk took the agonized and doubting Job to a deeper realm of trust in God—within the context of unspeakable losses, unchanged circumstances, and the evils done against him.

Modern science gave a Ph.D. Old Testament professor a clearer perspective on God, himself, and life that rendered him speechless.

So for the spiritually dry, the curious, the skeptic, the struggling soul who is hungry for God, or for those who misperceive theology as a boring, dry subject—a nature walk or a science lesson may be just the thing. And maybe afterwards we’ll find ourselves on our knees, contemplating things too wonderful for words, in a awestruck humble silence, with a flagging faith in God recharged and an appetite for more.

“I’ve often wondered if our best worship leaders shouldn’t be coming from the scientific community. When scientists investigate the endless frontiers of creation — probing upward in the universe and downward into the microscopic intricacies of the atom and DNA — it makes sense that they would be the first to fall on their knees with songs of praise to the Creator, whose wisdom envisioned, planned, and created such marvels. The legendary sufferer Job wasn’t a scientist, but that’s exactly how he responded when God took him on a nature walk. Somehow, contemplating God’s creation and how beautifully it all works together under his all-seeing eye reminds us that our God is a Master Architect who knows what he is doing, even when his ways are baffling to us.”                 —Half the Church

For more, read
Thinking about God just makes me want to keep my mouth shut
Hippos and Theology

One of the biggest misperceptions of the Blessed Alliance is that it will cost men something if they make room for their sisters when it offers instead the potential for men (and women) to gain new strength in the battles God is calling them to fight.

This morning my friend Judy Nelson Lewis posted the following example on my FaceBook page—a little-known, behind-the-scenes slice of history that illustrates once again the potency of that Blessed Alliance.

“It was not going well, or at least not as well as Martin Luther King Jr. had hoped. The afternoon had been long: the crowds massed before the Lincoln Memorial were ready for some rhetorical adrenaline, some true poetry. King’s task now was to lift his speech from the ordinary to the historic, from the mundane to the sacred. He was enjoying the greatest audience of his life. Yet with the television networks broadcasting live and President Kennedy watching from the White House, King was struggling with a text that had been drafted by too many hands late the previous night at the Willard Hotel. King was on the verge of letting the hour pass him by.

Then, as on Easter morning at the tomb of the crucified Jesus, there was the sound of a woman’s voice. King had already begun to extemporize when Mahalia Jackson spoke up. ‘Tell ’em about the dream, Martin,’ said Jackson, who was standing only a few feet away. At Jackson’s remark, the preacher left his rather uninspired text — a departure that put him on a path to speaking words of American scripture, words as essential to the nation’s destiny in their way as those of Abraham Lincoln, before whose memorial King stood, and those of Thomas Jefferson, whose monument lay to the preacher’s right, toward the Potomac. The moments of ensuing oratory lifted King above the tumult of history and made him a figure of history — a ‘new founding father,’ in the apt phrase of the historian Taylor Branch.”

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”

The first time I met Brooke Sulahian, she had just finished reading Half the Sky and the problem that had gripped her soul was the nightmare of fistula.

(If you don’t know what fistula is, brace yourself and go to her website http://hopeforoursisters.org/. She’ll tell you all about it. It just may grip your soul too.)

Since that first meeting, I’ve watched Brooke go from angst to action.

First she started raising money for fistula surgeries. At last count, she and her non-profit have raised money for 154 surgeries and counting at $450 each. Next, she traveled to Angola, where she visited the fistula hospital she supports and met with doctors, staff, and fistula suffers. She just returned, even more fired up to finance more surgeries than ever.

But now she’s also talking prevention.

She wants to pull up this epidemic by the roots. She’s looking at why fistula is happening and at stopping it at the source. This, of course, moves her into the territory of child marriages, maternal health care, education for women, and women’s human rights. Her latest blog post is the source of the powerful quote above.

Since opening that “Can of Worms” of spiritual abuse, what keeps me awake at night is that “Perfect Storm” still looming on the horizon. I’m sticking by what I said in that earlier blog:

“Combine individuals possessed of authority and power (who . . . are often oblivious to their capacity for spiritual abuse) with individuals spiritually conditioned to submit to authority. Then add devotees/enablers who (out of a misguided sense of loyalty to the person in power and the desire to curry their favor) turn a blind eye to abusive behavior and may even defend it. Suddenly you have ideal conditions for spiritual abuse to bluster up and thrive unchecked. . . . No one facing a storm like this should be content with merely dealing with the damage after the fact. We need to be asking what we can do up front to see that abuse doesn’t happen.”

We can batten down the hatch, put in place all the measures we know to weather the storm, and prepare to deal with the carnage, the casualties, and the consequences afterwards. Or we can put our heads together and proactively find ways to divert that storm out to sea before it hits land.

We can move from angst to action.

I’m already brainstorming with a couple of leaders to see what can be done to prevent spiritual and other forms of abuse before they ever happen.

Dr. Phil Monroe weighs in on prevention in his post, Preventing spiritual abuse? Listen to that little voice plus…

Here are some of the questions I’m asking:

• If abusers don’t recognize themselves, how can we alert/educate leaders early to the seduction of power and hence to our own potential for abuse? We need Christian leaders who will stand up and be counted, even if it costs them.

• If the underlying belief system sets the stage for abuse, should we expand our evangelical discussions of gender, authority, and submission to include a serious consideration of the relationship between our theology and spiritual abuse? Do our theological conclusions benefit the powerful and put the powerless at risk? Are we defining our terms according to Jesus or according to human tradition?

• If abuse victims are telling themselves they’re at fault and don’t realize they’re being abused, how can we fortify them with a solid understanding of who they are in Christ and of the dignity and exceedingly high value they have as God’s image bearers? How can we equip them so that when someone bullies, or Bible thumps, or guilt trips them, or expects their unconditional submission (no matter who it is), they can tell themselves the truth? How do we help them to understand that they don’t deserve this kind of treatment, but also that the abuser is behaving badly, that this is unacceptable, and to have the spiritual strength to stand firm and speak up or walk away?

• How do we empower Christians with the courage and determination it takes to become dis-ablers of spiritual abuse? How can we raise up believers who make the powerless and oppressed their priority, who stand against injustice no matter where they find it, and who have the courage to speak truth to power?

These days I’m feeling plenty of angst. Half the Sky intensified it for me too. This blog series on spiritual abuse has deepened that angst.

I don’t want to stop with angst or be a bystander. I want to be a Dis-abler. So I’m asking you to begin taking action with me in two ways:

1. By brainstorming constructive, proactive ideas for preventing abuse in response to the questions above.
2. By signing the “Public Statement Concerning Sexual Abuse in the Church of Jesus Christ.”

This statement is one small step toward actively addressing and preventing sexual abuse. To date, including the original signers, we have little over 1600 names.

I love David and Goliath stories and believe we’re in one now. And if we have to move forward with five small stones and 1600 courageous signatures, then with God’s help we will still move forward. But here’s the sad truth. In evangelical circles, it takes a lot of noise and determination to turn things around. As we contemplate next steps, we need to make more noise than this to draw attention to this important issue.  So …

If you’ve signed the statement already, thank you for your courage and support!

If you haven’t signed, please consider adding your support to this list. Then please help us spread the word by asking your friends, colleagues, relatives, and Christian communities to join this effort.

Let’s move from angst to action!

Note Care2 PetitionSite privacy policy: “to protect the privacy of activists we cannot share contact information such as street address or email address.”

What questions are you asking? What ideas/strategies do you think will help us move forward against this crisis?

Please join in with your comments.

Here is the complete series on Spiritual Abuse:

• It all started with Lean In: Seek and Speak Your Truth 
• Part 1: This Can of Worms Must be Opened! 
• Part 2: The Perfect Storm
• Part 3: The Many Faces of Spiritual Abuse
• Part 4: Identifying the Triggers of Spiritual Abuse
• Part 5: Standing Up to Spiritual Abusers
• Part 6: The Underlying Belief System of Spiritual Abuse
• Part 7: The Enablers of Spiritual Abuse … or When Silence isn’t Golden

Dr. Phil Monroe on Spiritual Abuse:

• Spiritual Abuse: What it is and Why it Hurts
• Why Do Some Spiritual Leaders Abuse Power?
• What Factors Support the Use of Spiritual Abuse?
• Four Belief System That Support Spiritual Abuse
• Do You Enable Spiritual Abuse? 
• Failures to Act—Why we don’t always blow the whistle on abuse

Also by Frank A. James:  Structural Patriarchy’s Dilemma for Women
Mary DeMuth:  Spiritual Abuse: 10 Ways to Spot It
Rachel Held Evans:  Series on Abuse

The last time I saw Dr. Pamela Reeve was a month ago when I was in Portland visiting my mother and the two of us paid her a visit. Pam had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer, so I knew it would probably be my last chance to see her. 
 
When we arrived, despite her serious illness, she was just as engaged and engaging as ever. She wanted to hear our news and spoke excitedly about seeing Jesus very soon. From her demeanor you’d think she was sitting on a launch pad instead of propped up in a hospital bed. 

It’s fair to say, she’s been looking forward to this part of her journey for several years. I recall the sparkle in her eyes a couple of years back when she said to me, “It won’t be long now!”
 
If you’ve never heard of Pamela Reeve, you probably aren’t from the Northwest. She’s left her stamp on a lot of women (men too) in leadership from that part of the country, including me. All of us are grieving the loss of a dear friend, mentor, role model, advocate, and prayer warrior.

That’s a lot to lose in one person. Any one of us can echo the words of C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed: 

“Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left?”

Pam had an illustrious and long career (which you can read about here)—much longer than average for the simple reason that she never stopped. But more than her significant resume, her friendship, wise counsel, and unflagging support are what I’ll miss most.

She was the first person to encourage me to write. She read and celebrated each book and always wanted to know what was coming next. Trips to Portland to visit family always included a trek over to her house. Two years ago, when I was breaking the gender-barrier as the first female commencement speaker at Multnomah University, I was told that she had fallen and wouldn’t be able to attend. As we were lining up to process, there she was—in full regalia, supported by two of her fellow board members, and beaming from ear to ear. She wasn’t about to sit at home when one of her girls was breaking new ground and could use a little moral support.

During that final priceless visit, the three of us talked about a lot of deep things, and I got my final dose of her wisdom. I didn’t tell her my theory about arriving in heaven to a rowdy 9th inning walk-off-win welcome. I’m guessing she figured that out for herself.

Her memorial service was today, which she attended by way of a video message she recorded for this farewell event. That puts a whole new meaning on what it means to never stop. Even now that she’s gone, she’s still raising the bar for the rest of us.

If you’ve always wanted to take a seminary course, but have been procrastinating, you just ran out of excuses! (You know who you are.) Here’s your chance to take the plunge.

Kyuboem Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, where he lived for the first 10 years of his life. He spent the next 8 years in Nairobi, Kenya as a Missionary Kid. Then it was on to America’s evangelical heartland where he graduated from Wheaton College. During doctoral studies at Westminster Theological Seminary, Dr. Lee was introduced to the field of Urban Mission by the late, great Dr. Harvey Conn—one of the pioneers in Urban Mission. That led him to spend 7 years on the pastoral staff of an African-American church and 10 years planting an incarnational inner city church in Philadelphia. 

“Kyuboem Lee is one of the most thoughtful and engaging young scholars I have met. He understand multiculturalism because he is multicultural. This is an amazing opportunity for students to have their eyes-opened to a global perspective on vital issues so close to the heart of God as Justice and Mercy.”

—President Frank A. James, Biblical Seminary

Questions?  contact Malcolm Walls (mwalls@biblical.edu or 215.368.5000 x109)

To register go here