Carolyn Custis James

FullFill just released their Winter issue!

Read my column, “Enlarging Our Vision,“ in the current issue to get a taste of what’s coming in Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women.

What we can do?

Talk about human trafficking in our communities and churches and ask others to educate themselves
• Invite a speaker from a local organization to talk to our group
• Read a book, hold a documentary screening, write a blog or an editorial
• Use Google alerts to send news about trafficking and slavery to your email

Tell our legislators to take action
• Write our legislators

Get involved with a local organization
• Support, volunteer for, or spread the word about a local organization
• Donate or fund raise to ensure the work continues

Other ideas?

More and more Capitol Hill lawmakers are commuting to Washington instead of moving their wives and families to DC. Besides the obvious strain on family and relationships, not to mention cases of infidelity, what fascinates me is that, believe it or not, leaving spouses and family behind is impacting bipartisan efforts in Washington, and not for good.

NPR’s The Takeaway ran an interesting report on this trend, which actually isn’t new, but has historic roots.

http://www.thetakeaway.org/media/audioplayer/takeaway_player.swf

Lisa Miller’s Newsweek article that prompted this interview is:  The Commuter Congress

Yet another piece of evidence that men and women need each other. It seems a Blessed Alliance in the marriages of our leaders might make things work better in our government.

Your thoughts?

Here are three of the endorsements that are coming in for my new book—Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women (due out in March).

There are more to come!

“Carolyn Custis James has written an unusual and compelling book, mixing her personal story with the dramatic changes in today’s world and her thoughtful interpretations of the scriptures and how women can respond with greater fervor to the Bible’s call for change and betterment of the world.”

“Carolyn Custis James expertly weaves contemporary reality with biblical story. Reaching into the Old Testament as well as the New, Carolyn, shows that God has always been and continues to be at work through women and girls. They are, like men and boys, His image bearers. This book should open the eyes of everyone who takes Jesus seriously to the horrendous injustices against women around the world and provoke within us a serious drive to do something about it. The day is near (and I believe this book will help usher it in) when the Church will be a significant cultural catalyst for bringing equality and dignity to women and girls around the world by providing education, empowering women with microloans, and liberating them from oppressive regimes, sex trafficking circles, and secular philosophies that are ultimately degrading to them. It is time for the other half of the church, men, to be strong and courageous and do all we can with all we have to bring divine freedom to women and girls so they can be all that God created them to be.”

This is a first for me!  Singer/songwriter, Caroline Cobb, says she was inspired by The Gospel of Ruth to translate Ruth’s story into song. How cool is that?!  You can listen to her demo here:   Where You Go

Today, I received hard evidence that the soft cover version of The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules is in print when UPS delivered my advance copy. 

If you think you’ve already heard all there is to say about the book of Ruth, think again!  That’s what I thought, until I started hearing what Old Testament scholars were uncovering as they continued to dig in this ancient book. Believe me, this is not the Ruth, Naomi, or Boaz we’ve always known. And all three of them have been short-changed by traditional interpretations.

Here’s what I wrote in the preface:

“For a long, long time we’ve all been looking at the lives of Naomi and Ruth (as well as other women in the Bible) through the wrong end of the telescope.  Their lives have all too often been diminished in size, noticeably small next to the larger lives of the men in their stories. This has influenced how we see ourselves. Even when Ruth does something remarkable and brave, evangelicals have tended to turn her story in to a romance and Boaz into the hero who comes to her rescue.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

I never will forget the day someone turned the telescope around for me and I saw Naomi and Ruth in truer perspective.  I wept to think of how much more I could have (should have) done and was indeed called by God to do with my life.  Life-sized at last, Ruth became for me the most powerful and challenging role model I’ve yet to encounter in the Bible.

—The Gospel of Ruth

The official release date (at least on Amazon) is January 18.  If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you will! There’s also a Kindle edition.

2010 has been a losing year for the Dallas Cowboys. Except for pitifully rare winning moments, the Cowboys have landed in the losing column most of the time this seasons. Die-hard fans like my husband Frank find that painful to watch.

So, after hearing Frank’s groans all season after another interception, fumble, or penalty added to the Cowboys’ mounting collection of misses, imagine my surprise when the first ornament to go on our tree this year was Frank’s Dallas Cowboys blue ornament. He put it there . . . in a prominent spot! No losing streak (not even the lure of the local winning Patriots) can persuade Frank to give up on America’s Team.

The refusal to give up is one of the strongest and most surprising messages that comes to us every Christmas season, whether we’re wrapping up a year of losses or wins. Yet, in all the hubbub and glitz of the holidays, that message can be easy to miss.

I’ve spent the better part of 2010 working on a book that submerged me in appalling accounts of the oppression and atrocities against women globally. I must admit that as I worked late into the night many times I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the crisis, by the power of darkness, and by the unspeakable levels of suffering.

Lausanne’s Cape Town 2010 put names and faces on suffering and injustice for me. I’m still feeling the weight of the stories I heard—stories of incomprehensible evil. One man from Rwanda lost five beloved family members and seventy members of his church in the genocide. Another African suffered a brutal beating at the hands of a mob of young Muslims. One woman’s husband was murdered. 

As devastating as it was for me to hear these stories, what gripped me more was hearing how each of these deeply wounded believers—after long agonizing wrestlings with God and with their own outraged sense of injustice—turned back to their oppressors and enemies with forgiveness and moved toward reconciliation. I hardly have categories for that kind of Gospel-living. But believe me, it left me with the conviction that we are part of something that is far more potent than anything the powers of darkness can pose. And that gives me hope.

Christmas—once we sift through all the trappings and get to the heart of it—reminds us that God doesn’t give up either. He’s still firmly determined to see his original vision for the world he loves become reality. A daring rescue operation is underway that is sure to succeed. It started with a young teenage ezer and a baby. Talk about an undercover operation! We should be celebrating year round.

There’s more good news, for God hasn’t given up on us either, nor will he. He is at work in our generation to cause his glory—his own likeness—to shine most brightly from the lives and relationships and actions of his image bearers. He’s mobilizing his sons and daughters to live and bear a robust gospel of word and deed on on his behalf in this broken world. I saw that glory shining in the lives of people I met in South Africa. They aren’t giving up, and we shouldn’t either!

In a few days, the Christmas tree will come down. And when it does, Frank’s Dallas Cowboys ornament will go back in the box. Another year lies before us. May the lingering power of Christmas fill our hearts with bold hope as we head into 2011 and let us join ourselves to the kingdom work God is calling us to do.

In the bleak midwinter, icy wind may blow,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow on snow had fallen, snow on snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long and long ago.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim rising in the air;
Oh but only Mary, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a mother’s kiss.

Heaven cannot hold Him, nor can earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall fall away when He comes to reign.

What then can I give Him, empty as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would know my part;
What then can I give Him: I must give my heart.

Every book I’ve written so far has taken on a life of its own. Half the Church is no exception. Initially, I wanted to put in a single volume what I’ve learned so far about the Bible’s message for women—Image Bearer, ezer-warrior, and Blessed Alliance. But I soon learned there is more to say about these rich life-changing concepts.

This was only the beginning.

The book expanded into an exploration of that message within a wider global context. It has been eye-opening for me. A global perspective is missing from our conversations and when included changes everything!

I’m also responding to the challenge Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof leveled at the church in Half the Sky for us to mobilize in combating and relieving the suffering and oppression of women worldwide. This challenge is central to our gospel mission.

My editor (Katya Covrett of Zondervan) described the book as, “A blazing call to action!”

Release is scheduled for March 2011, but you can order in advance on Amazon (hardcover or Kindle)!

I don’t use the word “miracle” loosely, but the description fits the story of this video.

Before Lausanne, I contact Elke Werner (Marburg, Germany), Lausanne Senior Associate for Women in Evangelism, to find out what was being done to champion women who are serving globally in a variety of ministries and how I might help.

I never dreamed where this would lead.

Elke serves as Lausanne Senior Associate for Women in Evangelism. She was putting together a DVD of resources to distribute at the Lausanne Women’s Cafe. She planned to distribute 4000 copies. Elke was also given a plenary spot to highlight the importance of women and men serving God together and also to draw attention to the current global crisis involving the suffering and oppression of women as presented in works like Half the Sky. I offered to help.

One idea I suggested was a video to unpack for women the Lausanne call: The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World!. I thought she might use it during her plenary presentation. That’s when I learned she only had 8 minutes (!) to present and couldn’t spare a second. I decided to pursue the video anyway for the DVD and, with support from the Synergy board, drafted a script and sent it to Nate Clarke of Fourth Line Films. Nate took my ideas to the next level and did a masterful job of translating ideas and words visually.

When I sent the video to Elke, this is the email message that came back:

I am so happy with your video! When I saw the three minutes on women I started to cry. I was so moved! What a great piece of art!

This weekend I will have to finish to work on my talk. And I decided to use the video for the first three minutes. It contains exactly what I had planned to say in the first three minutes (I timed my words and it was exactly three minutes I had planned to talk about women in need) and now I am so glad that I can rather “show” the audience what I want to say then just say it. I can build wonderfully on the content of the video and I am so thrilled about it!

Carolyn, words cannot say how grateful I am to you and to Synergy!!! What a great help, a wonderful working of the Spirit, a testimony on what partnerships can achieve. Again and again: Thank you!

The video went on the DVDs and for the plenary was translated into eight languages. It was shown Saturday during the Lausanne General Session and also on Lausanne’s Global Links around the world! I told you it was a miracle!

Saturday morning at Lausanne I was a bundle of nerves, partly from empathy for Elke who was about to address the entire gathering of 4500 delegates and partly in anticipation of the Synergy video.

Since Lausanne, I’ve begun hearing how the video is being used in other contexts: an international ministry to Muslim women and at U.S. women’s conferences.

At Synergy, we pray that the video will be widely used to mobilize women for the whole gospel and raise the alarm over what is happening to women worldwide.

You can be sure we’ll be showing it at Synergy2011!