Is There Still Room for A Thinking Christian?

How to Think As A Christian...
A Slippery Slope … or A Two Way Street?

http://musingsonscience.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/a-slippery-slope-or-a-two-way-street/#more-741

by rjs5

posted July 21, 2011

I am still in the throes of paper writing, proposal writing, and travel … so haven’t had time to get back to Joel Green or C. John Collins. These will come, both Green’s chapter on resurrection and Collins on Adam and Eve. Today though I would like to pose a question – with a link and quote from Roger Olson’s blog. On a recent post Dr. Olson wrote about a letter he received from one who had read his book Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology.

This letter was a note of thanks for the influence the book had on the writer.

In his post about this letter Dr. Olson asks Do people ever go from liberal to evangelical? At one level the answer of course is yes – we all know people who came to faith, and did so from more liberal backgrounds. A better question might be this – can one raised or trained in conservative theology, even fundamentalism, find faith and peace when they begin to ask questions, explore options and look with open eyes? Again the answer is yes … but it isn’t always easy. Different people take different paths. Some find a conservative faith most convincing. Others don’t.

A comment on a recent post I wish I hadn’t said that tells a far too common story.

• I used to be a Christian. First evangelical Baptist, then liberal Mennonite. Now happily atheist / naturalist / humanist (pick a label).

• I remember thinking, very explicitly, when I was 15 (I’d just read something by Josh McDowell or Lee Strobel), that I knew too much not to be a Christian. In retrospect, that thought is very funny to me.

• I also had a pastor who said “follow the evidence wherever it leads.” I did.

I will return to Dr. Olson’s post and the letter he received below, but the question I would like to focus on today is the difference between the experience of the the commenter above and the letter writer.

What can be done to change this kind of story – or make it less frequent?

What can the church do? Where do we fail?

Follow the evidence wherever it leads is dangerous advice, without competent guides and thoughtful community. We are not meant to stand or reason alone. Joel Green in exploring the relationship between the Bible, neuroscience and conversion notes that relationships and community are important in moral formation and transformation. These relationships and interactions shape who we are and help form us a Christians. It isn’t the power of God and of the Spirit OR community but the power of God and the Holy Spirit through and in Christian community.

The young man who wrote to Dr. Olson found his faith fading as he read liberal theology such as “Tillich, Bultmann, Hick”, and the gospels with these new insights and ideas. But people and community made a difference.

It was after this I had a most marvellous evening at my cell group: the curate … introduced me to the work of two people who would go on to change my spiritual life, who I thank God for every day. The first was Rob Bell: in watching the Nooma DVD ‘Sunday’ (go to link: http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/10/rob-bell-nooma-004-sunday.html), I felt a strange sense of life, that there WAS hope for Evangelicalism still.

After talking to the curate about this video, about how impressed I was, he went into his study and brought out a semi-slim book: Reformed and Always Reforming. … Nonetheless, something stirred within me – it was as if I could be an Evangelical AND STILL be an imaginative thinker; I had a brief image of what it may be to truly be theologically Evangelical, and yet not ignore the insights of all the thinkers I was reading.

Many of us can tell stories similar to this. I’ve never really read Tillich, Bultmann or Hick (I don’t even know who the last is) … the threat was never liberal theology, which holds no appeal for me. Rather the threat was a path more like our commenter above, either find a way to be a thinking evangelical in the fold of orthodox faith or become agnostic with presumption of atheism. I have found a breadth of Christian thinkers who have been a continuing influence. N.T. Wright, Larry Hurtado, Robert Weber and more – thinkers who may not fall within the bounds of some definition of conservative theology, but are orthodox, faithful, and intent on following God. Sometimes I find myself on a more conservative side, sometimes a bit more liberal, but always learning and facing the questions.

Scot [McKnight] linked to an article yesterday that described Josh McDowell’s fears about the internet. His fears are not totally unfounded. The internet can provide both information and community – and the community can be relentlessly skeptical. Ridicule is a powerful tool, freely used. Who really wants to be backward, ignorant, described as less intelligent and superstitious?

The solution, though, isn’t to eliminate the internet or the increasing interconnection and information it provides. As though we could. The solution, I think, is to model thinking and conversation in community. As we teach and disciple Christians we need to teach them how to think as Christians, not what to think as Christians. This is uncomfortable though. It takes time and work. Small group Bible studies, integration into service in the social structure of the church, and an attractive worship service with an inspirational sermon won’t do it.

What or who has helped you on your journey? What advice would you give?

How can the church create a community of growth and support?


If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net
If you have comments please visit A Slippery Slope … or A Two Way Street? at Jesus Creed.

What Threatens the Church? Part 2/2

Tribalism Old and New?

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/07/25/tribalism-old-and-new/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

July 25, 2011

A few days back Andrew Perriman’s blog drew my attention to James K. A. Smith’s complaints about the state of theology nowadays.

Here’s the heart of his assessment:

It just seems to me that we have increasing “balkanization,” with everyone carving themselves up into smaller and smaller tribish enclaves, and then proceeding to both rail against straw men and preach to their own little choirs. In some ways, I think this is an effect of the loss of confessional and denominational identity. Instead of training to be Reformed theologians or Roman Catholic theologians or Lutheran theologians we have a generation who are training to become “ecclesiocentric” theologians or “apocalyptic” theologians or “radically orthodox” theologians, etc.

I cannot help but think that Smith’s assessment boils down to this: “People aren’t playing by the rules of the game that I learned when I learned theology, therefore their game is wrong.”

I find more than a little irony in the idea that a Protestant theologian wants people to get out of their “tribish enclaves” and return to their denominations.

News flash! Denominations are tribish enclaves!

Worse, denominations are ghettos. They are places where people become socialized to a certain way of thinking, a certain way of viewing the world, a certain way of articulating their theology, a certain way of paying their dues so as to ascend to positions of influence and power.

One of the ironies of Smith’s post is that he is writing in response to a graduate student who is upset about the ways that theological labels prevent conversation: if you like person x or don’t like person y, you are automatically celebrated or, as often, persona non grata.

News flash! This is exactly what happens in ecclesial worlds defined by a strong denominational identity. That “thick” theology, as Smith calls is, is nothing less than a thick door that enables us to keep out people who disagree with us. All you have to do is say, “Luther” or “Calvin” or “Barth” or whomever, and we know, without ever having touched the book, that they are to be celebrated or, as often, he is persona non grata.

Deep commitment to denominational identity and being a “churchman” does not produce better theology. It produces a more controllable tribe–one that can be policed by church bureaucracies, one that can be guarded by limiting ordination or snubbing theologians for academic posts should they associate too closely with those “others.”

I do understand the pull and strength of denominational identity. I’ve been there.

But the reason there are so many new tribes is at least threefold, it seems to me:

(1) a new generation is recognizing that those old fault lines are bad ways of splitting up the church;

(2) we recognize that people with whom we differ on “traditional” points of doctrine are nonetheless people with whom we share greater affinity about things that are much more important to the life of the church than what we think about church government or predestination; and,

(3) we see the less-than-Christian dynamics that control the power politics of our denominations and we’re over it.

There is nothing lost, and an infinite amount to be gained by the erosion of denominational identity.

What the power brokers and gatekeepers will continue to see as a fracturing and weakening of the church will continue, for new generations, to prove itself as the only strong and viable way forward.

My own field, biblical studies, is so strong in part because we do not divide and discuss based on theological identities that bind the hands of our exegesis and blind the eyes of our hermeneutics.

Allow the old tribes and their hundreds-of-years-old divisions to die.

Then come, open up your Bible and read with me. And take the bread with me. And sing to God with me. And theologize with me while we serve our One Lord together.

Ed. Note: I know that at this point you probably think JRDK has nothing good to say about denominations and that nobody should be in one. Tomorrow we will revisit the issue and work through why denominations have value for the church and even, at times, for the Kingdom of God.

What Threatens the Church? Part 1/2

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/07/23/what-threatens-the-chuch/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

July 23, 2011

In the wake of the Rob Bell controversy, his editor at HarperOne, Mickey Maudlin, wrote a reflection on what transpired.

Bell wrote a book many disagreed with, and the disagreement immediately was charged with words like “Heresy,” and was roundly condemned in many circles.

Maudlin points out how blithely the notion of heresy was invoked:

Why would leaders attack as a threat and an enemy someone who shares their views of Scripture, Jesus, and the Trinity? What prevented leaders from saying, “Thanks, Rob, interesting views, but here is where we disagree”?

What list of theological beliefs must be fully checked off before someone can be embraced as brother or sister even if we disagree about other important issues?

Maudlin sees in this reaction itself the true threat to evangelicalism. The threat to the evangelical church’s life is not creeping liberalism. The true threat is tribalism.

But now I think the biggest threat is Christian tribalism, where God’s interests are reduced to and measured by those sharing your history, tradition, and beliefs, and where one needs an “enemy” in order for you to feel “right with God.” Such is the challenge facing the church today and what the reaction to Love Wins reveals.

Or, in the words of Paul, “If you bit and devour one another, take care or you might just consume one another.”

I think Maudlin is on to something. At some basic level we have gotten our story wrong. We have begun to act as though the way that we know we’re faithful to Jesus is if we condemn anyone who seems to be tearing down the walls of the theological circle that inscribes the faithful.

But there is no such wall.

Falling within a theological border is not, has never been, can can never be, the means by which the faithful followers of Jesus are demarcated.

The first-century church had to painfully wrestle through the reality that Jesus came to break down the dividing wall of hostility that was Israel’s Law. It seems that we must come to terms with a Jesus who breaks down the dividing wall of hostility that is Christian Theology.

If we don’t, we may find ourselves in the very position of Paul’s opponents in Galatia, compelling others to become like us if they would be marked as part of the people of God–and thus as agents of nothing less than anti-gospel.

The Fourfold Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

http://sacredpauses.com/2008/05/closing-prayer-the-fourfold-franciscan-blessing/

Jesus Was Not a “Biblical Christian”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2011/07/19/jesus-was-not-a-biblical-christian/

by Tony Jones

on July 19, 2011

Today on Twitter, Chris Blackstone went out on a limb and said that persons who practice polyamory (participation in multiple and simultaneous loving or sexual relationships) are not Christians. When I pressed him about what he meant, he said that they may be “self-identified Xians (Christians), but def not Biblical Xians.”

Well, that got me thinking. Of course, the phrase “biblical Christian” does not occur in the Bible. Indeed, the word “biblical” does not occur therein.

Then I searched the database at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, which is the largest treasury of Christian documents that I know. I searched the phrase “biblical Christian,” and guess when the first use of that phrase took place:

Augustine?

No!

Aquinas?

No!

Luther?

No!

Adolf Wuttke?

Ding, ding, ding, ding!

That’s right, in Adolf Wuttke’s 1874 volume, Christian Ethics, he writes,

Although the scientific treatment of the subject-matter of ethics in the earlier and (in the main) Biblical moralists of the nineteenth century, may be regarded as relatively feeble, yet they have this not to be despised significancy, that in an age almost entirely estranged from Biblical Christianity they kept alive the consciousness of this estrangement, and faithfully held fast to the indestructible bases of Christian Ethics.

A couple decades later, Adolf von Harnack’s 1896 book, The History of Dogma, Volume III is the second CCEL use of the phrase “biblical Christianity,” in this sentence:

Not to speak of its uncultured adherents, the earliest literary defenders of Modalism were markedly monotheistic, and had a real interest in Biblical Christianity.

A Google Books search shows that there are other, earlier uses, like in the the Baptist Record and Biblical Respository, which exhorts, “A true Biblical Christian must be a true Biblical student.” “Biblical Christians,” the Record goes on to despair, “are scarce.” Indeed.

But, as the CCEL search attests, using the word “biblical” as a qualifier of “Christian” or “Christianity” was unknown prior to the 19th century. As I’ve argued elsewhere, it was only in the modern era, after the Enlightenment, that words like “truth” began taking qualifiers. Same goes for “Christian.”

And, of course, it’s well known that Jesus was not a Christian, and certainly not a biblical one. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if we were to ask Jesus’ opponents, one of their main criticisms of him would have been, “He’s not a biblical Jew!” For Jesus, as we know, fulfilled the Law — and in a way that was most unexpected to his peers. They didn’t read the Torah and the Prophets the same way that he did — or Paul did, for that matter. Questions of interpretation divided Jesus and the Jews, and they sadly divide us today.

But I submit to Chris Blackstone, there’s no difference between a Christian and a biblical Christian. Saying that someone is a “biblical Christian” is tantamount to saying that they believe in “true truth.”

142 Days Homeless with God

The End.
http://makeitmad.com/2011/07/20/the-end/

by Max Andrew Dubinsky

July 20, 2011

142 days ago I hit the road. I was homeless. I was an orphan. I left Los Angeles in search of faith in America. In search of God in the streets instead of the church on a Sunday morning.

“Why do you think we are reluctant to fear God?” Dave asked two weeks before I was scheduled to leave. I sat back in my chair, a room full of young faces engaged in a Bible study looking back and forth at each other for the answer.

I responded. “I’m reluctant to fear God because I do not know God.” This was not so much a statement as it was a world-wrecking fact. Suddenly it was all so clear. Oh shit. Maybe I’m no going to Heaven after all…I grew up in the church. I’ve been saved three times. I serve at my local church. I give money to the homeless when I have a spare dollar. I attend Bible studies. I lift my hands in the air during worship. How do I not know God?

142 days ago the only God I knew resided inside the four walls of the sanctuary. The God I knew was safe, kind, and only present on Sundays.

“Do you realize what you are doing here?” Mel asked. I was on my way out. Church was over. I needed to catch the bus. But Mel had heard what I was doing. That I was going in search of faith in America. Believing God was calling me across the country on March 1st even though I had no computer, no money, and no car. “You’re being the very faith that you’re going in search of.” She reached out, touched my arm, and smiled.

“I don’t think God is going to give you a car until March 1st,” Christina said. I was sweating this whole thing because I was leaving in less than a week, and I’ve never been great at distinguishing between God’s voice and my own raging inner monologue. I still had no wheels. “God doesn’t give us anything before we actually need it. If He said you were supposed to leave March 1st, then who is to say someone won’t slam on their brakes when you step outside that morning, get out of their car, and hand you the keys?”

I got the car the night before I left. I failed my smog test, couldn’t get it registered, and two hours later the battery died. The next day on the road, my car broke down in the middle of the desert four hours into the trip.

Without missing a beat, I got out and started walking.

It wasn’t until later that night when I finally arrived at my campsite at the Grand Canyon, and saw it was buried 9 feet deep in snow that I realized God was letting these attacks happen not because I wasn’t supposed to go, but because He just wanted to see how far I was willing to take this thing with Him.

Over the last 142 days I have traveled 12,560 miles.

That’s 426 cups of coffee.

279 fast food meals.

36 tanks of gas.

35 different cities.

24 different beds.

8 different couches.

6 motel rooms.

4 air mattresses.

3 breakdowns: 1 car, 2 mental.

2 life-changing God encounters.

And 1 love story.

I spent my first few weeks on the road aimless and without purpose. I desperately wanted to work for God. What exactly was I searching for again? Was I supposed to give a dollar to every homeless man? Preach the Gospel to everyone I meet? Or just look good in my boots and new jacket?

I looked in the mirror. I began to hate what I saw.

Until a woman named Amanda in Florida told me, “I speak to myself the way God would speak to me. When I look in the mirror and don’t like what I see, would God tell me that I’m ugly or fat? No, he’d tell me that I’m beautiful. Because I am. I am beautiful.”

Until Nick in Spokane said to me, “Max, maybe this trip isn’t about you. What if God sent you across the country to change the life of one man? One individual who might never know God if you didn’t cross paths with him. Or to simply bring someone back to Him? I like to think the God we serve is just big enough to orchestrate that.”

It was time to stop working for God, and to start working with Him.

A few weeks later I paced out front of Barnes and Noble, and called a close friend and mentor of mine back in LA. I’d met someone. And I’d fallen in love. This might slow the trip down. She was beautiful. Smart. Hilarious. She spoke to my potential, and was crazy in love with Jesus. I wanted her to come with me. “Lauren is coming with me on the road,” I said to Steven. “We are getting a lot of heat for being two single Christians traveling together. What am I supposed to do?”

“What are you trying to do?” Steven asked. “Are you trying to gain readers and please everyone? Or are you trying to lead a charge?”

Are you leading a charge today? Or trying to make everyone around you feel comfortable?

This world needs shaken. It’s time to turn this place upside down.

In Tampa, sitting outside in the thick, Florida air, Amanda took a final drag on her cigarette. She had finished telling me stories of addiction and sacrifice. Stories about a woman who has died twice and is still here to talk about it. “I finally fear God,” she said. “So now I am finally getting to know Him.”

142 days later.

I’m 7 days away from my return to LA.

“It’s time to give the people the ending they deserve.”

I’ve driven though the ghettos of Chicago. The canyons in Utah. The mountains of Denver. I’ve hung out with the homeless in Savannah. I’ve seen tornado damage, and spoken to cancer victims and survivors.

And I’ve been questioned about the God I serve. I’ve been asked if there is a Hell and if Heaven is a real place. And how can a God who loves us let such tragedies befall us.

God never promised to reveal why there is so much suffering in the world. He never promised to reveal why things happen. So stop looking for answers and satisfaction. The world is so eager to say, “See! You’re wrong! God doesn’t care. Otherwise He would have prevented this!”

Yet by saying there is evil in the world, we claim there is a moral giver.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked. “Spirits? Demons?”

“We’ve had to perform exorcisms before,” Alexa said sitting on the steps of the State Capital building in South Carolina. “Cast out demons. Whatever”

“If there’s evil in this world, that means there’s got to be some good lurking around here somewhere, right? Otherwise, what’s the point of evil?”

And there is also life. There is so much life out here.

But we get so consumed with ourselves that the moment we believe God has failed us individually, we believe he has failed us all.

If God doesn’t exist for me, He doesn’t exist for you either.

You lose your faith because you are only looking for it in your life.

Today I can tell you this: Even when I feel as though God has failed me, I know He has not failed the world.

We would never lose our faith again if we took the time to see it in everyone else’s life.

Alexa looked at me and smiled. “It’s time to go home, Max. I saw it the moment you walked in that you were done and tired. You could have gone home the first week you were on the road. What you said changed my life all the way over here on the edge of the east coast. Go be with Lauren. She’s been patient enough. Go home. Get some rest. It’s time for the next adventure.”

I pulled the car over on the side of the road. I opened the passenger door and got down on my knee. I kissed Lauren and told her, “3/4 of our relationship has been in this car. We’ve laughed and cried in here. We’ve fought in here, and rejoiced in here. We’ve shared secrets and retold stories. We’ve fallen in love in here.” I pulled out a ring. “So it seems only appropriate that I ask you to marry me in here too.”

The next adventure…

It’s hard sometimes. Living on the road. Some days feel more like running than living. It’s hard to wake up and it’s hard to go to sleep. I desperately want my own four walls. To sleep in a bed that belongs to me. I want to step into a familiar shower. Some days I feel so lost because I don’t have a home.

“But look around you,” the father of the family I was having dinner with in Texas said. “You say that you’re homeless. Look at how you have spent the last 6 months. You have created a home everywhere you have been. You now live in a community that stretches all across America. You have so many people who are for you. And a God who has never left you.”

The father looked at us from his end of the table and smiled. “No. You’re not an orphan. Not anymore.”

Follow me on Twitter so you don’t miss my next adventure — > @maxdubinsky

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Is Motherhood the Highest Honor?

The Barbs Hidden in Honorifics
http://www.lauraziesel.com/2011/07/barbs-hidden-in-honorifics.html

Laura Ziesel
Sunday, July 17, 2011

photo © 2003 Paul Lim | more info (via: Wylio)Since I have been on a journey of exploring what the Bible has to say about women and womanhood for the past two years, there is one assumption that has always perturbed me: The highest calling of any woman is to be a mother. This statement has not perturbed me because I desire to be childless, but because I believe this statement is both untrue and hurtful to women without children. It is untrue because I believe the highest calling of any woman is to be like Christ, to be His ambassador in a hurting and broken world. And it is hurtful because God does not call all women to motherhood, and when we artificially elevate motherhood, we imply that women who are not mothers have a lower status in their lives and calling. A woman who is not a mother is not any less of a woman simply because she has not been pregnant, given birth, breastfed, or mothered her own children.

But unintentionally hurting people when attempting to bring honor to other people turns out to be rather common. Regardless of the inherent truth in a statement, we must begin to think of the hidden barbs in our words of honor.

For instance, I honestly cannot think of life without my husband. He is my best friend and an amazing life partner. But when I say things honoring my husband or marriage at large, my words can implicitly dishonor singleness. How many times have you heard a sermon containing a line like, "No greater opportunity for sanctification will present itself than your marriage"? While I agree that marriage is a great opportunity for sanctification, we must remember that God does not grant everyone this opportunity, and their opportunities for sanctification are just as noble and glorifying to God. Single people often sit silently when marriage is elevated above singleness, being wounded and alienated from community.

The same is true for the attempts we make at congratulations or well-wishes. When a woman is pregnant or gives birth, many people say, "As long as it's a healthy baby..." But have you thought about how that makes parents of children with illnesses and disabilities feel? Does that mean that we do not want unhealthy babies? Similarly, when honoring our men and women in uniform, do our words imply dishonor to those who are not in the armed services? Or perhaps the most common in some ministry circles: Do our words praising pastors and missionaries wound those who God has called to be engineers, teachers, or chefs?

I know that thinking about all of the people we can possibly wound with our words is exhausting. We should not stop honoring marriage, motherhood, military service, or vocational ministry. But perhaps we can make attempts to honor singleness, childlessness, civilian life, or secular vocation in a balanced way? The pulpit might be a great place to start doing this. Since we usually hear a Mother's Day sermon and a Father's Day sermon, can we hear at least two sermons a year on the beauty and value of serving those outside our biological family? And perhaps your church can host a conference for single adults, divorced adults, or single parents every once in awhile in addition to the annual marriage conference. Let's get creative.

I'm not asking for perfection. All I'm asking is that we think about what we say before we say it and what we do before we do it. Our words and actions carry many meanings, and we should pay better attention to them.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Have you ever been unintentionally hurt by words that were meant to praise someone else? How did you deal with this? How can we, as the offended parties, deal with these situations appropriately? And how might we, the unintentional offenders, learn to love and honor all the members of God's family?

World's Most Dangerous Countries for Women

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/07/worlds_most_dangerous_countrie.html

July 20, 2011

Targeted violence against females, dismal healthcare and desperate poverty make Afghanistan the world's most dangerous country in which to be born a woman, with Congo a close second due to horrific levels of rape. Pakistan, India and Somalia ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the global survey of perceptions of threats ranging from domestic abuse and economic discrimination to female foeticide (the destruction of a fetus in the uterus), genital mutilation and acid attack. A survey compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation to mark the launch of TrustLaw Woman*, puts Afghanistan at the top of the list of the most dangerous places in the world for women. TrustLaw asked 213 gender experts from five contents to rank countries by overall perceptions of danger as well as by six categories of risk. The risks consisted of health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking. The collection of images that follow were provided by Reuters to illustrate the dangers women face in those 5 countries. -- Paula Nelson(*TrustLaw Woman is a website aimed at providing free legal advice for women’s' groups around the world.) (37 photos total)

Women in Afghanistan have a near total lack of economic rights, rendering it a severe threat to its female inhabitants. An Afghan soldier uses a wooden stick to maintain order among women waiting for humanitarian aid at a World Food Programme WFP distribution point in the city of Kabul, December 14, 2001. The U.N. (WFP) started its biggest ever food distribution in the Afghan capital, handing out sacks of wheat to more than three-quarters of the war-ravaged city's population. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

2

Continuing conflict, NATO airstrikes and cultural practices combine to make Afghanistan a very dangerous place to be a woman," says Antonella Notari, head of Women Change Makers, a group that supports women social entrepreneurs around the world. A woman walks past riot police outside a gathering in Kabul's stadium, February 23, 2007. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

Warning:
This image contains graphic
or objectionable content

click here to view it.

3

A victim is taken away from the site of a bomb blast in Kabul, December 15, 2009. At least four civilians were killed by the suicide car bomb outside a hotel used by foreigners in Kabul's main diplomatic area and across the street from the home of a former vice president. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

4

An Afghan woman checks on her daughter in a hospital in Charikar city, May 11, 2009. Nearly 50 Afghan teenagers were in the hospital after a mystery gas attack on a girls' school in the northern town of Charikar, the second mass poisoning of female students in a month. Attacks on girls schools have increased, particularly in the east and south of the country. A year prior, a group of schoolgirls in Kandahar had acid thrown in their faces by men who objected to them attending school. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters) #

5

The near total lack of economic rights render Afghanistan a threat to its female inhabitants. Women beg on a road as snow falls in Kabul, January 13, 2009. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

6

"In Afghanistan, women have a one in 11 chance of dying in childbirth." Afghan mothers visit a health clinic in Eshkashem district of Badakhshan province, northeast of Kabul, April 23, 2008. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

7

Shamsia, 17, a victim of an acid attack by the Taliban, lies in a hospital in Kabul, November 15, 2008. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters) #

8

The relative of an Afghan prisoner cries outside Pul-i-Charkhi prison on the eastern outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, February 28, 2006. A siege at Pul-i-Charkhi, Afghanistan's biggest prison, entered a fourth day but the government expressed hope for a peaceful resolution to a bloody revolt by hundreds of inmates. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

9

Women who venture into non-traditional roles, they are often threatened or killed. A damaged campaign poster for a female Afghan candidate for Parliament on a wall in Herat, western Afghanistan, September 8, 2010. (Raheb Homavandi/Reuters) #

10

An Afghan woman wearing a traditional Burqa walks on the side of a road as a Northern Alliance APC, (Armoured Personnel Carrier) carrying fighters and the Afghan flag, drives to a new position in the outskirts of Jabal us Seraj, some 60kms north of the Afghan capital Kabul, November 4, 2001. The Northern Alliance, a mix of mostly ethnic Uzbek and Tajik fighters in the north, is viewed with suspicion and enmity by ethnic Pashtuns, who operate in other areas. (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters) #

11

Afghan women wait for their turn at a World Food Program (WFP) distribution centre in Kabul, February 10, 2011. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

12

An Afghan girl touches her mother's artificial leg at the ICRC Ali Abad Orthopaedic centre in Kabul, November 12, 2009. The centre, which is run mostly by disabled people, aims to educate and rehabilitate landmine victims and people with any kind of deformities, to help them integrate effectively into society. They also provide the patients with a 18-months interest free $600 micro credit loan. (Jerry Lampen/Reuters) #

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An Afghan mother holds her child as she visits a health clinic in Eshkashem district of Badakhshan province, northeast of Kabul, April 23, 2008. Women die in childbirth every day in Afghanistan, a country with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

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A veiled Afghan woman waits with her son, whose legs have been amputated, for alms on a street in Kabul, August 4, 2008. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters) #

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Women who do attempt to speak out or take on public roles that challenge the ingrained gender stereotypes of what is acceptable for women to do or not, such as working as a policewoman or news broadcaster, are often intimidated or killed. A woman attends an event to discuss the presidential candidates in Kabul, August 11, 2009. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) #

16

The staggering levels of sexual violence in the lawless east of the DRC account for its ranking as the second most dangerous place for women. One recent US study claimed that more than 400,000 women are raped there each year. The UN has called the Congo the rape capital of the world. A woman who has recently undergone surgery rests at the general hospital at Dungu in northeastern Congo, February 17, 2009. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) #

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"Rights activists say militia groups and soldiers target all ages, including girls as young as three and elderly women", according to the survey. "They are gang-raped, raped with bayonets and some have guns shot into their vaginas," the report continues. People flee after renewed fighting erupting around Kibati village, November 7, 2008. Fighting between rebels and government troops flared in east Congo, and African leaders called for an immediate ceasefire to end a conflict the U.N. said could engulf the country's Great Lakes region. (Stringer/Reuters) #

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A mother breastfeeds her two malnourished infants at a Catholic mission feeding center in rebel-held Rutshuru, 70 km (50 miles) north of Goma in eastern Congo, November 13, 2008. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) #

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A woman displaced by war prays during a Sunday service in an outdoor church at the Don Bosco center in Goma in eastern Congo, November 23, 2008. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) #

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A woman displaced by war lies in a tent with her child at a makeshift camp in Kibati near Goma in eastern Congo, February 13, 2009. Congo's military claimed more than 40 Rwandan Hutu rebels had died in an air raid, as the 3-week-old joint Congolese-Rwandan offensive sparked rebel reprisals. A rights group said rebels had killed 100 villagers. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) #

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Women from a church choir sit on benches upon the lava floe from a 2002 eruption in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, August 14, 2010. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) #

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A government soldier carries her infant on her back at Mushake in eastern Congo, January 26, 2009. Congolese Hutu rebels had clashed for the first time with a Rwandan-Congolese force deployed to crush them. Civilians expressed fears they would be caught up in the violence. (Alissa Everett/Reuters) #

23

War-displaced Helene Namikano, 71, Rebecca Martha Kanigi, 75, Venancia Ndamkunzi, 65, and Atia Egenia Mobato, 74, sit together on the steps of a building in the village of Mugunga, just west of the eastern Congolese city of Goma, August 24, 2010. All four women have repeatedly fled fighting in North Kivu province over the past four years despite efforts to bring peace to Democratic Republic of Congo. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) #

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A dying Rwandan woman tries breastfeeding her child next to hundreds of corpses waiting to be buried at a mass grave near the Munigi refugee camp, 20 km north of Goma. Thousands of refugees were succumbing to cholera or dehydration, July 23, 1994. (Corinne Dufka/Reuters) #

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Pakistan is ranked third on the basis of cultural, tribal and religious practices harmful to women. "These include acid attacks, child and forced marriage and punishment or retribution by stoning or other physical abuse." A woman is comforted by her mother while waiting for a medical check-up at a hospital in the Swat region, located in Pakistan's restive North Western Frontier Province, March 21, 2010. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters) #

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Daughters of a Pakistani Christian woman, Asia Bibi, pose with an image of their mother while standing outside their residence in Sheikhupura in Pakistan's Punjab Province, November 13, 2010. Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of four, has been sentenced to death for blasphemy. (Adrees Latif/Reuters) #

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Mukhtaran Mai gives an interview at a school in Meerwala, located in the Muzaffargarh District of Pakistan's central Punjab province, April 22, 2011. Mai, a Pakistani victim of a village council-sanctioned gang-rape became a symbol of the country's oppressed women. (Stringer/Reuters) #

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"Pakistan has some of the highest rates of dowry murder, so called honor killings and early marriage." According to Pakistan's human rights commission, as many as 1,000 women and girls die in honor killings annually. School children sing Pakistan's national anthem during a rehearsal at the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, in Karachi, August 13, 2009, ahead of Independence Day. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters) #

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India is the fourth most dangerous country. "India's central bureau of investigation estimated that in 2009 about 90% of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40% were children." A woman weeps as she sits outside her house after police arrested her male family members at Bhatta Parsaul village in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, May 8, 2011. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters) #

30

Women laborers work in an onion field in Pimpalgaon, about 215 km (133 miles) north of Mumbai, January 23, 2011. Onions are base ingredients for almost all Indian dishes. Soaring prices of the vegetable have helped dislodge Indian state governments in the past, and rising food costs often spark street protests in a country where over 40 percent of the 1.2 billion population lives on under $1.25 per day. (Danish Siddiqui/Reuters) #

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Forced marriage and forced labour trafficking add to the dangers for women. "Up to 50 million girls are thought to be 'missing' over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide," the UN population fund says, because parents prefer to have young boys rather than girls. A veiled Muslim woman holds a placard during a protest in New Delhi, May 16, 2007. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters) #

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A woman carries empty pitchers as another fills a pitcher with drinking water from the dried-up Banas river at Sukhpur village, north of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, May 12, 2011. (Amit Dave/Reuters) #

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A woman laborer walks past a residential estate under construction in Kolkata, January 25, 2011. (Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters) #

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Somalia, a state in political disintegration, suffers high levels of maternal martality, rape, female genital mutilation and limited access to education and healthcare. Somali refugees, having arrived at the Dagahaley camp, assemble a makeshift shelter, in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, April 3, 2011. (Thomas Mukoya/Reuters) #

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"Rape cases happen on a daily basis, and female genital mutilation being done to every single girl in Somalia. Add to that famine and drought. Add to that the fighting which means you can die any minute, any day." Mogadishu residents carry a woman wounded in fighting between African Union peacekeepers and Islamist forces in the Somali capital, October 28, 2009. (Feisal Omar/Reuters) #

36

A civilian pushes a woman on a handcart as they flee from renewed clashes in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, July 19, 2010. (Feisal Omar/Reuters) #

37

The most dangerous thing a woman in Somalia can do is to become pregnant. When a woman becomes pregnant her life is 50-50 because there is no antenatal care at all. There are no hospitals, no healthcare, no nothing." A woman holds her malnourished child at the Banaadir Hospital in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, May 5, 2009. (Ismail Taxta/Reuters) #

Crippling lies and “tennis shoes” of truth

http://moonchild11.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/crippling-lies-and-tennis-shoes-of-truth/

Posted by moonchild11
20WednesdayJul 2011


I recall vividly the first time I tried to leave my abusive relationship with my first boyfriend.

We were driving home from church and I broke up with him in the car. He became angry, threatening to drive the car off the road and kill us both. So I did the logical thing and climbed out of the car at the next stop light.

I started to run away. I was sure I could out-run him and somehow find my way home once I had lost him…

But I was wearing high heeled shoes.

That made things difficult. I thought of taking them off and running barefoot, but the sidewalk was, as is typical of Metro Detroit sidewalks, freckled with broken glass.

I felt crippled.

My abuser easily caught up with me, picked me up, thew me over his shoulder, and carried me back to the car, reclaiming his property.

I hadn’t been able to escape that day, because, in a literal sense, I hadn’t been standing on equal ground with my abuser.

And I stayed with him for another two months, because I wasn’t standing on equal ground with my abuser in a metaphorical sense.

I grew up in a church and Christian school that taught me some unhealthy things about what it meant to be a woman. And my perceived definition of womanhood was, like my high heels, crippling.

I had learned that, as a lowly female, I was nothing without a man. I could not give anything to the world. I could only receive. I could not have a voice. I could only ask a man to speak for me. I could not stand up for myself. I could only submit to male leadership. Even my goals and dreams needed a man, because, as my church and school constantly reminded me, my “highest calling” as a woman was to be a wife and mother.

And I couldn’t find a better man. I had already given my body to my abuser (not to mention, I had been sexually abused as a child. My abuser was constantly reminding me of how “merciful” he was for being with me, even though I was “damaged goods”). And I had learned that a woman’s greatest gift is her virginity. Without that, I was a used toothbrush. A crashed car. Who would want me? No, I thought I had gotten the only man that my used body could afford.

In order to escape that relationship, I had to take off the lies, the metaphorical high heeled shoes that were keeping me from being on equal ground with my abuser. I had to put on some (pardon the cheesiness) tennis shoes of truth.

I have my mother to thank for my freedom.

I remember once my father saying, “If you get yourself knocked up, you have to marry the guy!” Crippling lies.

My mother refuted his suggestion, confidently and forcefully reminding me that no mistake I could make should make me the property of a man. Tennis shoes of truth.

A Sunday School teacher told me not to go to college. He told me that if my career goals distracted from my desire to be a housewife and mother, they were evil. Crippling lies.

My mother, upon hearing about this, reminded me that (as much as she wanted to be a grandmother) I was under no obligation to have a husband or children. And that, even if I decided to have children, I could still be whatever I wanted to be. I could be a mother AND a doctor, or a lawyer, or a college professor. Tennis shoes of truth.

I escaped my abusive relationship, not only because I found another opportunity to run (and that time I had tennis shoes on!), but because I had finally learned that I had some thing to run to.

Without the lies and shoes that were crippling me, I could finally face life without the man that I thought I needed. I no longer had to cling to my abuser like a crutch. And once I could stand on equal ground with him, I could hope for a fulfilling life without him.