women

I won’t be passive about the evil destroying women and children

by Sheila Dougal
greyscale photo of woman sitting on chair
Photo by Daryl Wilkerson Jr on Pexels.com

First I want to confess, I’m a coward by nature. I, like Pilate, avoid conflict, washing my hands of decisions that might cost me peace. Without the reigns of the Spirit of Jesus in my life, I would trot off down the path of keeping peace, shutting my mouth. I would disguise my passivity, hoping it would come off as piety- seeing both sides of an issue- yet never taking a stand.  That said, I am my mother’s daughter, and when I smell injustice I want to hunt down the predator and rescue the prey from his mouth.  But most of the time this fierceness gets stamped out by the part of me that doesn’t want to deal with the damage my truth-telling might cause- mostly I don’t want to be cut off, or cast out.  This putrid, passive stance would be me without Jesus every day.  But I’m not without him. He exposed me with his words, rescued me with his line in the sand, calling me daughter.  He’s been making me brave ever since, trading my peace-keeping comfort-lust for peace-making confrontation-in-love.

Taking up your cross and following Jesus is not a self-flagellating quality that proves your worth. Taking up your cross and following Jesus is what the Bible Project call, “the way of the exile.” It’s a practice of what they call subversive hope, where by both speaking boldly and serving self-sacrificially, a Christian exposes evil and suffers the pain of another’s sin and judgement.

So I need to take up a cross and say something: Deliberately destroying the life of an unborn human being is evil.  Saying that, I hear my friends and my passionately-left, now-with-Jesus grandma’s argument that the evil done to women is too great and that if someone has to die, it shouldn’t be the woman or girl.  I see both sides. I can’t help it. The self-preserving nature in me would see both perspectives and say nothing. But Jesus, who said to the woman at the well, “You’re right. You’ve had 5 husbands and the man you’re with now isn’t your husband,” and then offered her his life, won’t let me be silent about the evil destroying women and their children.

The argument that Pro-Life anti-abortionists are hypocrites because they don’t do anything but protest abortion and make women in vulnerable positions feel condemned is an attempt at diversion. In a tweet thread I read today (can’t remember who wrote it) the writer pointed out that just because a person stands openly against abortion and for the life of the unborn doesn’t mean they are not doing their part to support women and girls in crisis with unwanted pregnancies. It doesn’t mean they aren’t for life-preserving sacrifices for the elderly, the disabled, the immigrant, the poor and the marginalized.

The argument that women in crisis shouldn’t have to go through the torment of pregnancy and child-rearing or the torture of giving their child up for adoption comes down to a belief about suffering and human worth. If you believe that the woman’s life or quality of life is more valuable than the unborn child’s life or quality of life then you believe the child should suffer the death required to keep the mother alive and well. But if you believe that someone is going to have to die in this sin-bearing relationship of mother to child, and you believe it should be the strong who lays down their life for the weak, then the mother should be the one to suffer the daily death and maybe even the ultimate death to give a child life.

Giving life to another always involves some dying to self. It’s just the way life works. Even seeds have to die for plants to be born.

I’m reading the Dignity Revolution right now (finally). Last night I read this:

“…I wonder, had I been a German Christian, living under the rule of the Third Reich, would I have possessed the unyielding conviction to resist the pressure to conform, to see the Jews as less than human? Would I have had the courage to step forward and affirm in my actions the dignity of those being sent off to their deaths, even at a high cost to my own privilege?” (Chapter 2)

It’s easy to look back on the Holocaust and be aghast at the atrocities, condemning those who were explicit, implicit and passive in the evil done to Jews. It’s so obvious. How could they have thought it justifiable? The same way we do.

One day, just as Karen Swallow Prior wrote at Vox, posterity will look back on me, on us, and be appalled at the evil we perpetuated, justified or did nothing to speak against or stop.  As I live in the presence of the One who laid down his life for me, I cannot be silent.

Today, I saw a clip from a PBS documentary on elective abortion.  In the short clip, a woman early in her pregnancy with twins took the first of the two medications that would kill her unborn babies. And she knew it. And at the end of the clip she said, “What I hope I feel, is a sense of peace, not only with myself and the decision that I’ve made, but also a sense of peace with these two beings that I’ve chosen not to bring into the world. Thank you for choosing me. And I’m honored to be given this gift of life. And also I can’t do it right now. I can’t accept that mantle in terms of the other lives that I’m taking care of and I’m responsible for.”

Life is always born out of someone else’s sacrifice, someone else’s sort of death.  Confusion breeds evil. This woman’s confusion about where life comes from, and who should die has her believing the evil that says, “Life. You can take it or leave it. It doesn’t have to cost you anything.” But the truth is all life is born at the tearing, the bleeding, the breaking, the dying of one for another.

I hear the critics of my convictions about abortion crying foul and I am listening. I’m examining myself. I’m asking what I can do to apply my belief about suffering and sacrifice and life and human worth to all human beings, no matter their sexual orientation, color of skin, immigration status, age, religion, income or addictions. I believe I should die. I should lay down my life. I should be willing to suffer so that others might live. I believe husbands should do this for their wives, and leaders should do this for their followers and mothers should do this for their children, and Christians should do this for their neighbors.  All of them.

Thoughts on late term abortion from a labor and delivery nurse perspective

by Sheila Dougal
grayscale photography of woman holding ultrasound photo
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

It’s hard for me to remain calm while thinking about the insanity behind bills like the ones in Virginia and New York that seek to make normal and acceptable the act of ending the life of a late-term, pre-born human baby; and in the Virginia case, a newborn infant.  But I’m going to try to remain calm and hopefully speak some reason into the insanity from my perspective as a nurse who has worked in labor and delivery.

When I became a nurse 18 years ago I worked in a labor and delivery unit in a large county and small town in Southwest Oregon.  During my 4 years there I saw early and late gestation fetal demise (the death of an unborn child early and late in the pregnancy), full-term seemingly healthy infants die in resuscitation, deliveries of infants with serious health problems and still birth.  I also witnessed many healthy, normal deliveries.  In some of those situations when the mother’s health was at serious risk, we delivered them of their babies, often premature and then we took every measure possible to save their babies lives. Sometimes the babies lived. Sometimes they did not.  In some cases the mother had to endure the pain of labor or the pain of surgery with the torture of grieving the unexpected death of their child.  In other cases mothers experienced the pain of labor or surgery with the joy of a new life, which would soon be mixed with the pain of healing and long-sleepless nights followed by a life of self-sacrifice to raise the child.

I have read through some of the arguments of  women I respect about why they think these late-term abortion laws are needed.  The argument about women having the right to do with their body what they want without government interference I’m not going to address here except to say, I agree. It’s your body and you should have the right to care for it without interference from the government. But when you cross over from caring for your body to harming another body that’s a whole other argument. The human growing in a woman’s womb is not her body. She may not want that human growing in her body. But it’s not her body. But I digress. What I want to address here are the two arguments I keep hearing that pull at our heart strings and should be wisely considered.

It’s Not Fair to Make a Woman Suffer When Her Baby Will Die Anyway

What about the woman who’s infant is severely deformed and will die as soon as he/she is delivered?  Why should the woman have to go through the suffering and dangers of pregnancy and delivery?

When you’re in the last trimester of pregnancy, there is no way around the pain and suffering your body is going to have to endure. For that matter, no matter the stage of pregnancy, even if you miscarry (spontaneously abort) at an early gestation, you’re body is going to go through some pain and healing.  If you delivery your baby and he or she is dead or dies soon after birth or even days or weeks after birth, you’re going to suffer. Your body is going to hurt and have to heal. You’re going to go through the stages of grief and face the demons that want to destroy every postpartum woman.  And if you elect to abort, you’re going to suffer. Your body is going to hurt and have to go through the healing process. You’re going to have to deal with the emotional trauma of the death of your baby and the decision you have made.

I believe delivering a pre-term infant that is putting the health of a mom at serious risk or the election to deliver a severly deformed infant pre-term who will not survive a normal labor and delivery at full term is physically and emotionally the healthiest way to walk through the pain and suffering of death and birth together. There’s no need for an abortion. When the oath, “do no harm” is taken, the life of the mother and the child are upheld. There will be pain and delivery and death. When harm is elected as the only option to uphold one life over another, there will still be pain and delivery and death, but with the added torture of being put in a position where people think you shouldn’t grieve because you chose to have an abortion.

My point is, when it comes to pregnancy and abortion, delivering the woman of a child, whether wanted or not will come with pain and suffering, and aborting a child will also inflict upon the woman pain and suffering. Choosing to abort your late-term baby does not delivery you of pain or suffering. I believe we honor the necessary grieving process and the image of God in both the woman and the baby human when we deliver a woman of her child, not abort her child.

The Pro-Life People Are Hypocrites

What about the hypocrisy of those who say they are fighting for the rights of the unborn but then neglect to provide for the needs of unwanted children and mothers and father’s struggling under the weight of raising children?

People who make this argument as a justification for abortion are rightly inditing pro-lifers, but they’re crossing wires. It’s hypocrisy and a shame that people will march and be filled with vitriol over abortion but do nothing to care for unwanted children.

I recently wrote a post about how even the unwillingness some of us have to lower ourselves to teach children the gospel exposes our hypocrisy in our pro-life stance. But the fact that so many among the religious right, or conservative Christians fail to do what they are commanded by God to do: care for orphans and welcome children…all children, does not mean women should be empowered to end the life of their unborn child.

The blood of many of these children may very well be on the hands of us who have done nothing to care for the children lost in the foster care system and the mothers and children living in poverty and without the gospel and love of the church.  But that evil does not justify the evil of abortion.

My perspective as a labor and delivery nurse comes from a Christian ethic which says all people are created in the image of God.  That means the unborn, the severely deformed, the grieving and guilty mother, the single-mom, the teenager who’s grown up in foster care, the disabled, the foreigner, the abortionists. This ethic means I must repent of and call out the evil we do that does not reflect the image of God. It means I must take up my cross and follow Jesus in laying down my life for women and children, whether they’ve had abortions, disabilities, been abandoned, or are just tired of the daily pains and sufferings of raising children.  It means I must be willing to suffer along side those who are suffering. It means I don’t counter evil with evil, but overcome evil by doing good.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit,[g] serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:9-21

 

My heart for Kids Ministry and Senior Saints

by Sheila Dougal

Taking up the role of leading the kids ministry at my church was not something on my radar of plans for the future. But the push of the Spirit in my life over the past year or so has been to stop holding on to what God has so graciously poured into me, and start using those gifts and callings to serve others.

Last night I had a speech prepared to deliver to the group of families who came to our first Kids Ministry Parents, Kids and Volunteer Get Together. Although I’m trusting what needed to be said was said and God will continue to be gracious and use my weakness to accomplish his will, looking back over my notes, there was a lot I didn’t say. So I thought I’d share it here. It’s sort of a testimony of my own call out of comfort-lust to life by faith in Christ. And it is a call for others to join me in leaving self-made comfort for the joy of walking wherever Jesus leads.

I have been married for 25 years to my husband James and have two sons, Connor 15 and Ryland 14. I’m a nurse. And my home life is not Pinterest worthy. I love quiet and enjoy writing. I’m an introvert, so the small-talk of Sunday mornings and the business of reaching out to people to cast vision and hear their stories and expend energy bearing the burdens of others who’s lives are at least as messy as mine, is Jesus at work in my life.

Without Jesus, I wouldn’t love God or people. I love my own peace and comfort more than I love others.

Without Jesus I might be nice to people I really hate so as not to disturb my own comfort but I wouldn’t really love them.

Without Jesus I might be a philanthropist, giving tokens to people in need to increase my own comfort and protect myself from my need for Jesus, but I would never lay down my life for them.

Without Jesus I wouldn’t really love my husband or children- I’d do whatever I had to do to protect my comfort.

But Jesus has destroyed my illusion of self-made comfort. He’s led me out here to scary places where people and their problems are, but also where faith in him is.

There’s two main ways I see that Jesus has done this in my life: through his word and his people- especially older people.

Over the years God has used the Bible and older women in my life to help me hear and see this Jesus I have never seen or heard.  Reading my Bible and asking it questions, praying for answers, regurgitating what I’ve read with others and praying even more has given me an appetite for the things of God and an ear to hear what he sounds like. And it’s been the church, especially older women in the church, who have come along side me in my day-to-day life and helped me see what Jesus looks like. These older women discipled me and what they’ve poured into me is a treasure I want to pour out on others.

It’s my prayer that as we at Valley Life Church seek to make disciples, and help parents raise kids who love Jesus, God would use his word and his people to draw us out of self-protecting comfort into living by faith more and more.

Our mission at Valley Life Church Surprise in Kids Ministry is: Help parents raise kids who love Jesus. And if you notice, that means kids ministry is really parent ministry. Yes we teach kids for an hour or two on Sunday, but that is just a tiny piece of the mission we have. And the way God has laid out for us to help parents raise kids who love Jesus is by the older folks, as Deuteronomy 6:6 says, having God’s message on their hearts, and by those older folks teaching the younger folks the things God has said and done.

In Deuteronomy, Moses told the adults in Israel to love God with all their hearts and teach their kids what God had done for them and to show them his ways. He told them basically, “Hey, you have seen what God has done for you! This new generation has not. You must tell them!”

The psalmist in Psalm 71 cried to God to strengthen him so he could tell a coming generation the wonders of all God had done.

Jesus told us to let the children come to him and to welcome them in his name.

Paul, in the letter to Titus told the “older” men and women in the church to teach the younger how to follow Jesus and love their spouses and kids.

And so this is central to my main focus this year for kids ministry: That in 2019 we would help parents raise kids who love Jesus not just on Sunday, but by forming relationships of older to younger and welcoming each other into our lives throughout the week.

There is a group of senior adults at Valley Life Church who would tell the younger parents they attribute all of their hope to the grace poured out on them through Christ. They would come along side these parents and encourage them, pray with them, give them wisdom and good counsel and just be there for them. And we need them!

I have had the great privilege of having older women in my life over the years and I know God used them to help me endure living by faith. It’s my prayer that the younger families at Valley Life Church will connect with these folks. They won’t regret it.

Our mission- help parents raise kids who love Jesus- if you notice is really parent ministry. Yes we teach kids for an hour or two on Sunday, but that is just a tiny piece of the mission we have.

All this was on my heart last night as I stood before volunteers, my community group of older adults, noisy toddlers and their parents trying to look at me and listen while keeping their little one’s safe. And it’s on my heart this morning as I leave for work with the geriatric population laying beds at the hospital. It’s a prayer resounding in my heart constantly these days, that God would raise up the senior saints in his church to turn and tell the coming generation His mighty deeds; and that the young families in our churches would turn and listen to the silver-headed folks in their churches and communities who have a testimony of God’s faithfulness we need to hear.

The Older Woman

by Sheila Dougal
person in red coat sitting on gang chair
Photo by Martin Pu00e9chy on Pexels.com

You walked ahead
not knowing I was
thirty years behind.

I was nineteen
putting on a ring
promising till death.

You were forty-one
walking through the
valley of the shadow
ahead of me.

Three decades later
a block apart
our boundaries and times
cross providentially.

Silver hair ahead
of my fading blonde
bent over with tears
we cry together.

We bend holding
hand in wrinkled hand
breathing prayers
and petitions.

Kindred hearts
two souls bound by
the One who holds
our times in his hand.

Sexism, objectification of women and enabling abuse is not just an SBC problem

by Sheila Dougal
woman looking holding while holding head with left hand
Photo by Austin Guevara on Pexels.com

The problem of sexism and enabling abuse is not only a Southern Baptist Church problem.  It’s a culture problem. I don’t know Paige Patterson.  I’ve only been acquainted with the Southern Baptist Convention and a member of a Southern Baptist church (that I love) for about a year.  I didn’t grow up in a Baptist church culture.  But the expose of Paige Patterson’s thoughts on the Biblical response to a woman in an abusive marriage, as well as his lewd comments about a teenage girl, is not new to me in the church.

I grew up in an ultra conservative church where an emphasis about women and their roles in life were often taught.  As other denominations season their beliefs with the spice of certain doctrines, the church I grew up in smothered just about everything they taught with the doctrine of a woman’s submission. As a girl, I was taught varying degrees of the following:

  1. Women are to be quiet, as in, no standing in front of the congregation and speaking at all.
  2. Women are to be submissive. Not just to their husbands. To all men.
  3. Women should not work outside their homes.
  4. Women are to be modest, which specifically means no shorts above the knees, no bathing suites, no cleavage showing, no form fitting clothing period.

The point I want to make is, growing up in an ultra-conservative church setting, abuse, sexism and objectification of women happened, and was not dealt with justly. I believe these things happened because the church I grew up in had a culture that was heavy on teaching what women should do but was silent about what men should do and turned a blind eye to men who failed to love their wives like Christ loved the church. It was not a Baptist church, but in the church culture I was raised, women were for men not equal with men.

It’s this kind of culture in a church that allows abuse and an anti-biblical view of women to grow and give birth to ugly sins like the ones we’ve seen in the #ChurchToo stories and Paige Patterson’s line of thinking. The kind of culture that breeds abuse and colors sexism as Biblical is what Jesus called, “the leaven of the Pharisees.” (Matthew 16:6)

Paige Patterson’s jesting-approval of a boy’s characterization of a teenage girl as “built” is the fruit of a self-indulgent, blind double-standard. His advice to a woman in an abusive marriage that guards his interpretation of divorce laws but abandons helping her find safety and legal protection is the fruit of the sinful culture that had spread through religious and political leaders of Jesus’ day. The culture of the Pharisees was one that clung to the letter of God’s law, was blind to their failure to uphold it themselves, laid heavy burdens on others to do what they failed to do and was as powerless as a dead man in a white-washed tomb to live out the first two commandments, which Jesus said were the most important.

Jesus had harsh words for the Pharisees who’s culture was a perfect medium for the spread and growth of the sin among them.  Read Matthew 23 and let your jaw drop. Here’s a sample:

‘Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. ‘ Matthew 23:1-4,25-26

I wonder if Jesus were standing before many men in the conservative church today he would have some “Woe’s!” for them. I think he does. I think he is standing before them.  He’s in his daughters standing before them saying something like what many women from the SBC said in a letter to the SBC trustees and like Beth Moore wrote in her letter to her brothers.

The same culture among the Pharisees that said you should tithe from your spices but divorced their wives because they tired of them, neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness, is the culture among some men in the conservative evangelical church that lays heavy burdens of submission to husbands on wives and neglects to do justly, love mercy and show faithfulness to God’s daughters delivering them out of abusive marriages. The culture among men in the church who justify their pornography use, use women’s bodies for their pleasure and then blame them for being too seductive looking, is the culture among the Pharisees that was blind to their own guilt when they threw a woman caught in adultery at Jesus’ feet citing adultery laws.

Jesus embodied what it looks like when we take God’s commands seriously and live mercifully.  It looks like the perfect combination of grace and truth that set Jesus apart so powerfully from every other man. In us it won’t look so perfect.  In us it should look like grace, truth and lots of repentance. Just as Jesus’ finger in the dirt drew lines that caused guilty Pharisees to drop stones, it’s Jesus who exposes men in the church and calls them to see their blindness and repent.  It’s inevitable that this leaven would grow in our law-loving conservative churches. Jesus told us to beware of it.  And he wants us to clean our house from it. He calls us to repentance and shows us the right way.

The culture among the Pharisees that loved the law but failed to see the law fulfilled in Jesus is the same culture that creates a place for men to hide their abuse, sexism and objectification of women behind scriptures like Ephesians 5:22-24 and 1 Peter 2:13-25 and 3:1-6.  The conservative church needs a Damascus road experience like the infamous Pharisee Saul. We need to be blinded by the light of Christ so we can see clearly the way forward to serving and loving the vulnerable, protecting and empowering God’s daughters and teaching and shepherding men to lead in self-sacrifice love like Jesus.

As ugly as it may get, I have great hope. Jesus’ men are rising.  They’re repenting. They’re leading. They’re empowering their sisters, daughters, wives and mothers to stand with them in Jesus’ great commission.  They’re honoring woman made in God’s image as co-heirs of the grace of life.  They are Jesus’ men. They are my brothers and I love them. I stand beside them and behind them. I support them. I want them to lead like Jesus.

 

Hope grows where the light shines

by Sheila Dougal

rucola-salad-plant-leaf.jpgThe tension was thick. My husband and I sat opposite ends of a 6 foot couch and 23 years of piled up trouble from each other in a last ditch effort to save our marriage.

“Well, what about you?  Your wife shared where she thinks some of her wrong thinking has come from. What do you think has influence your thinking in your relationship?” the counselor prodded.

“Well, um, when my parents were getting a divorce I had to go to some class and I remember the adult there asking me to draw a picture.  I drew a picture of my family at the fair.  My mom and sister and I were all going on rides and my dad was sitting on a bench. I guess if I had to think about where my bad habits came from maybe they came from what I learned from my dad.  I guess I’m kind of on the bench?”

I was floored.  I sat at the opposite end of that couch in the counselor’s office listening to the man I was ready to legally cut out of my life and for the first time I felt a glimmer of hope.  It wasn’t so much what he said, it was that he said what he said because I had finally stopped being quiet.  I had thought for sure that by speaking up, taking a stand, calling him out I was putting the marriage to an end. But hope was springing up it’s verdant head up out of the light-deprived soil of my messed-up marriage because I had exposed a dark area and said, “No more!”

I didn’t grow up thinking that’s what godliness looks like.  It certainly wasn’t what I was taught a Christian woman looks like.  But hope was rising out of the dark place where my complacency had let things that love the darkness hide because as hopeless as I was, the love of Christ was compelling me to stop clinging to my life and love my husband by speaking the truth!  The proverbial scales were falling from my eyes and for the first time I could see that loving my husband didn’t mean hiding his sin for him under a rug of passiveness. It sounds so obvious, but when you’re blind, hopeless, stuck in a cycle of enabling sin, it’s not obvious at all.

Jesus said, “If you’re brother sins against you, go tell him…”  When he was about to face the cross and knew Judas would betray him and Peter would deny him, he called them out on it. In fact, every time Jesus interacted with people caught up in a sinful pattern of living, he exposed it and dealt with it. But somehow, growing up I heard that as a woman I shouldn’t do that.  I should be quiet.  I should be submissive.  I should turn the other cheek. Somehow I ended up 23 years into a marriage thinking if I wanted to be Christlike I would just hide one offense after another under my passiveness rug and try to stomp down the big lump that formed.

Hope sprung up for me that day in the marriage counselor’s office because the love of Christ was moving me to expose sin, not hide it.  Hope was shinning in that room because the love of Christ was saying through me, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. We’re dealing with this.”  Hope had been buried under a heap of offenses piled under a rug I called forgiveness.  It needed light.  It needed to be exposed to the light that says, “Let me wash your feet. You’re dirty.”  Just when I thought there was no hope at all, and that surely my pulling the rug off that pile of sins in the counselor’s office was going to end what I thought I had fought for by shoving more garbage under the rug, my husband opened his heart and let me wash his feet.

Hope is a beautiful growth of goodness in the land of the living.  And the living are a mess.  It’s the springing up of something that breaths life and grows.  But it has to spring up out of dirt. And it can’t spring up if it isn’t exposed to the light. Ugly things may come to light, but they get dealt with in the light. Hope grows where the light shines.

“But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:13-14

 

The needy in the American Church won’t always be forgotten: Meditation on Psalm 9

by Sheila Dougal

pexels-photo-67101.jpegWhen I was pregnant I noticed everyone who was pregnant. When I had a 1969 Volkswagen bug, I noticed everyone with a classic Bug.  And today, when the fire in my belly is still burning from the issue of abuse and the message Christian leaders like Paige Patterson send women, I’m noticing every message in my morning readings of scripture that speak to God’s love of justice, defense of the oppressed, and promised recompense for those in need who seem to be forgotten.

Psalm 9 is what I’m listening to this morning. Like David, I’m overflowing with thanks to Jesus for how wonderful he is.  What he has done, how he lived and set an example for us, how upside-down wonderful he is compared to us who are so messed up.  I see Jesus, and then I look at the church in America and Jesus’ men stand out like food lights in a very dark place.  Jesus came to the people who claimed to worship God, and the didn’t recognize him as God.  Jesus is still coming to the people who claim to worship him and he’s cleaning house!

Jesus is maintaining the just cause of his people who are often oppressed and shushed by people who claim Jesus but live blind to their oppressive ways.  He judges his people with righteousness.  He doesn’t ignore their sin. And he doesn’t condemn them for it either, he deals with it.  He calls them out on it.  He exposes it and gives them hope for repentance.

The needy in the American church won’t always be forgotten.  And I feel like with the recent exposure of racism in the church, abuse in the church, misogyny in the church, sexual immorality in the church and how we’ve strained out the gnat and swallowed the camel in our religious-right stance, neglecting the weightier things of mercy, faithfulness and justice, Jesus is showing the needy he hasn’t forgotten them.

“For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God…” (1 Peter 4:17)

“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.” (Hebrews 12:7)

Jesus, you are good.  And your men and women in this land are those my heart delights in! You have swept my house, exposed my sin, offered me your hand and drawn me to repentance with your kind, just, merciful and faithful dealings with me.  Have your way with me Lord.  Have your way with us here in the U.S.  May your name be exalted in us as it should be!

 

Messages women need to hear from leading men in the conservative evangelical Church

by Sheila Dougal

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Statements from the president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Paige Patterson,  have stirred up a dark message I heard as a young girl and still hear as a 43 year old woman in the conservative evangelical American church. The message goes something like this:

Being a Christ-like means being passive, quiet, soft-spoken…don’t upset the apple cart. Being a Christian woman especially means you exist to please men, serve men, and submit to men. When people hurt you, turn the other cheek and don’t say anything.

Those messages are the dark hiding place for abusive men. And they aren’t Biblical. But it’s the message I heard as a girl.  I heard a lot of teaching about wives being submissive to their husbands, that they should be quiet, and that Christians turn the other cheek.  I accepted these messages and formed my relationship with my husband at the young age of 19 with those messages in mind.  After 24 years of tumultuous marriage marked by unhealthy cycles of separation and “reconciliation,” I found myself ready to file for a divorce in a marriage counselor’s office. There, unhealthy patterns, both on my part and my husband’s that helped hide and grow sin in our lives, were exposed.  A lot of my unhealthy thinking came from growing up in a church environment where submission, anti-divorce and turn the other cheek was preached but condemnation of abuse, the empowerment of women’s voices, and true Christian love which deals with people’s sin rather it hiding them wasn’t.

When I read Mr. Patterson’s statements this old, disgusting feeling crept up in me.  I realized that I wasn’t the only one who had experienced the dark, unhealthy thinking where abusers hide in the church.  Although my husband has never been abusive, the unhealthy patterns of not dealing with the sin in my husband’s life because I thought I was supposed to be quiet to be loved by men and God allowed an evil to grow that nearly destroyed our marriage. That kind of thinking is the kind of thinking women in abusive relationships have.  They  hunker down in churches where pastors aren’t exposing abusive thinking, quietly telling themselves that to love their husbands and obey God they needed to be quiet and endure abuse.

Passages in the Bible such as Matthew 5:38-42 where Jesus teaches us to, “turn the other cheek,” can be confusing to people living in abusive, unjust or unhealthy situations. In fact the whole crux of Christian living- that we take up our crosses and follow Jesus– can be misconstrued as a call to live passive lives enduring abuse in the name of Jesus. The concept of being Christ-like can be miscommunicated as being doormat-like to the people on the receiving end of the abuse of power. Passages that teach submission can be communicated in such a way that women in abusive marriages or women living with husbands who abuse alcohol/drugs, use pornography, commit adultery, lie pathologically, and other sins which destroy the trust in a marriage, feel like if they are going to be Christlike and pleasing to God they must quietly endure.

I believe in the complementary nature of the male/female relationship.  We are made for each other, to help each other. But women are not first and foremost made for men.

I believe we are called to self-sacrificially love each other.  But love abhors the evil of abuse. It exposes darkness. It’s love that compels us to call each other out on sins such as abuse, adultery, pornography use, etc.  And in some of these cases, loving each other self-sacrificially may mean losing the man your married to because he has to go to jail or to an inpatient treatment program.

Because abusers of power can twist precious truths in scripture and use it against those who are on the receiving end of their abuse, pastors must shine light where these wolves are hiding in their churches.  A few months ago I heard my pastor preaching on marriage from Ephesians, and it was the first time I had heard a pastor say, “Listen, I’m afraid that I’m going to teach what this passage says to you wives and some of you are going to think I’m saying you should stay in your abusive situations. I’m not!”  It was like someone opened the door to a very dark dungeon and let the first glimpse of light in a room that has been festering with things that love the darkness for too long.

No doubt being a Christian means we will endure suffering.  Jesus said that and modeled that very clearly.  But there needs to be a very clear message from the pulpits of churches, a message that Jesus brought, that God hates abuse of power and taking advantage of those in vulnerable positions.  We women need to hear our brothers in Christ standing up there in their positions of leadership in the church saying, “If you are an abusive man, we will not tolerate your abuse! You can not hide in this church behind passages in the Bible directed at self-sacrificial men and women who love Jesus.”

We also need to hear the message of empowerment of women’s voices. We need to hear Jesus’ men in positions of leadership say, “Sisters, we don’t want you to be silent! The Bible doesn’t want you to be silent! Jesus wants you to address the sin of your brothers, husbands, dads, pastors, teachers, etc.”  As a woman in the conservative, evangelical American church, it’s the silence from our brothers that speaks the loudest.  But thank God the silence is being broken.

I know there are men who love Jesus, who affirm women, protect them, empower them, stand behind them, and lead them in self-sacrificing ways.  And I’m so thankful.  We need to hear from you brothers!  We need to hear you being like Paul to Peter and calling out leaders in the church who are getting it wrong when it comes to loving, leading, protecting and empowering women like Jesus does. We need you to be like our Good Shepherd and take on the wolves. We need to hear you in the pulpits.  We need to hear you telling us what Jesus told us, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers...”