Shawna Atteberry

The Baker Who Also Writes and Teaches

Depression and Spiritual Direction

October 2-8 was National Mental Illness Awareness Week. I’m a little late to the party, but this week I’m going to post on my own struggles with clinical depression. This article was originally posted on July 31, 2007. It is also posted on the Spiritual Directors International website.

I sat in my car and took a breath. This would be the first time I met with my spiritual director. I was a little nervous. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew I needed to do this. I needed someone to help me find my way out of the depression that had darkened my life and back to intimacy with God. I hadn’t sinned or wandered off–nothing so dramatic. What I had been for the last five years was busy. First I attended seminary plus worked a full-time job. After seminary, the full-time job continued, and I added a part-time pastoral position. Somewhere in the midst of preparing for ministry and actual ministry, I had lost my own way with God. I was tired, burnt-out, and I needed help. I had also been diagnosed with clinical depression and was on anti-depressants. But I needed someone to help me sort through all of the negative images and feeling; I needed someone to help give me hope. I needed someone to talk to without one more person to tell me to hang in there and just “have faith.” I needed someone who could listen to me–listen to my story–then help me to connect my story back to God in my daily living. I found help with my depression from a source I had not known about until a retreat at a Benedictine monastery: a spiritual director.

Depression is a reality of life. One in ten people suffer from some form of depression, with women experiencing depression twice as often as men. Depression used to carry a heavy stigma with it. It was thought we should be able to shake it out of ourselves and get on with life. It was a very painful stigma for Christian women because the assumption was that something was wrong with our relationship with God. If we would pray more or serve more, or have more faith, then surely the depression would magically disappear. Thanks to new studies we have learned that depression also affects us physically and not just mentally and emotionally. There are anti-depressants to now get our brain chemistry right with the chemicals we need to be healthy. Christian women like Ruth Graham and Sheila Walsh have also told their own stories of dealing with depression. There are several treatments for depression: anti-depressants, counseling with a therapist or pastor, and groups to listen and offer help and advice. I found help through these avenues, but I also discovered a spiritual director essential in helping me come to grips with my depression and deal with the root causes of it.

One of the things my spiritual director helped me with the most was my self-perception. It’s amazing how much depression can warp our perception, especially our self-perceptions. When I was in the midst of my depression, I couldn’t see anything good in myself or good for my future. It was a downward spiral of self-loathing and self-negation. I could not see who I really was or what I was capable of. I also had no ambition. All I wanted to do was lie on my couch and channel surf all day. I did not want to go to work, to church, see friends, or move. I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want to be in a situation where my own worst fears about myself could be confirmed. If they only knew… echoed in my head. I had become my own worst enemy.

To get out of this cycle took more than one thing. I had gone on an anti-depressant, but I also needed someone I could talk to. That’s when I discovered spiritual directors. A spiritual director is a mature Christian that guides another Christian into seeing how God is working in his or her everyday life. Spiritual direction helps a person to evaluate his or her life and see where God is working and moving. It is a process of making us more aware of the presence of God, and disciplines we can practice to make space for God in our lives. The relationship can be formal between a trained spiritual director and directee, or informally, between two friends at church. Pastors, Sunday School teachers, and small group leaders can also be spiritual directors. I chose a trained spiritual director: Sister Mary Pat. She offered the structure and guidance I needed to see who I really was and what God was doing in my life. These are the key elements she brought to me:

Accountability. I was more aware of how God was working in my life on a daily basis knowing that my spiritual director would be asking “What has God been saying to you?” the next time we met. Instead of feeling like God was so far away, I became more aware of how God was working in my daily life, especially through my friends. Sister Mary Pat also held me accountable on my own spiritual disciplines. I was fine with telling her that I slacked off on prayer once, but to have to report that twice can be a difficult thing. Knowing I would be telling my director about my weekly disciplines was the catalyst I needed to stay on track. This also kept me on track with my daily life as well: getting to work, going out with friends, going to church–the things I needed to do to give me perspective and lead me out of the self-loathing bubble I had created for myself.

Fidelity. My spiritual director told me the single most important thing I could do was to be faithful to God: to both my time with God and what God had called me to do. American society is addicted to quick fixes and instant gratification, but God does not work that way. There is also no one way to nurture our relationships with God. Listening to God and being faithful to what God is calling us to do is the most important thing we can do. As we pray, listen, and obey in our daily lives, our faithful response to God will open up avenues for God’s grace to flood our lives. I learned the importance of being faithful to God, whether I felt liked it or not. I also discovered that God was faithful to show me the areas of my life that needed God’s healing. But I had to give God time and space to do that.

Objective viewpoint. Having an objective viewpoint while I worked through consequences from past actions, as well as some misperceptions about God, was a great help. I found out the roots of my depression went back to my misperceptions about God that I had had since I was a child. I grew up with a very angry God who was just waiting for me to do something wrong, so God could get me. I also had to deal with consequences from a sinful time in my past, and then forgive myself and let God heal me of that time in my life. My spiritual director gave me a balance between seeing myself as a helpless victim on one side and blaming myself for everything on the other. All of us have blind spots, and none of us view ourselves the way we really are. A spiritual director can help open our eyes to those blind spots, and lovingly show us the areas in our lives where we are not obeying God. He or she can also give us guidance in how we can turn away from those ungodly ways and become more like Christ. On the positive side, a spiritual director can also tells us what we’re doing right, and how he or she sees God working in our life, when we’re not seeing anything good in ourselves or our lives.

A friend of mine discovered that having a spiritual director helped her work through theological questions she had. As she went through seminary she had questions about God, and she wished she had someone to talk to. Now that she has a spiritual director, she wishes that she would have known about spiritual directors a lot sooner than she did. We all have theological questions. How does God work in our lives? Our families? Our neighborhoods? Our enemies’ lives? Our world? A spiritual director can help us see where God is working in all of our lives, and not just those areas we consider spiritual. All of these questions also played a role in my depression, and my spiritual director helped me find biblical answers to these questions.

Discernment. After the depression, I continued to see my spiritual director. I wanted to make sure that the habits and things I had learned, I would stick with. I’m glad I did. Not long after I worked my way through the depression, and the root causes of it, I went through major life changes. Sister Mary Pat helped me to navigate and discern God’s will through those changes. I had lived in Kansas City for eight years and been an assistant or associate editor for my denomination’s Sunday School curriculum for six years. I had bought a house, and spent four years getting it just the way I wanted it. Then a relationship with one of my best friends took a turn toward the romantic. The problem? He lived in Chicago.

I talked and prayed with my small group at church and with close friends. I also received guidance from my spiritual director. By this time Sister Mary Pat knew me very well, and she asked very pointed and sometimes hard questions, to help me discern God’s leading. I felt released from my calling as an editor, and not a year later I was moving to Chicago and marrying my best friend. Now on the other side, I can say this was God’s will. I am very grateful for my director helping me to see the new vistas God was leading me into. I also know that if I start sinking back into depression, that I have the tools she gave me to help me navigate through it. (I did find another spiritual director here in Chicago who has helped with discerning God’s calling and my vocation for this time in my life.)

The best benefit of spiritual direction is being more aware of God’s presence in our lives and having a more intimate relationship with God. It was also wonderful to know I wasn’t alone. Sister Mary Pat would tell me of the times she struggled with depression, and how God faithfully saw her through. I didn’t have to feel ashamed. Depression is a part of life. All of us deal with it. I found out that it’s okay to ask for help.

I am very glad that I got out of my car that day. The year I saw my spiritual director, I came to see that God really was working in all of my life, and that God cared about the things that I desired and wanted. I found out that deepening my relationship with God takes time, solitude, and fidelity. But it was worth the time–even when I wasn’t seeing any results. I now know that God is working and moving in my life, and I have resources that I can use to help me deepen my relationship with God. And the next time I feel like I need spiritual direction, I won’t hesitate to get out of my car.

If you would like to explore spiritual direction and find out how a spiritual director can help you in your walk with God, discerning God’s calling in your life, or your vocation in the world, I would love talk to you. Please Email Me .

Wonderful Hymn: She Comes Sailing on the Wind

I’m still waiting for my new lenses to arrive for the glasses and hopefully will be on the computer more sometime next week. My head was actually feeling decent today, and I had to time to visit some friend’s blogs to find that Suzanne McCarthy had posted this wonderful hymn, wondering if I knew it. I had not heard it before and loved it. Dear Ted: we can sing this one any time at church, just so you know.

SHE COMES SAILING ON THE WIND

She comes sailing on the wind, her wings flashing in the sun,
On a journey just begun, she flies on.
And in the passage of her flight, her song rings out through the night,
Full of laughter, full of light, she flies on.

Silent waters rocking on the morning of our birth,
Like an empty cradle waiting to be filled,
And from the heart of God the Spirit moved upon the earth,
Like a mother breathing life into her child.

Many were the dreamers whose eyes were given sight
When the Spirit filled their dreams with life and form.
Deserts turned to gardens, broken hearts found new delight,
And then down the ages still she flew on.

To a gentle girl in Galilee a gentle breeze she came,
a whisper softly calling in the dark,
The promise of a child of peace whose reign would never end,
Mary sang the Spirit song within her heart.

Flying to the river, she waited circling high
Above the child now grown so full of grace.
As he rose up from the water, she swept down from the sky,
And she carried him away in her embrace.

Long after the deep darkness that fell upon the world,
After dawn returned in flame of rising sun,
The Spirit touched the earth again, again her wings unfurled,
bringing life in wind and fire as she flew on.

COMMON PRAISE 656
Text and melody: Gordon Light; arr. Andrew Donaldson.©
Text and melody © 1987 Common Cup Company.
Used with permission.

Who supported Jesus out of their own means?

Soon afterwards [Jesus] went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources (Luke 8:1-3, NRSV).

One of the arguments that complementarians make for women staying at home is that it is God’s plan for men to work and financially support the family. As long as I’ve been on the other side of the argument, pointing out that women have always worked and supported their families monetarily, it was only last week when it hit me what these verses were saying. I’ve used these verses to show that women were disciples and followed Jesus in his travels just as the 12 did. But last week it hit me between the eyes: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna plus other women “provided for them out of their resources.” The Greek word translated as resources can mean property, possessions, resources, or means. These women financially supported Jesus and his ministry from their own finances.

I’m sure some would say that what they gave Jesus was really the money their husbands made. This could be true for Joanna, but she is the only one with a husband in this passage. Mary Magdalene had no husband, and Susanna is not paired with a husband in these verses. This means their money was theirs. We don’t know how they had these resources. Maybe they were business women like Lydia and Priscilla. Maybe they were widows. But neither woman, nor her resources, is tied to a husband.

It’s a little thing. A little thing that can be easily overlooked. But I think that we should pay attention to this little thing. Women who weren’t tied to a husband, and a married woman who isn’t tied to her home, are following Jesus all over the countryside and supporting him. These little things start adding up to show that roles women played in the Bible are much broader than mother and wife. It also shows the freedom Jesus allowed women to have in his own ministry. He didn’t tell these women to go back home and take care of their husbands and children (and he didn’t tell them to go home, get married, and start having kids). He welcomed them and accepted their support.

These three verses in Luke give us a glimpse of the broader role of women in Jesus’ ministry beyond the home.

Originally posted at The Scroll, April 22, 2010.

Does It Really Mean "Helpmate"?

I had just started working on my thesis in seminary. Tired of being asked if I was going to seminary to be a pastor’s wife, I decided to write a biblical theology of single women in ministry, showing that Godde’s calling for a woman was not dependent on her marital state. My thesis advisor, Dr. Joseph Coleson (professor of Old Testament Studies at Nazarene Theological Seminary), looked at my outline and thesis proposal and told me that I needed to add a chapter addressing the Creation Story in Genesis 1:1–2:25. He thought that I needed to deal with the second creation account found in Gen. 2:5-25, where woman is created to be an ezer cenegdo to the man. If the Hebrew phrase simply meant, “helper” then could a woman hold a leadership position in the church, let alone a single woman? But if that isn’t what ezer cenegdo meant, then that would open up the vistas I needed to write and successfully defend my thesis. Defend, not in front of the professors at seminary, but to defend against those who say woman was created to be a wife and mother, and only a helpmate for her husband. Dr. Coleson said the translators who translated our Bibles into English know that “helpmate” is a gross mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase, and he did not see how they could look themselves in the mirror day-to-day keeping that misintepretation in the Bible. It is the only time I saw him angry. So what does this little Hebrew phrase mean?

(more…)

Book Review: After You Believe by N. T. Wright

Have you ever thought: “I’m saved, now what?” Or “I know I’m a Christian, but there has to be more to Christian living than waiting around for heaven.” If so, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters* is the book for you. Bishop N. T. Wright (Anglican Bishop of Durham, England) has taken up the topic that most Protestants have been shying away from or vilifying for the last 500 years: good works. First Wright picks up with the topic of his last book, Surprised by Hope*, which corrected one of the biggest fables of Christianity: that heaven is the ultimate destination of the Christian. Our ultimate hope is not as disembodied spirits somewhere out there. The true Christian hope is bodily resurrection and inhabiting the new earth and new heavens. After You Believe tells us what difference our ultimate hope makes in living this life in this body (both individual and corporate) on this earth. Because we are called to be priests and one day will rule creation with Christ in the new earth, we need to learn the ways and language of that new world and that new way of life.

The way we learn to live this new life and prepare for our roles in God’s new creation, is through learning and living the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. This goes beyond a “keeping the rules” mentality or the “if you go with your heart you can’t go wrong” philosophy. Like learning a new language or learning how to play an instrument, this is not easy or natural at first. But the more we keep committing ourselves to choosing the ways of faith, hope, and love, the easier it becomes until it is second nature. Wright ties the Christian virtues to the fruit of the Spirit: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, greatheartedness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self control” (p. 194). He notes that “‘the fruit of the Spirit’ does not grow automatically. The nine varieties of fruit do not suddenly appear just because someone has believed in Jesus, has prayed for God’s Spirit, and has then sat back and waited for ‘fruit’ to arrive” (p. 195, emphasis author’s). Just like gardening which takes pruning, watering, mulching, and looking out for blight and mildew to grow plants, we each have to cultivate a life in which the fruit of the Spirit can grow. For those who think that the Spirit’s fruit does come automatically Wright points them to the last characteristic on the list: self-control. No one comes by self-control automatically: it’s something everyone has to work on and develop throughout his or her life.

The final chapter of the book describes how virtue can be practiced, and how we learn to start living as the priests and co-rulers that we will be in the new creation. Wright calls it the virtuous circle, and the circle includes Scripture, stories, examples, community, and practices. It is by engaging with this circle as both individuals and communities, that our character will be transformed and loving God and loving others will become our second nature. These practices will prepare us for the new language and the new way of life that we will have in the new creation. There is an excellent “For Further Reading” appendix for those who want to delve more into virtue, Christian virtue, ethics, and character.

My few criticisms about the book have more to do with style than content. Wright does get repetitive, and you go over a lot of the same ground again. I was also annoyed when he would bring up a subject then say we would get to that later on in the book. It happens numerous times, and I thought: wait till we get to that part before bringing it up. There are also several occasions where he makes a comment, then says something to the effect of, but we can’t go into that here; it’s another book. If those asides are any indication, there are several more books on the way.

Overall I thought this was a good, informative book, and it starts to fill a gaping void in Protestant practice: where do good works and character fit into the Christian life without becoming something we have to do to earn salvation. I recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about how to live as a Christian in this body, in this world, at this time.

*Affliate Link

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free by The Ooze Viral Bloggers in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This article has been reposted at The Ooze Viral Bloggers.

The Power of Story

In stories, the subconscious mind gives voice to some of its most deeply cherished longings. In myths and legends, men and women make desperate attempts to tell one another who they are, why they are here, where they are going, and what they are meant to do. –Jim Ware, God of the Fairy Tale: Finding Truth in the Land of Make-Believe*

I was frightened, and I tried to heal my fear with stories, stories which gave me courage, stories which affirmed that utlimately love is stronger than hate. If love is stronger than hate, then war is not all there is. I wrote, and I illustrated my stories. At bedtime, my mother told me more stories. And so story helped me to learn to live. Story was in no way an evasion of life, but a way of living life creatively instead of fearfully. –Madeline L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (Wheaton Literary Series)*

Stories have always been important to me, to who I am. I have read stories since I learned to read, and before that my mother told me stories. One of the first stories I remember writing was in the second grade. The only thing I remember is that it was set on Venus–we were studying the solar system in science.

I think the reason I prefer fiction to nonfiction is you can say things in a story that is harder to say in an article. You can challenge the status quo and confront issues from the side instead of head on. I think story carries more power and truth than an article based on fact. We have confused fact and truth: they are not the same thing, and they cannot always be equated. Facts and datum are just one part of truth–one facet. Not everything can be quantified and qualified by scientific method. I think that is the main reason that literalist Christians who have to prove the Bible as fact irritate me. Godde and her acts in this world cannot be reduced to mere facts and datum. And that does not make Godde or her actions any less true.

Story has the power to make you admit you are not the person you want to be. In story we can admit to what we really want and what we’re really looking for. It’s a safe haven, a sanctuary. There we can admit what our wildest longings and passions are, and it’s okay. I have learned more about God and life through story than I ever have through facts thrown at me about how God exists, and here’s the time line (or insert another chart) to prove it. I have learned more about who I am and who I want to be through story than through any other means. There is a reason why 60% of the Bible is narrative or story. We live in our stories. Life does not happen in one set of equations to another set of facts to another set of definitions. Life happens in living with each other, our stories overlapping, and growing into new and different stories.

I like to write nonfiction, but there is a reason why I write creative nonfiction: I need a story. But truth be told, I will always be  more at home in fiction than nonfiction, and fiction will always be my first choice when it comes to writing. (Hmmm may be I really do need to balance working on fiction and nonfiction more. May be I would write more of both if I wrote my first love along with the second. Is it possible to work on both a novel and nonfiction book at the same time?)

Here’s the last of my storytelling rambling: Nothing beats a good story…except for writing a good story.

(Originally posted on July 22, 2006. Sometimes you need to read back over old blog posts to remind yourself what you’re really supposed be to doing.)

*Affiliate links

Procrastinating on Your Lenten Discipline?

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Am I the only one procrastinating on choosing a Lenten discipline? To be honest, I’ve been procrastinating on writing this article most of the day. I tweeted that I was going to write this blog post around 11:30 this morning, and I’m just now starting it at almost 6:00 p.m. I figured I wasn’t the only one dragging my feet on choosing something to do or give up for Lent, so here are a few of things I’ve thought of.

Lectio Divina

Lectio Divina means divine reading. It is a slow meditative reading of a passage of the Bible or a spiritual book. There are three movements of lectio divina: meditation (meditatio), prayer (oratio), and contemplation (contemplatio).

  • Meditation/meditatio: Read the passage three times out loud, slowly. The first time simply read through. The second time be aware of any words that pop out at you. The third time read until you reach the place that spoke to you on the second reading. Ask yourself: Why does this stand out? What is it saying to me? Why is the Spirit bringing this to my attention? Mull it over.
  • Prayer/oratio: Take whatever you find to Godde in prayer. Whether it’s gratitude, sorrow, joy, or repentance, pray about what the passage has said to you, and your response to it.
  • Contemplation/contemplatio: Choose a word from your reading or prayer that best expresses your experience during meditation and prayer. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Spend a few minutes in silence, listening to Godde. If your mind wanders silently say the word you chose.
  • If you want, journal your lectio experience.

Online resource: Garden of Grace

The Daily Examen

The Daily Examen is a thoughtful look at the day to see how we saw and responded to Godde’s grace through what we did, our responses to the people we met though the day, and our emotions. IgnatianSpiritality.com says

The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern [God’s] direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.

Here is one way of practicing the Daily Examen from Ignatian Sprituality:

  • Become aware of God’s presence.
  • Review the day with gratitude.
  • Pay attention to your emotions.
  • Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
  • Look toward tomorrow.

IgnatianSpiritality.com has many different examens listed at their site.

The Daily Office

The Daily Office is praying through the day. Prayers are said in the Morning, at Noon, in the Evening, and at Night (before bed). In the longer offices of Morning and Evening Prayer two or three psalms are said or chanted, one or two passages of Scripture are read, then there  is time for prayers. In the shorter offices of Noon and Night (or Compline) a short psalm or a portion of a psalm is read or chanted and two or three verses of Scripture are read before prayers.

Two places you can pray the Daily Office online are at The Online Book of Common Prayer (click Daily Office on the menu) and Mission St. Clare. Mission St. Clare has the hymns in each office in karaoke so you can sing along. Fun!

If you’re like me and can’t pray on the computer, you can order the Book of Common Prayer* from Amazon, along with Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours.* If you want a Daily Office that is gender inclusive, The St. Helena Breviary: Personal Edition* is wonderful.

Hospitality

Hospitality is one of the bedrocks of Christianity. Jesus liked to eat with people (especially people he wasn’t supposed to eat with) a lot. Jesus instituted Communion during the family meal and celebration of Passover. Early Christians gathered together to eat and share their resources with one another. Early in our history we started feeding people who couldn’t feed themselves. One of the most basic practices of Christians is feeding each other and feeding other people. I know, I know, a lot of people fast or give up a certain food group for Lent, but giving up food has never been a spiritual discipline for me.  Probably because I grew up with the skinnier-is-better and the “Diet! Diet! Diet!” culture, I just cannot consider giving up food to be a spiritual discipline (also my birthday always falls during Lent, and I’m eating my meat and cake!). If fasting is your thing, then go for it. However, I do make a suggestion: put aside the money you saved not buying sweets, pop, or meat, and at the end of Lent, give the money to a food pantry or homeless shelter. This is a personal preference: I much prefer to add something than just give up something for Lent.

Back to hospitality and food. If, like me, you like to feed people and feel it’s an important part of your spirituality here are two ways to practice hospitality during Lent:

  • Invite friends and family over for meals at your home. Decide how many times you want to provide hospitality during Lent. Then start meal planning and inviting.
  • Volunteer at a homeless shelter or food pantry to help feed the hungry people in your community. Provide hospitality to those who need it the most.

A last resource that has all of these disciplines plus more is Marjorie J. Thompson’s Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life.* It’s a good resource that you will go back to again and again.

I hope this helps you in deciding a discipline to bring you closer to Godde during Lent. Do you have anything to add to the list? What are thinking of giving up or adding for Lent? I’m leaning toward Lectio Divina myself. It’s been a long time since I practiced it, and it has always been one of my favorites.

*Affliate links

The Future of Faith with Harvey Cox and E. J. Dionne

For anyone living in New York. Street Prophets will also be streaming this event live and taking question from the online audience!

Professor Harvey Cox and E. J. Dionne to Headline Discussion on Faith and the Progressive Movement

Event is second in series presented by the Progressive Book Club and the Center for American Progress

New York, NY: The Progressive Book Club (PBC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) today announced that Harvard divinity professor Harvey Cox and syndicated columnist and author E. J. Dionne will headline the second installment of the monthly series Moving Forward: Foundations of a New Progressive Era. Launched last month, the Moving Forward series brings together leading progressive authors and policy experts in unique in-person and online forums designed to help Americans learn, connect, debate, and mobilize around ideas.

The evening’s discussion will explore the issues raised in Harvey Cox’s new book, The Future of Faith. Cox posits that Christianity is undergoing a third period of transformation marked by a disregard of dogma in favor of a more open “spirituality,” and a collapse of barriers between different religions.  One of the casualties of this transformation is an historically influential actor in American politics: religious fundamentalism.

Joining Professor Cox will be E.J. Dionne, whose most recent book – Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right – announced the end of the Religious Right’s narrow social agenda, and the rise of more open-minded, social-justice oriented faith movements on both sides of the political aisle.  The two will engage in a lively discussion on the current and historical role of religion in American politics, and what this ongoing transformation means as current and future administrations struggle with a wide range of foreign and domestic policy challenges.

Author and Progressive Book Club Editorial Board member Todd Gitlin will moderate the discussion, which will be streamed live on the Progressive Book Club blog and feature a Q&A that engages both the live and online audience. There will be a reception following the discussion.

Beginning on November 9th, seats can be reserved by RSVPing online at http://progressivebookclub.com/cap.

WHAT: Discussion with Professor Harvey Cox and E. J. Dionne

WHERE: WNYC’s Greene Space

44 Charlton Street (at Varick Street)

New York, NY 10014

WHEN: November 18, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

FOR PRESS INQUIRIES:

PBC – Dina Owobu, 212.871.8219, dowobu@progressivebookclub.com

CAP – Anna Soellner, 202.492.296, asoellner@americanprogress.org

ABOUT THE PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS

E. J. Dionne Jr. is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, a regular political analyst on National Public Radio, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University. His books include the best-selling Why Americans Hate Politics (Simon & Schuster), which won the Los Angeles Times book prize and was nominated for the National Book Award.  His latest book is Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right.

Harvey Cox is Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard, where he began teaching in 1965, both at HDS and in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. An American Baptist minister, he was the Protestant chaplain at Temple University and the director of religious activities at Oberlin College; an ecumenical fraternal worker in Berlin; and a professor at Andover Newton Theological School. His research and teaching interests focus on the interaction of religion, culture, and politics. His most recent book is The Future of Faith.

Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University. He is the author of twelve books, including, most recently, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals. He was the third president of Students for a Democratic Society, in 1963-64, and later helped organize the first national demonstration against the Vietnam War

ABOUT PROGRESSIVE BOOK CLUB

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ABOUT THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

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The So-called "Biblical" Marry a Strong-ER Christian Man Myth

I regularly do searches on Twitter to see what people are talking about within the world of Christiandom, especially when it comes to women. Some form of this tweet pops up on a regular basis:

If u r a strong Christian woman, marry a strong-ER Christian man or you’ll be frustrated. (I take no responsibility for the horrible grammar.)

I have a confession to make:

Hello, my name is Shawna (Everyone: Hello Shawna!) I am a strong  Christian woman who did NOT marry a strong-ER Christian man. I married the man that I am a power equal to.

Everyone: Huh?

I married the man that I am a power equal to, which happens to be the literal translation of the phrase in Genesis 2 that is normally mistranslated as “helpmate.” In Genesis 2:18 Godde says, “I will make him an help meet for him.” And yes readers that is the good ole King James Version because the KJV is the only translation to translate ezer cenegdo correctly. Notice it does not say helpmate. It says help meet. In Old English meet means equal. Godde will make the human a help equal to him. Woman was created to be an equal. Normally when ezer (help) is used it refers to Godde. Someone or the entire nation of Israel is calling on God to come and help them. Help is not a term of subordination, not if the same word is used to describe Godde. Ezer has another meaning: power. Both help and power come from the same root in Hebrew. So ezer can be translated as either help or power: the reason you can help someone is because you have to power to do so. The second  part of the phrase, cenegdo means to stand face-to-face, or stand as equals. The literal translation of ezer cenegdo is a help/power equal to. Woman was created to be a help/power equal to man.

This totally changed my view of what I was looking for in a husband. Actually it didn’t change it. I just hadn’t had the words to describe what I wanted before. I always planned on marrying an equal; an equal who respected me and wholly supported me in what Godde called me to do. Now I knew who I was looking for: I was looking for the man that I was a power equal to. And I knew he’d be quite a man. I’m one heck of a force of nature to be reckoned with. It turns out the power I am equal to was right under my nose: one of my best friends. After eight years of being friends, we married, and he is the power that I am equal to. I am very happy that I did not marry someone stronger than me spiritually. I married someone who was equal with me spiritually. As far as I’m concerned that’s the only way to go.

I’m not the only one to think so. Priscialla and Aquila thought that too. Priscilla and Aquila are always mentioned together, and most of the time Priscilla’s name comes first in Acts and in Paul’s letters. This was unheard of that time. Wives’ names NEVER came before their husbands’ names at that time, in that culture. As far as Priscilla and Aquila, Paul, and Luke were concerned, Priscilla was not the property of Aquila, she was his ezer cenegdo, his equal. Priscilla and Aquila taught Apollos together, they made tents together, and they pastored home churches together. Priscilla was the power equal to Aquila. Considering they planted churches in at least 3 cities across the Roman Empire (including Rome), I’d say that being equals worked out pretty well for them.

In other words, you as a Christian woman, will not be frustrated if you do not marry a man who is spiritually stronger than you. That’s not who you are suppossed to marry. You’re supposed to marry the man that you are a power equal to. Or anyway that’s what Genesis says and that’s what Priscilla and Aquila lived out. I’m pretty happy with the arrangement myself.

Related Posts:

Does It Really Mean “Helpmate”?
Career Women of the Bible: Teachers, Elders and Co-workers

(On Twitter I’m @shawnaatteberry.)