Dating Jesus
“This is Southwest Missouri, the Ozarks, which rests comfortably in both the Bible Belt and Tornado Alley. I sometimes wonder if there is a correlation. If you spend your formative years driving by piles of sticks that a half hour before were homes and schools, you may be more inclined to believe in a vengeful, Old Testament God, the kind that can roll down from the hills and destroy your life with the flick of a wrist. Had I grow up in, say, Helena or Baltimore, would the threat have seemed so great?”
These are the words of Susan Campbell, author of Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl
Campbell must be about my age (actually, I think her older brother, whom I knew fairly well, was just a bit older than I was), she attended Green Valley Bible Camp every summer, and she was a member of the Fourth and Forest Church of Christ in Joplin, MO — one of the few our straight-and-narrow congregation fellowshipped. (In fact, as the years rolled on, they became questionable and our preference was for the more faithful Lord’s Church in Joplin.)
She leads with a crisis of faith that would perhaps seem exaggerated unless you grew up in this loving brand of fundamentalism. The crisis is when she is baptized and is aware that not all of her robe went under when she was immersed.
“But then the heavy white robe floats up on an air bubble as the nice minister is leaning me backward. I panic a moment and wonder if I should perhaps reach to smash it down. Would the baptism count if clothing remains above water? When you are raised a fundamentalist, the world turns on a literal axis, and nowhere is this more evident than in the few rituals we allow ourselves. The New Testament Scriptures carry no evidence of a piano being included in the worship services of the early church, and so we do not allow a piano — or an organ or trumpet or drum either. Years later, a friend of mine who is a member of the church will ask if she can wheel a piano in just for the duration of her wedding. She is told no. It isn’t that the elders object to ‘The Wedding March.’ For us, weddings are not a sacrament, not a part of a worship service, and so if you want to have trained monkeys carry your ring on a maypole, that would be fine as long as you clean up afterward. It is a very particular point of faith that keeps our leaders from allowing a baby grand to come inside. The elders worry that someone will drive by the church, see a piano going through our wide doors, and think that we have finally given in on this most important matter of faith.”
After the baptism, she feels nothing. A few months pass, and worry seizes her. It didn’t count. She wasn’t totally immersed. And so . . . .
“. . . A few months later . . . I repeat the whole process. I walk to the front of the church and fill out a response card asking to be baptized. No one thinks this odd. Most of the kids in my youth group have gone up twice to be baptized. A few even go up three times, and one poor soul tried it a fourth but was intercepted by her Sunday school teacher on the way up. We’ve been so buffaloed by the rules, we are afraid we might be missing one, and when Jesus comes again, we’ll be the chaff, not the wheat. Again I step to the back of the pine wall — this time an old hand at it, not nervous so much as determined. This time I remove my underwear. I know the robe is plenty thick, and when the nice young minister bends me back into the water, no air bubbles form, and the amens are just as loud as they’d been during my earlier, practice baptism. Better safe than sorry, one woman tells me afterward, and I couldn’t have agreed more.”
She has long since left Churches of Christ, a denomination which she describes as “frontier revivalism frozen in amber.” At times, she sounds bitter; more often, just bemused.
I found the book witty, smart, and (at times) a bit snarky. It made me wince at the thought of every young woman, every adolescent girl, who’s been told “no, no, no” again and again because of their gender. Gender over calling and giftedness.
Warning: this book is not for the faint of heart!
Soak in these final words of the book — words that give you a sense of the author’s journey: “I am still, at heart, a floater. I am still seeking. I will arm-wrestle with God for a while longer and then no more. In the end, I am counting on her forgiveness and I imagine I’m not alone in this. I ask for forgiveness for my hardheadedness. I ask forgiveness for the mistakes I’ve made in my long and complicated walk. And I ask forgiveness for this: The farthest I can get on a good day is this: I believe in God. God, I believe.”
I look forward to reading this book in a few months. I am also contemplating a book called – “Dating the Church: and other things it did not realize.” The past four years of my own life have been filled with an idealism and expectation for ministry so defined and critical to my own identity that when the idealism and expectations were never fulfilled, my own self-worth shattered over and over again. I have been blessed by individuals who have recently allowed me, and who have also empowered me to be able to see God, ministry, and myself in new ways as a result.
It is amazing what we will put ourselves through in order for someone or something to fulfill (or even take care of and like) us… never thinking along the way that this was never their purpose or responsibility.
Oh my, what a collective memory we share. Yet, even now, sometimes, I wonder, isn’t it better (and a gift) to look back at what we left and realize that without passing through those waters we could never stand dripping on the other shore?
How well I know the hurt and frustration in Ms. Campbell’s journey. Some of the old hurts have healed, but the scars pull at the surrounding flesh, begging it to be slashed open to more pain. I resist, but the old pain never completely disappears.
Can the male of the specie really understand the spiritual slavery women have been shackled to for so long? Can they understand and have enough courage to truly free us from that slavery….one God did NOT intend for us? I continue to wonder.
I think the one that took the cake for me was an elder walking down a hall in a not-so-small West Texas cofc one Wednesday night. He stopped, turned and came storming into a youth class, turned on the lights, flipped off the film projector, which was showing the last of an 8 part series on (something the kids loved, but I don’t recall), and seethed “we don’t allowed instrumental music of any type in the Lord’s house!”.
Yep, there were “mechanical instruments” playing in the background of the film strip intro.
Lovely.
Thanks Mike. I immediately ordered this book from Amazon. My first thought was, “I could have written this book!”
Kathy, I don’t think many men can/will understand the effect of binding first century eastern customs on 21st century western women. The writers of the New Testiment were telling women how to lead holy lives in their culture.
Anyway, we hashed out the roles of women in the church several months ago and I think it is safe to say that no one’s mind was changed.
I remember a student at Harding University who had a ministry of re-baptizing students who struggled with doubt. There were a lot of, “I did not understand what I was doing when I was young.”
Mike, you know that I read this book but reading your words attached to her words and acknowledging the hurt brought quick smarting tears to my eyes. Yes, it is hard to undo that hurt. I would love to sit down and talk with Susan. I struggle with those hurts often and most of the time I am good at being gentle with others when they poke at those hurts but there have been moments when I have snapped…snapped at those who love me and want what is best for me, snapped at those who are struggling just like I am with all of that, and snapped at those you were just being mean spirited and they knew it. I also know that I have had my snarky moments with girlfriends of like mind…so, Susan’s snarkiness just made me feel like I was sitting at the table with her. I told my husband about the book and his first thought was…you could’ve written that book…but my journey has been different but the beginning basically the same.
For many years now, Susan Campbell has been blasting “fundamentalism,” which has to be her favorite word as well as her least favorite thing. In the pages of the Hartford Courant, she rarely misses the chance to put down a particular brand of fundamentalism, the cofC. Ihaven’t read her book just yet. Don’t know that I will. Up to this point, her depictions of theological conservatives of any stripe have been old and tired and just plain wrong. If her book had been put out by somebody besides the publishing arm of the Unitarian-Universalists, I might have expected something a little different.
*epiphany*
Reading N. T. Wright’s _The New Testament and the People of God_ this last month, qb has learned to be wary of exegetical naivete, the tendency to take words at face value all the time. Wright warns us that all of the Scriptures, including the NT, were written from a perspective colored by experience, try as an author may to give an “objective” reading of events.
El Senor Bellizzi has reminded qb to bring the same sort of open-eyed wariness to the reading of *any* text, not just one’s sacred ones. That’s an epiphany for qb. If Campbell has a track record of a certain kind of polemic, then it’s pretty clear that an honest reading of her work demands the use of a couple of appropriate, literary filters in constant dialogue with one another.
It also reminds qb to be a bit more introspective and circumspect when he reads passages like Matthew 23, which bring rhetorical brimstone onto the heads of unworthy church authorities, qb’s betes noirs during recent years.
Thanks for the healthy reminder, there, Frank-O. Well struck.
qb
At 62 I have had the same thoughts. But there was so much love in me over the years, I chose not to persue it. Not until my daughters echoed the thoughts. Not until I now have seven granddaughters. Not until I watched and listened to the Taliban and their treatment of women. What happened to “In Christ, we are free?” We do need to change this thought and now, not later .
It was interesting to read the comments: a few women who are moved by what she wrote, saying, “I could have written that,” and a man speaking dismissively of what she writes as “old and tired and just plain wrong.”
I’m not a regular reader of the Hartford Courant, so I can’t comment on what she’s written through the years there.
But I do know that I’d be shocked if someone was able to write something “objective” without the perspective of their upbringing, their joy, their pain, their disappointments.
I recommend this book not as objective truth or as the final word on “the role of women” (though I’m an egalitarian).
I recommend it as a journey. A memoir. Sometimes bitter, sometimes bemused. Often clever. It resonates with me. I grew up right there (18 miles away) at the same time in the same environment. She refers to her older brother, the youth rally all-star. I remember that. I remember hearing him. Maybe his eagerness to be a minister is what helped push me that direction.
And if you think she’s way off base . . . and if you think she’s wrong about her view of a certain brand of fundamentalism (which she describes as loving but wearisome with rule-hugging) . . . then you haven’t been there.
Having said that, I’m all in favor of “appropriate, literary filters.”
Interesting post, thanks Mike.
Thanks for this, Mike. I grew up where she did it sounds like, and my church was very loving. It was the imposition of the agreed upon denominational message that so often trumped the love and distorted our understadning of God. I hope to read the book, but whether I do our not, I’m glad she wrote it. Life and liberation seem to go hand in hand.
Just saw these words about the book by Wally Lamb:
“In her youth, Susan Campbell was the class virgin, the sophomore homecoming princess, and the perennial smarty-pants winner of her fundamentalist church’s Bible Bowl. But she was also a scrappy little outfielder and a self-described Missouri hillbilly whose budding feminism led her to question why girls and women should be content with second-class spiritual citizenship. That isometric push of irresistible force against immovable object followed Campbell into adulthood and is botht he engine and the energy that drives her remarkable memoir, Dating Jesus. Simultaneously wisecracking and scholarly, both heartfelt and hilarious, Camptbell’s story gives testament to a ‘Christ-haunted’ life that rejects the chauvinistic dictates of religious dogma and insists on fairness and equal footing for all. Amen to that. I lvoed this book!”
Church of Christ=Taliban. Hadn’t heard that one yet.
If I speak of bathwater, that doesn’t mean I think there’s no baby.
I have no desire to discount Susan’s experiences. What I object to her characterizations of people to her right on the theological spectrum. She says they are the products of extreme social stress. Whenever conservatives sense that the world is evolving, they instinctively set their Java Man jaws, dig in their heels, and resist with all their might what brave and balanced people (you know, liberals) welcome as change for the better.
Yes, it’s one of the oldest and most common interpretations of the fundamentalist movement in America. And it’s as wrong as it is shopworn.
Frank, you are my friend. I know that we have never talked about this with each other but I think that I can honestly tell you that if you had grown up as a girl in the Church of Christ, your view would be different. You are a minister. You wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been born a boy. Please just remember that. Her journey speaks to me. I think you should read the book. I think that the Church of Christ is a part of her that won’t let her go and she says that is not all bad. Call me and we will talk more about it. We need another Danley wedding so we can see each other.
Mike, qb *does* know of such things because that’s precisely where qb grew up. When qb comes to ACU for some seminary work, he ends up spending most of his week in or near the Robert K. Oglesby classroom; qb grew up under RKO and Wally W. and J. P. Blankenship in the ’70s, under dear Harvey Porter and dear Bobby Hise in the early ’80s. qb’s CoC credentials are impeccable…that is, until 1993, when the emperors’ clothes began their disappearing act. I know the journey well because I’m on it myself.
If I read my fellow Amarilloan correctly, Frank (forgive me) is simply asking that we see polemic for what it is, ask fair questions about its origins and the author’s rhetorical history, and then factor all of that into the equation. Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with that.
qb
Pardon…that should have been “emperor’s.”
Or maybe not, now that I think about it.
qb
Sure mistakes have been made. There have been problems in the church since the first church of Christ in Jerusleum. Some have been abusive but never forget that many women in the church have joyfully served in the church without sensing some kind of feelings of being oppressed. They have understood God given and ordained relationship responsibilities and have greatly appreciated strong male spiritual leadership and not complained but have respected with gratitude God’s plan for male and female relationships and have not accepted the current attempts to reconstruct scripture based on cultural demands.
Julie, of course I’d love visiting with you anytime. Thank you so much for the hospitality and kindness you’ve shown me.
QB, your assessment of where I’m coming from is exactly right.
Mike, My first blog comment ever. Thanks for calling this book to my attention. I better read it to see if I’m in there somewhere.
I too remember Susan and her brother. I recall how much she wanted to leave SWMO to attend an east coast school. I was a member of that Joplin congregation and a (reluctant) Green Valley camper. I didn’t understand what was going on then, but today I would call it abuse by people who (mostly) never mean to be abusive. I’m glad that those days are behind me. I’m still trying to hang with the ChOC even though I don’t really understand it anymore. It pains me to think how many people have gotten scarred along the way.
I know that in Susans’ day, 30 years ago, there were some courageous church leaders who tried to work within and suffered for it. It’s nice to look at that local situation now and observe that some things have changed for the better.
It wasn’t hard to locate the Hartford Courant. Here’s how Susan Campbell’s column for today (Inauguration Day) begins:
“Glorious Day For All The Donnies
Susan Campbell
January 20, 2009
Growing up, the only place I could talk to someone of a different ethnicity than my own was at church. For all the things I didn’t like about it, at least my hard-shell fundamentalist bastion was integrated. We were still mostly white, but there was a group of elderly black women who commanded the pews up front and a smattering of black families who’d moved up from farther south for the economic opportunities in Joplin, Mo.”
See “http://www.courant.com/features/columnists/hc-usan0120.artjan20,0,6144609.column” for the whole article.
And this was in the 1970′s? Yep, that must have been one really awful, intolerant congregation.
Can a man who grew up in the church of christ have a relevant opinion about how women felt growing up in that environment? How can we, who have never been told no, who have never felt second class, who don’t truly have these experiences to look back on, say to our sisters in christ, “Oh, it surely wasn’t that bad?” How foolish this seems. How foolish we have been.
Josh: Yes. I’m married to one who experienced precisely that kind of thing at a CoC (which shall remain nameless). It was, in fact, the watershed event that set in motion our self-imposed exile from the CoC as such. Inasmuch as my wife and I are “one flesh,” and happily so, I feel what she feels, at least to a reasonable approximation. It was a devastating season.
As they say in Rome: QED, babe.
qb
I am married also amd my wife is thrilled to be a member of the church of Christ and has always been active and does not feel oppressed. And many others who have expressed their love for the chuch and have verbally expressed that they do not feel that they have been deprived. There is so much good that has been accomplished by the church and so many have been reached with the gospel. Praise God for the church of Christ and the many good works the church has accomplished over the centuries.
Be sure to read Susan Campbell’s whole column for today, mentioned above. It goes on to talk about Donnie, the only African-American teenager in her church’s youth group, and how interracial dating and marriage were discouraged by asking what would happen to resulting biracial children. Campbell points to this historic day for one answer to that question.
Ray B
When one knows nothing but oppression, often times one doesn’t realize they are oppressed.
I’d imagine there are plenty of Muslim women who we would consider to be oppressed due to overwhelming evidence, yet they may believe that the way they live is just how things are supposed to be. Think about it.
As for the book, sounds like Anne Lamont meets church of Christ upbringing. I’ll read it.
My three daughters were raised in a congregation near where Mike was raised./ They attended Green Valley Bible Camp. They were aware of the list of faithful churches. They also saw their parents resist that intolerance and they attended Harding and OC. Two of them have active roles as a woman in their church–Oops not supposed to say “my church”
The third ones life journey in regard to her choice of mates has a bigger concern of simply finding a church that will reach out to her.
But, I believe they all have, as have I, forgiven those of the oppressive past.
I do not believe that any of the female gender who have been oppressed can heal and go on with life in the best possible way until they forgive. [We all should remember and know--that even if those who wrong us ask for forgiveness we still have to absorb the hurt--so forgiving without their asking is possible]
And yes, we still have and will contine to have women within cof c
who line up the same oppressive attitude as the men. But remember as Paul said in Romans–Christ is able to make them stand
Experience is such a personal matter, it’s hard to judge apart from your own. And sometimes hard to judge that! I attend what some would call a ‘progressive’ church of Christ that allows women to serve. I would not say, though that it defines or identifies us, and for that I am grateful to our leadership. Though I am convinced I’m free to serve, and am supported by my husband, I struggled with the switch, honestly, because I don’t agree with the egalitarian argument and heard a lot of it when our church was in serious, prolonged discussion about the role of women. I believe we can biblically see evidence of all believers partaking of activities like prayer, scripture reading, and service in mixed community together without trying to prove that men and women are ‘equal’ in every sense. Yes, we are made spiritually equal in Christ… but we are made different by God, too, and there is honor and room for teaching and growth in our differences.
Knowing my freedom and having had the honor of exercising it, I would still not necessarily make a church that allows women to serve in such ways the litmus test if we moved and had to seek another church family. Is it nice to be able to serve the church publicly? Yes… and in freedom I retain the choice to refrain, too, out of respect to others or whatever conviction arises. We have both sorts of women in our congregation, those who serve and those who do not, and once we determined this to be a disputable matter outside of the gospel of Christ, we were instructed to respect the conviction of individual believers and extend grace.
I have seen women in my family submit themselves to various roles in the church over the years because they truly believe in the principle of men leading their families, and God’s family. Because it is a way of granting honor to the men in their midst, and they’re happy to do it. I honestly don’t believe they feel stifled, because they use their gifts so abundantly in the hours outside of Sunday service, and I’m fairly certain they would laugh if told they’d been repressed. I believe their choices are based on conviction, as mine are. Not to negate the harmful and hurtful teachings out there both past and present… they are real. My own family and I don’t agree on this issue, but what a wonderful opportunity for me to learn that I am not needed to convince everyone of my position – just respect and listen and love them, answering only to God and still listening for His guidance.
QB,
I understand the concept on one flesh as my wife has discussed this thoroughly with me and I believe I have a true understanding of her feelings. I was trying to say that the party that has done the oppressing should be extremely cautious of trying to accurately describe how the oppressed feel and especially how they should feel. It seems to me that a man’s opinion about how women feel about the history of degradation would need to be taken with a very large grain of salt.
Theo ,
I already said that some have been abused and some men have been abusive. And some women have abused men. But not all and not all agree with the egalatarian view but happily , openly and joyfully agree with the complementarian viewpoint.
Josh, the semantic chasm between “having a relevant opinion” and “accurately describing” is a vast one. Words, as they say, mean things.
But qb takes your piont, so you may have the last word.
qb
qb,
I am not sure I believe the chasm is truly that wide… but I also see your point. I humbly give the last word back to you.
(In all honesty, I do value the thoughtful words you often share on this blog.)
-Josh
Mike -
I’m a bit “late to the party” here on this one, but I heard about the book before Christmas, ordered it early from Amazon and read it pretty much without stopping. I so completely identified with many of her experiences growing up and as a young adult (she was thrown out of her junior high Sunday school class by her teacher and sent to stay, permanently, in the nursery with her mother because she asked questions about women, for goodness sakes – I felt SICK reading it – I understood completely), I felt compelled to get in touch with her if I could, and the next day I did.
We’ve been corresponding by emails ever since and I’ve added her new blog to my blogroll over at Finding Direction because I consider her a dear sister in Christ, even though we have vastly different views about a good many things.
Frank B. above is correct about her being very strident at times – many times – in her approach to life and Christianity, yet what I felt most for her at the end of her book was great sadness. She has not found the peace of grace and love of God and Jesus Christ as yet.
Yet, in her last chapter, she describes the kind of group she’d like to be part of that is much like some of our tribe’s churches today.
I consider myself to be very blessed because in my mid 30s I was able to begin to rise above and move beyond most of the – “oppression” is the only way I know to describe it – that I’d experienced from the churches I’d been part of and in my own personal life. Within the past 15 years or so, I’ve been part of two such incredible fellowships, but alas, am not now and it is a grievous thing to bear. In that, I can currently identify with Susan Campbell.
Susan Campbell has not had the advantages that some of us have had, I don’t think. Not within a church, obviously. And, she’s not in a very conducive place in which to find one (being in Connecticut) I don’t think, especially among CofCs.
I have been reading her blog and commenting some and will continue to correspond with her – and pray for her for the peace and joy she seeks from God. It is a terrible thing to live in fear of God. I know, because I lived that way for way too many years.
It was not an easy book for me to read, but I sped through it and am glad I did. If you have the stomach for it, I urge you to read it.
Dee
An eternity ago, I dated a Church of Christ member in Springfield, Mo. Fine young man; excellent family, loads of fun… He took me to his bedroom early on…..I hesitated, but he just wanted me to lie on his bed with him and listen to his Bible on tape!!!.
Why did we stop seeing each other? I attended his church and sang along, but turned down the right wing political handouts.
He came to mine and stood mute during the hymns, accompanied by piano…”I’m not taking any chances,” he said.
And maybe we parted because I could pass for a WASP but joined the NAACP at 16. Told my preacher dad, “if the schools have to integrate, so should the churches. I REMEMBER the 60s. NO DRUGS, SEX, etc for me!!!
That was the year Linda Brown, (of Brown vs Topeka) was in Miss Boyd’s American Problems class with me. So was Bevo Looney, and John Mitchell and….. Hi guys if you’re reading this! I was the new girl who wasn’t a part of any of the clicques, but could I sing and play. Thanks, Mrs. Rich and Mr. Decker!!!)
My preacher dad (Church of the Brethren) contacted Linda’s father ( Linda Brown’s dad was pastor of the local AME church ) and we integrated Sunday evening services. See what young people can do? Dad and I also attended Urban League. 1961-62…
I don’t know what Ms. Brown thought, but would love to talk to her; both of our fathers have passed away. Both wonderful men!
(A mere student, I also spoke to the principal of CHS and was heard!!! He got the “Are you saved?” folks banned from accosting us on the school grounds as soon as school was dismissed!
“Am I saved?” I would ask them “From what???” For sure, from violation of church and state, thanks to a fine principal….Name???
When I questioned the existence of God, my dad told me “before you decide you don’t believe in God, think carefully about what kind of God you don’t believe in!”
I’m still thinking about that one!
In the 50′s he warned his parishioners about making the Bible an idol. ”
It’s paper and ink. The numbers and punctuation were put in by men as an aid to readers,” he said. “God spoke to men and women then, and GOD IS STILL SPEAKING!”
.
So I simply rebelled sooner, I guess. Decided that religion was the opiate of the masses…. but like Campbell, couldn’t get the songs out of my head. And, one Sunday morning, I was walking past a church and said to myself, Thank God I don’t have to go….!!!!!”
We ended up in a similar place, different paths.
I was a teacher, journalist, and musician. I, too, visit different churches, and love to sing and dance around the house.
Join me, if you will, “I’ll fly away….”
Thanks for sharing!
Talk about being late to the party!!! It looks like the party is over!