Shawna Atteberry

The Baker Who Also Writes and Teaches

Reviewing a Book

Last week I found out that my blog is getting noticed. I received a pre-publication copy of Susan McLeod-Harrison’s book Saving Women from the Church: How Jesus Amends a Divide from Barclay Press. This is Susan’s first book and will be released on Febuary 20. She looks at traditional myths about women such as women are inferior to men, women’s emotions disqualify them from ministry, and women cannot lead because they are to submit to men. I am very excited about this book. In a lot of ways Susan’s journey has mirrored my own (I’ll get more into that in my review).

This book also came at a very good time. I had just finished reading Carolyn Custis James’ Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories. I had been excited about this book too and that Carolyn showed how women were equal to and ministered beside men to build God’s Kingdom throughout the Bible. Her scholarship is excellent, and she is a great storyteller. Then I hit the last chapter. She made it very clear that she did not think this included leadership positions such as pastor. In a footnote, she says that Choe, Lydia, and Priscilla were “hostesses,” not leaders, of the churches that met in their homes. She also has two or three paragraphs about how women can be a support and help to their pastors. Pastors are always referred to as “he.” No talk of men supporting their female pastors or women coming alongside and helping their female pastors. I was so disaapointed. I need to write a review of it, but I just haven’t wanted to go back to it. It has been a long time since I was this disappointed in a book.

In the promotional material that came with Saving Women from the Church, they asked if I could read the book and put up a review on my blog, which I am now doing. I’m about halfway through the book. Susan’s publicist also wrote that if we wanted to do an interview to email her. I think I’m going to do that too. I’d love interview Susan and put that up on the site as well.

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

2006 Books of the Year

I saw other blogs posting the books they read this last year that were their favorites. Here are mine.

Non-fiction

The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew– Three Women Search for Understanding by by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne LaMott
Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher
The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything by Brian McLaren
The Five Languages of Love: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman
Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity by Lauren Winner

Fiction

The Onion Girl and Widdershins by Charles de Lint
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Magic Street by Orson Scott Card

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

Short Hops

Yes, we are back. It’s taken me a couple of days to get caught up after being gone. In my catching up, I read some really good things, so I decided to share them with you.

At Ben Witherington’s blog, you will find two exellent posts:
Thus Spake Zarathustra—The Dying Out of Monotheistic Religion: He talks about the dying out of Zoroastrianism, an ancient monotheistic faith. I like his reason for why we find monotheistic faith all over the world, whether they were influenced by Judaism or not.
What Is the Character of God?: this is a wonderful treatise on God’s relationship with us and the rest of creation and the foundation and undercurrent of that relationship: love. This is long, but well worth the time it takes to read.

Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ, has just published a book, Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right. This is definitely going on my reading list. He has also started up a blog for conversation about the book and as a place for us to talk about how we can get the word out that the Religious Right does not have a monopoly on evangelicalism or Christianity in this country.

And over at my favorite site for making sure the Religious Right does not have a monopoly on faith and politics, Street Prophets, is a very basic and insightful article on Islam written by a Musliam: Salaam ‘alaikum (peace be unto you). Make sure you read the comments too. We’ve been having a wonderful conversation, and JD has graciously answered all our questions about Islam and given us further insight into his religion. I am pointing this out because I think most of what we see and hear about Islam and Muslims is a caricature (just as most of what see about Chrisitanity in this country is a caricature). If you really want to see how a faithful Muslim views and explains his faith, this is a great place to start. JD also has a blog: Dunner’s. Don’t miss his entry Bush Administration Misuses the Word “Caliphate”. It’s a very enlightening article, and here again we see that there is moderate Islam just as there is moderate Christianity.

Happy reading!

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

The marginalization of the Spirit

Spirit-Sophia is the source of transforming energy among all creatures. She initiates novelty, instigates change, transforms what is dead into new stretches of life. Fertility is intimately related to her recreative power, as is the attractiveness of sex. It is she who is ultimately playful, fascinating, pure and wise, luring human beings into the depths of love. As mover and encourager of what tends toward stasis, Spirit-Sophia inspires human creativity and joy in the struggle. Wherever the gift of healing and liberation in however partial a manner reaches the winterized or damaged earth, or people crushed by war and injustice, or individual persons weary, harmed, sick, or lost on life’s journey, there the new creation in the Spirit is happening (Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, 135).

In Johnson’s book she points out that the Holy Spirit is normally glossed over in regular theological tomes. She finds this interesting since it is God the Spirit who works in this world to reconcile creation to God and to build God’s kingdom. She also finds this lack of scholarship interesting since most of the feminine names for divinity revolve around the Spirit. Johnson begins her theological reflection about God with God the Spirit.

I wonder if this lack of reflection on and talking about the Spirit is one of the reasons why the Church appears to be ineffective in combatting the powers and principalities of the world: racism, sexism, genocide, war, economic injustice, and the battles going on between different Christian organizations. Johnson goes on to say that it is Sophia-Spirit who gives us hope when there is no reason hope. She is the one who inspires us to new creative and prophetic endeavors to stand against the evil in our world and bring into life the loving and redeeming kingdom of God. I have always been a visionary–a prophetic visionary. I see the way things are, but I also see the way things should be. But very often I forget about Sophia-Spirit’s presence and power in our world. I forget that it is She who has given me the insight and calling that I have. I need to remember this God who tirelessly and mercifully continues to work and move and love this world back to herself.

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

Book Review: God of the Fairy Tale

God of the Fairy Tale: Finding Truth in the Land of Make-Believe by Jim Ware, WaterBrook Press, 2003 (184 pages).

In Jim Ware’s God of the Fairytale: Finding Truth in the Land of Make-Believe, Ware reminds us why we are never too old for fairy tales. Beginning with a scene between J. R. R. Tolkein and C. S. Lewis, Ware goes on to illustrate chapter-by-chapter why Tolkein’s statement that the story of Christ fulfills all other stories, myths, and fairy tales is true. In fairy tales such as “Cinderella,” “The Bremen Town Musicians,” and “The Little Match-Girl,” Ware shows how each story illustrates how life is then goes on to show an important biblical truth.

Fairy tales do not deal in rose colored glasses and blissful utopia. In tales such as “Hansel and Gretel,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Snow White,” we see how cruel and brutal the world can be. Abandonment, kidnapping, murder, jealousy, and cannibalism are some of the gruesome themes the fairy tales explore. But just as God does not leave humanity in it’s own sin and consequences, so the fairy tales do not leave Hansel and Gretel in the witch’s clutches, or Cinderella in the ashes. Ware does a good job of seeing grace in the tales, and then goes on to show how that grace can work in our lives.

This book reminds us of the power of story through all cultures, and reminds us that we, too, need to tell our stories, not white-wash them, and point out the places where our lives have been graced. Most often those moments of grace happen in the dark and fear-filled places of our lives.

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

Reflections on Africa

One thing [Jeffrey] Sachs cannot abide is a peculiarly American notion that the plight of the poor stems from their own moral failures. “One of the things I fight against is the strong view in our society that has its own religious and cultural roots that says the poor have themselves to blame,” he says, gaining momentum. “That basic statement is, scientifically, incorrect. . . . Africa’s plight has been variously viewed as a function of being black or being heathen, being pagan, being corrupt, being immoral, being libertine, being savage, being subhuman. Our wonderful civilization has attributed all of these reckless notions to Africa and used those also to condone, excuse, and justify every kind of barbarism on the side of the West imaginable over the last five hundred years. Mass slaughter. Mass slavery. Imperial rule. Colonial domination. Neglect of the AIDS pandemic. It’s all been part of a set of beliefs that have their own basis in deep misunderstandings” (Cathleen Falsani, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, 189).

As I read the chapter on economist Jeffrey Sachs, I remembered some theological reflection I had done on Africa last year.

Zephaniah is one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. His book is three chapters and is the usual gloom and doom for sin and promise of restoration afterward. Needless to say, Zephaniah is not a much read book. In doing research on Zephaniah, I came across some interesting reading in The New Interpreter’s Bible. The first interesting thing begins with Zephaniah’s genealogy. Zephaniah is the son of Cushi. In Hebrew Cushi means “African.” Cush is believed to be modern day Ethiopia. So Zephaniah could very likely have been from Africa, which might mean that’s why the end of his book has such a message of universal restoration and reconciliation: “From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, my scattered ones, shall bring my offering” (Zeph. 3:11, NRSV). Then NIB goes on to point out a little something in the Bible that white, Western types easily overlook:

The conversion of nations begins with the conversion of Cush: beyond the rivers of Ethiopia (v. 10, cf. Isaiah 18:1, 7). This ancient African superpower exercised a profound influence on the Israelite imagination through the eighth- and seventh-century BCE prophets, who reflected upon its role during the declining years of the Davidic monarchy. The experience of exile and growing diaspora communities, such as at Alexandria in the Nile Delta, also contributed to sustained interest Egypt and Cush of the Nile. The nascent Christian movement saw its pentecost experience as the occasion for expansion, and it, too, looked south into Cush for early conversions. Early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, for example, saw the conversion of the Cushite official in Acts 8:26-39, which preceded the conversion of the Roman soldier Cornelius (Acts 10), as symbolizing the beginning of the spread of Christianity.

This interpretation of Zephaniah ben Cushi’s identity and the subsequent impact of 3:10 on the conversion account in Acts 8:26-39 help to correct Eurocentric readings of history that exclude Africa’s formative role in the development and spread of Jewish and Christian religious traditions. The acknowledgment and acceptance of Nubia/Cush (the NRSV uses the Greek equivalent, Ethiopia), along with its near neighbor and racial relative, Egypt, as being in and of Africa correct misinformed and often politically motivated views of African inferiority. The biblical witness holds an entirely different view of Egypt and Cush–namely, that they were important African players in the then international political and cultural scene.

Unfortunately, the effects of pseudo-scientific racial theories from the nineteenth century CE, supposedly proving the inherent inferiority of blacks, are still among us. These racial theories are comparable to the lies and deceit that marked the enmity Zephaniah ben Cushi predicted would cease in the coming reign of God. The oracle in Zeph. 3:9-13 should give heart to reformers today who work for local and international peace, because it is a clarion call for removing racist, sexist, and nationalistic ideologies based on lies and deceit and the fear they engender. (The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 7 [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996], 700-1.)

One thing that has always infuriated me regarding some branches of Christianity is the belief that Africa is in turmoil because they are paying for their sins of idolatry and being pagan–they are “reaping what they sowed” (Galatians 6:7-8). First that is just bad theology. Paul was not writing to pagans–he was writing to Christians. He was telling Christians that they would reap what they sow, so I’m not sure that verse can even be applied to Africa–the Christians in Africa, yes, but the whole continent? Second I believe that Jesus said God sends rain and sun both on the just and unjust because He loves everyone and everything He created. Then we are commanded to be perfect as our Father is perfect–love everyone as he does, which also means forgiving our enemies, since that is the original context of the verse (see Matthew 5:43-47).

Here’s the kicker I really like: Christians cannot say “Well the Old Testament says!” Yes, there is the eye for an eye and holy war in the Bible, but that is just one voice. Zephaniah gives another voice; actually Zephaniah gives us both voices, but I want to focus on the grace, since that’s what gets overlooked in the Old Testament. Zephaniah 3:9-20 is sheer grace. After holding both Judah (God’s people), and the countries around them accountable for their sins and the atrocities they have committed against one another, God just doesn’t offer forgiveness and grace to Judah–He extends it to all the world–heathen included. Grace and salvation for all is not just a New Testament concept–that has been God’s plan all along. He has always wanted to be reconciled to His creation, period. Zephaniah shows us that. It’s also backed up by passages in Isaiah, and then there is this great little phrase in Exodus that often gets overlooked as well. The Passover has just happened and the Hebrews are leaving Egypt–“The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children. A mixed crowd also went up with them!” One of my Old Testament professors said that literally “mixed crowd” means “mongrel.” The mixed crowd was any and every ethnicity and race that wanted to join the Hebrews and follow their God. The Prince of Egypt got that part right! When the Hebrews are leaving Egypt you see Egyptians and others joining them. It wasn’t just the Israelites (i.e. “God’s” people) who were redeemed and brought out of Egypt–it was whoever wanted to come–whoever wanted to have a relationship with God and be a part of his people. From the beginning of the Old Testament to the end there is a voice that says God wants everyone to come to him and be in a relationship with him. The only reason he selected Israel, and then the church, is so that we could show people what a relationship with God looks like. Unfortunately throughout history we have failed at that again and again. And I see grace in that too. We have repeatedly screwed up and misrepresented God in horrific ways, and yet God still chooses to work through us. God could have called it quits and said, “Okay enough is enough, it ends here and now!” But He hasn’t. He still wants to work through us and use us to build His kingdom. Am I only one who wonders if God is really brave or really stupid? And although there are times that I wish Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and company would just be swallowed by a big hole in the ground, I have admit that God extends his grace to them too; just as he does to me. I wonder if they will ever get past their petty, preconceived ideas and see how big God and his grace really are? I wonder if any of us will ever really see how big God and his grace are? I will spend the rest of my life trying.

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

Mahoney's Prayer

I’m reading Cathleen Falsani’s The God Factor, and there is one commonality that has run through most of the profiles I have read (I’m about halfway through the book). This one commonality is love and forgiveness. Regardless of belief or religion (or “spirituality”) most of the people Falsani interviewed says that God or their view/perception of God is love and forgiveness. Out of the the ones I’ve read so far, I like what John Mahoney has to say about love and forgiveness the best. Mahoney is one of my favorite actors, and few other shows have made me roll with laughter the way that Frasier did. It wasn’t what he said about God’s love and forgiveness that caught my eye. It was his response to that love and obedience in this prayer he says throughout the day: “Dear God, please help me to treat everybody–including myself–with love, respect, and dignity” (p. 134). What a wonderful way to pray “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

A Different Way

Though you won’t find it in some of the sanitized versions lining the shelves of the children’s section of the library, an unmistakable strain of sheer brutality runs through the traditional folk and fairy tales. It’s frank and unapologetic, this element of violence and cruelty–naked and unadorned. Anyone even moderately familiar with the work of the Brothers Grimm, for instance, knows how truly grim the Grimms can be. Perhaps this is one of the reasons J. R. R. Tolkein suggested that fairy tales were never really meant for the nursery. Their outlook in life is far too broad–and too realistic–for that. –Jim Ware, God of the Fairy Tale, pp. 49-50.

I really like this book, and it will probably wind up in my collection. In this chapter, “Savage World: The Cruelty of Fallen Creation,” Ware reminds us that the brutality and savageness of our world today is nothing new. This world has been a brutal place to live in since the Fall. We live in a fallen and corrupt world where evil lives, and there are no guarantees of safely making it through the forest, down the street, or across the parking lot. In “Hansel and Gretel” we see parental abandonment, child abuse, torture, and cannibalism. Themes with a familiar ring to them. Ware goes on to note brutality in other fairy and folk tales: the giant telling Jack that he will make bread out of Jack’s ground bones, the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood, and the tales of Mr. Fox and Robber Bridegroom who lured young, beautiful women into their lavish homes only to murder them.

Ware says, “The point here is not to terrify or titillate. Nor is it to echo the all-to-familiar alarmist message that society today is somehow worse than it’s ever been. On the contrary, what ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and the rest of the fairy tales teach us is that terror, cruelty, and savagery are simply ‘business as usual’ in a tainted and fallen world. We shouldn’t be surprised” (p. 51).

Ware notes that Jesus knew this as well. He warned his disciples that his followers would have trouble in this world. John reminds that “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19). Christians should be the least surprised over how brutal and savage this world can be. Christians in other parts of the world aren’t surprised. The ones who are suffering persecution for their faith, and have to leave family when they become a Christian to survive, know the truth of Jesus’ words and of fairy tales.

Yet large sections of American Christianity always seem to be surprised by what happens in our fallen world. It makes me wonder if they pay attention to their own beliefs. This world is not a nice place to live, and it will not be until Christ returns and all people and creation are reconciled in him.

Now this is not to say that we do nothing. There is a section of American Christianity that just wants to cover its head, whine to God how horrible this world is, and beg God to take them out of this evil, evil place. But Jesus showed us a different way. He showed us how to live in this evil world: love our enemies, pray for those who despise us, feed the poor, visit the sick and those in prison, and show this evil world a different way to live. Today in church our senior pastor said, “It’s not enough to pray for peace and then go home and do nothing. You have to become a peacemaker.” Paul would call it redeeming the time.

I want to be a peacemaker, but I’m not sure how to do that, but I am praying for God to show me. I know it won’t be popular in a war-mongering society. The war-mongering part of the church really irritates me. Jesus commanded us to be peacemakers, to love our enemies, to care for our enemies if they need it. So when Christians agree with actions that kill people and encourage even more warring ways, it makes me mad. They always cite Old Testament holy war passages, and I want to say, “So the Old Testament trumps the Son of God?” May be I should say it.

I’m not naive–I know there will be times when nations and societies go to war. It does not mean that the Church encourages it. It may be seen as a necessary evil, but it is still wrong. It is still sin. One of the reason I admire Dietrich Bonhoeffer is he never white-washed his role in the plot to assassinate Hitler. He admitted that it was a necessary evil, and that he had to do something to prevent Hitler from continuing his evil, but he always said it was still a sin. And he asked forgiveness.

There is evil in this world. It is a brutal and savage place to live. But Christians are not to be brutes and savages within it. We are the body of Christ in this world, which means we are Christ in this world. To me this means we should be saying and doing the things Jesus said and did: “Your sins are forgiven” to prostitutes, tax collectors and the worse kinds of sinners; “Father forgive them” to those who killed him. He loved his enemies, fed the poor, and alleviated suffering and the effects of sin. He told us to be peacemakers and reconcile the world to him and the Father.

This essay is also posted at Street Prophets.

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

Asking questions

I am reading How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci, and I am realizing how important asking questions is:

Although we all started life with a Da Vinci-like insatiable curiosity, most of us learned, once we got to school, that answers were more important than questions. In most cases, schooling does not develop curiosity, delight in ambiguity, and question-asking skill. Rather, the thinking skill that’s rewarded is figuring out the “right answer”–that is, the answer held by the person in authority, the teacher. This pattern holds throughout university and postgraduate education. . . (p. 65).

Michael Gelb then goes on to explain that in order to hone our problem-solving skills, we need to ask questions, and we need to ask the right kind of questions. We have to move away from “Is this the right answer?” thinking to “Is this the right question?” thinking. We have to look at different ways of seeing the problem, which means we will be asking more than one question. We have to reframe our initial question in a variety ways to be able to find solutions.

This led me back to a chapter I read in The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing about ideas. One of the sections of the chapter was on asking questions of your reading. When you read a news article or magazine feature, or something in a book that caught your attention–got your curiosity–you were to ask questions. Not everything that could be said about that person, organization, or situation was in that piece. Ask questions–what wasn’t there? What aspect of the story was glossed over in a line that needs its own story? “Questions lie at the heart of many of the best story ideas. Your job is to select the questions that intrigue you the most and run with them” (p. 45).

It seems all I have right now are questions. That is okay. I will keep asking questions and reframing those questions until I have answers that I can write about. All of my questions will probably have more than one answer, and none of those answers will be “the right answer,” but that is okay. That is how life is supposed to be. It would be nice if there were a right answer for everything, but there is not. All I can do is ask the questions and follow where they take me then tell you about it. And that is what I will do.

Published by Shawna on | Permalink

Reading is part of the job

“A writer must also read. Voraciously. The things others have done will serve as points of departure for his own work. He must read the classics and the daily newspaper, slick magazines and old yellowing pulps, handbills passed out by street partisans, the backs of cereal boxes” (William Ruehlmann in Stalking the Feature Story). So why do I always feel guilty when I’m reading? There is always this niggling voice in the back of my head that I’m a writer, and writing is what I should be doing. But as Ruehlmann stated I must also read.

This quote is in the book The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing in “The Mystery of Ideas.” Jack El-hai goes on to say that there is always more to the story than is being reported and has some questions to ask of a piece that has drawn your attention:

  • Who are the people most affected by this news? Who stands to gain and lose?
  • What person or group is at the center of these events?
  • How have the personal qualities of the people involved affected the outcome?
  • How and why did this happen? What might these events lead to?
  • Has this happened before?
  • What’s the problem here, what are some possible solutions, and who might be able to provide those solutions?
  • How does this news make you feel? Why?
  • Why should anyone care about this? Who would care about this?
  • Is this news part of a trend? (pp. 43-4).

El-hai goes to say that a writer’s job is to ask the questions that intrigue you the most and then go with them and see where they lead you. The writer’s own curiosity will give him or her ideas for new stories that may have only been touched on in the original story. Part of my job is reading, and doing what I’ve always done: read whatever I can get my hands on. Now I need to start asking questions and see where my reading takes my writing.

Published by Shawna on | Permalink