Have you ever had someone tell you you can't be what you are? You can't be a Mexican Trump supporter? You can't be a Democratic christian? You can't be religious and believe in the Big Bang? That female chauvinists don't exist, or that oppressed people can't be racist? We get confused by people whose face doesn't match their politics or whose ethnicity doesn't match their religion, as if one can only exist when the other is present. We don't have a lot of space for people who apparently belong in one group, but don't adhere to all the core values of their group.
My personal seemingly diametrically opposed cocktail of labels is that I'm not not an Evangelical Feminist. I recognize that both "Evangelical" and "Feminist" are very charged labels, and the hyphenated term Evangelical-Feminist would probably be rejected by most in both circles. I don't refer to myself by either of those labels or even the hyphenated version, but I also don't fully refute them. I want to talk through each term to offer some nuance, and ultimately make the argument that membership in the Church and the sanctity of women are inextricably linked.
I grew up in Christian communities, and when there was a church to go to, it was an Evangelical church. We say that being born to Christian parents doesn't make you a Christian, and in regard to our salvation, that is true. But I am a product of the culture that I grew up in. There are things about me and the way I see the world that are Evangelical, even as that has come to stand for some wicked things.
I'm not Evangelical in the sense that I would call myself Evangelical or align with popular culture's understanding of Evangelicals or what many Evangelicals say and do. I choke every time I start to refer to myself as an Evangelical because that word means only hatred to those loved by the God I follow. But I'm not not-Evangelical in the sense that I'm not exactly anything else (yet). I'm not Anglican (yet). I'm not "spiritual but not religious". I am still in a church setting, I haven't denounced my faith background, and at this point I don't plan to. I've believed lies from my faith community, and I might spend my whole life unlearning those lies. But Christ also met me in the midst of a community that would largely be considered Evangelical.
One of the most talented writers that I know, Cheryl Klein, is an atheist lesbian. This is not allowed in Evangelicalism, real or imagined. As if that makes her not real. Not only is it not accepted by most Evangelicals as permissible, but it is literally sometimes believed to be something that that person has "made up". In light of this, I consider myself very woke and lucky and badass to know Cheryl, and that she doesn't hate me. I don't know very many openly gay people, and that's a byproduct of my cultural background. I was going to add, "for better or worse", but it's definitely for worse. "Not being allowed" to be gay doesn't stop people from being gay, so most of the people I've known for any length of time who are gay are trying to hide it or distancing themselves from anyone who might not "approve" (aka, most of Evangelical culture).
Cheryl wrote in a piece recently about a friend of hers, "she spoke my language: She was sarcastic, she worked in education, she wasn’t an evangelical Christian". Soon after I read that, I was at an interfaith event at which an Episcopal priest was talking about having respectful dialogue and building friendships across faiths and he said [paraphrase], "of course Evangelicals would be skeptical, they only engage with others as an opportunity to convert people." I swallowed hard, but I could not refute that, as far as I know, no other Evangelical-background person had ever given anyone in that room a reason to think that they weren't starting a relationship with conversion in mind. A pastor once asked me in relation to engaging with Muslims, "are you trying to be friends, or are you working toward their salvation?" As if the former was only appropriate if the latter was the aim.
Another time, Cheryl described me as a "young, white, Christian woman". I panicked. All of those things are true about me, but I have a powerful urge to explain all of those things away in an effort not to be labeled that way by a writer that I admire. I've been careful not to become known as a "parenting writer", and "Christian writer" is definitely a career killer too if you want to be known for good writing, especially if you hope to write on anything beside Christian doctrine that everyone agrees on (maybe an oxymoron). Yet I do write about parenthood and I do write about how my beliefs affect my life. It feels like an almost impossible task to prove that "it's not what you think!" before people turn away from the label "young, white, Christian writer". If I saw someone else's writing credentials as "young, white, and Christian", I wouldn't click through. And part of that is deserved. A lot of damage has been a done. There's a big space available for apologies and repair on the part of the white and Evangelical. Yet Cheryl is willing to read what I have to say and she's even appreciated some of it. For that I am grateful.
So I have one foot not fully out of the Evangelical camp.
And one not firmly planted in the Feminist camp, but definitely searching for footing.
To Evangelicals, Feminism is almost inseparable from Liberalism, and Liberalism is extremely difficult for many Evangelicals to untangle from Not-Christian, and most Evangelicals treat Non-Christians as evil and dangerous and dirty. To sum things up, Feminism isn't popular in any church I've ever been a part of. Feminists are viewed as embracing the killing of babies and most likely all sleeping with each other. Of course that is strong language, but it can be very difficult to use the f-word among Christians for fear of being treated as if my core desire is to harm small children. Not to mention trying to make the case that Jesus was essentially a feminist in the way that I define feminism.
I'm a feminist in that I believe women are of equal value in every way to men. Most importantly, I believe that God believes that. I believe women are of equal value to men, including within church structure. I don't think women and men are the same, exactly, but I don't know how to talk about that yet. I do not believe that women are better than men. I'm a feminist in that I believe that the church (my church tradition, at least) has distorted God's view of women, and gives men the key to oppression in the name of God. That is sick, and I denounce it.
To me, feminism means recognizing and fighting for the sanctity of the downtrodden, and that absolutely gets political sometimes. I've never been vocal about my stance on reproductive rights or marriage rights. I'm for same-sex marriage in the legal sense, partly because I 100% do not buy that the US is "a Christian nation." Therefore, the state is not beholden to religious values (any religion). There are Christians whose values aren't violated by same-sex marriage. I believe there are Christians in same-sex marriages. My personal views on the morality of same-sex marriage are not as clear as I wish they were. I'm not sure that my views, if and when I can articulate them, matter. That's a pretty "liberal" stance for a not not Evangelical.
I've also avoided giving direct opinions about reproductive rights because again, my feelings and beliefs are much more complicated than my labels would have you think. My dad commented that the modern feminist camp has made abortion their litmus test - you're FOR women if you're pro-choice, your're AGAINST women if you're pro-life. In some ways, that's absurdly simplistic, but in other ways it's not. Do you know any anti-abortion feminists? I can think of two that I know personally, but I don't think either of them would call themselves a feminist, so maybe that means I know zero.
While I am indeed against abortion, I'm much more emphatically "pro-life" because that term encompasses a lot that "anti-abortion" refuses to tackle or even acknowledge. I'll get to that other stuff in a minute, but even in the most-used sense of the idea of being pro-life, I begin to toss and turn with the discomfort of it. I am pro- every life, but I am anti- a lot of circumstance in which those lives begin. I deeply understand the circumstances surrounding not wanting a baby and the circumstances in which birth is less than ideal, put lightly. I have personally been there. I'm not pro- the circumstance of a baby born into a family that can't or won't take care of her. I'm not pro- the circumstance of children being brought into a world where someone was against their killing, but not willing to care for their mother or take an unwanted child. I'm anti-innocents-suffering. Many lives that are not aborted begin in circumstances of misery and heartbreak, and recognizing that makes being pro-life a way, way more difficult stance to take than most people give it credit for.
I think it was Albert Mohler who explained that in a society that wants the freedom to define our bodies - the choice to identify our sexuality as what feels most right or comfortable to us - it seems only fair that women should have the same right to not be pregnant as a man. That is, to be in control of her body. To be honest with you, I find that very appealing in a logical sense. I did not like being pregnant and it doesn't feel fair that pregnancy - which traditionally requires a man and woman - falls upon a woman's body, every damn time. Yes, I see the awesome raw power of my body and it's ability to foster life. Yes, I see the blessing in my children. But we're kidding ourselves if we think it's always wanted or always the woman's choice to be in that position. It's nuanced and difficult to deal with the fact that as a pregnant woman, you are in a situation - growing a human - that will affect you forever more (even if that life is terminated) and that is simply out of your control. I didn't like that part. Becoming a mother is one of the most helpless things I have ever experienced. I didn't like being helpless in the face of something that was more than me, but also very much within me. It's confusing and painful at times, and that doesn't go away when your child is born, even when the child is loved greatly.
This article - which doesn't mention any religious reasons behind being pro-life - points out that abortion isn't a fun thing that women want to do because it's somehow empowering. It's a frequent practice because it seems like the best or the only option. It's a mother recognizing that she will have no support in having the baby because then there is a responsibility on everyone's part not to ignore that baby. It's the easier option for everyone else, not always or only the mother. Most women who end pregnancies describe feeling trapped, "like an animal caught in a trap, gnawing off their own leg", as the author puts it. I never hear this acknowledged by Evangelical pro-lifers.
Being pro-life means a lot more than being anti-abortion. Being pro-life means I'm against the death penalty. It means I'm against generations of men rotting in prison over shoddy justice work and petty charges. It means I'm against immigrants and the poor being robbed of aid and legal ability to keep themselves alive. It means I'm pro ALL LIVES, even the ones I don't like. I am for the lives of unborn children, uncared for elderly, the uninvited foreigner, and unforgiven convicts, even as I am deeply aware that an unwelcome life carries with it intense pain. A pain felt by those we begrudgingly let live, and a pain felt by the givers of life who feel unable to bare one more mouth to feed, one more inconvenience.
I'm pro-life in that I believe every person deserves a chance and that it's not my right to decide whether that chance is "worth it". But I'm not happy about it. A life saved is treated like a victory by the loudest anti-abortion sign holders, and to their credit, it should be. But you never hear about what comes next; a broken life. Part of a life that is not aborted is a tragedy, and I credit pro-choice advocates for calling it what it is in that sense.
A feminist is a realist. A feminist is someone who recognizes that the world is not as it should be because women aren't properly loved. Men aren't properly loved. Children aren't cared for. And we can't always fix it. And that really, really sucks. But as a not not an Evangelical Feminist, where I go with that realization might be different than where a secular feminist goes (not to lump all secular feminists into one). My answer has to be, say "yes" to that life - the young, the old, the unloved - and then to stay by their side, serving. Not abandoning them to their freshly-saved but miserable life.
Rosaria Butterfield wrote, "all around you, people hunger for the covenant of God to include them."
I have believed in God for most of my life, but I have hungered as a woman to be fully included in the covenant, because sometimes the church tells me that I am not. I see the LGBTQ community bristling at being actively uninvited by Evangelicals into the covenant of God. I see refugees weeping when they are not included in this made-up idea of America as God's land. Land they're clearly not welcome in. I see people turning to terrorism to find a sense of purpose because the church did not call to them in their darkest hours. I see mothers crying out and alone because no man, no church, no friend has helped them see the birth of a child as a viable option. How can she know that she and her child are invited into the covenant if no one will tell her? If no one will see her there, and then stay?
To say that anyone is not included in the invitation to God's covenant of belonging is to spit upon the entire reason for Jesus's coming - he reached out when I, we, were still lost. And he continues reaching out again when I get lost again. I am invited. You are invited. And those who honor God should be angry when anyone is uninvited. Angry enough to fight. I'm saddened that cultural membership in the church and the idea that women are of invaluable worth and power ever came to be viewed as opposing rather than being, in fact, one and the same idea.
Feminist of God, walk the line.
My personal seemingly diametrically opposed cocktail of labels is that I'm not not an Evangelical Feminist. I recognize that both "Evangelical" and "Feminist" are very charged labels, and the hyphenated term Evangelical-Feminist would probably be rejected by most in both circles. I don't refer to myself by either of those labels or even the hyphenated version, but I also don't fully refute them. I want to talk through each term to offer some nuance, and ultimately make the argument that membership in the Church and the sanctity of women are inextricably linked.
(Paintings by Fernando Vicente)
I grew up in Christian communities, and when there was a church to go to, it was an Evangelical church. We say that being born to Christian parents doesn't make you a Christian, and in regard to our salvation, that is true. But I am a product of the culture that I grew up in. There are things about me and the way I see the world that are Evangelical, even as that has come to stand for some wicked things.
I'm not Evangelical in the sense that I would call myself Evangelical or align with popular culture's understanding of Evangelicals or what many Evangelicals say and do. I choke every time I start to refer to myself as an Evangelical because that word means only hatred to those loved by the God I follow. But I'm not not-Evangelical in the sense that I'm not exactly anything else (yet). I'm not Anglican (yet). I'm not "spiritual but not religious". I am still in a church setting, I haven't denounced my faith background, and at this point I don't plan to. I've believed lies from my faith community, and I might spend my whole life unlearning those lies. But Christ also met me in the midst of a community that would largely be considered Evangelical.
One of the most talented writers that I know, Cheryl Klein, is an atheist lesbian. This is not allowed in Evangelicalism, real or imagined. As if that makes her not real. Not only is it not accepted by most Evangelicals as permissible, but it is literally sometimes believed to be something that that person has "made up". In light of this, I consider myself very woke and lucky and badass to know Cheryl, and that she doesn't hate me. I don't know very many openly gay people, and that's a byproduct of my cultural background. I was going to add, "for better or worse", but it's definitely for worse. "Not being allowed" to be gay doesn't stop people from being gay, so most of the people I've known for any length of time who are gay are trying to hide it or distancing themselves from anyone who might not "approve" (aka, most of Evangelical culture).
Cheryl wrote in a piece recently about a friend of hers, "she spoke my language: She was sarcastic, she worked in education, she wasn’t an evangelical Christian". Soon after I read that, I was at an interfaith event at which an Episcopal priest was talking about having respectful dialogue and building friendships across faiths and he said [paraphrase], "of course Evangelicals would be skeptical, they only engage with others as an opportunity to convert people." I swallowed hard, but I could not refute that, as far as I know, no other Evangelical-background person had ever given anyone in that room a reason to think that they weren't starting a relationship with conversion in mind. A pastor once asked me in relation to engaging with Muslims, "are you trying to be friends, or are you working toward their salvation?" As if the former was only appropriate if the latter was the aim.
Another time, Cheryl described me as a "young, white, Christian woman". I panicked. All of those things are true about me, but I have a powerful urge to explain all of those things away in an effort not to be labeled that way by a writer that I admire. I've been careful not to become known as a "parenting writer", and "Christian writer" is definitely a career killer too if you want to be known for good writing, especially if you hope to write on anything beside Christian doctrine that everyone agrees on (maybe an oxymoron). Yet I do write about parenthood and I do write about how my beliefs affect my life. It feels like an almost impossible task to prove that "it's not what you think!" before people turn away from the label "young, white, Christian writer". If I saw someone else's writing credentials as "young, white, and Christian", I wouldn't click through. And part of that is deserved. A lot of damage has been a done. There's a big space available for apologies and repair on the part of the white and Evangelical. Yet Cheryl is willing to read what I have to say and she's even appreciated some of it. For that I am grateful.
So I have one foot not fully out of the Evangelical camp.
And one not firmly planted in the Feminist camp, but definitely searching for footing.
To Evangelicals, Feminism is almost inseparable from Liberalism, and Liberalism is extremely difficult for many Evangelicals to untangle from Not-Christian, and most Evangelicals treat Non-Christians as evil and dangerous and dirty. To sum things up, Feminism isn't popular in any church I've ever been a part of. Feminists are viewed as embracing the killing of babies and most likely all sleeping with each other. Of course that is strong language, but it can be very difficult to use the f-word among Christians for fear of being treated as if my core desire is to harm small children. Not to mention trying to make the case that Jesus was essentially a feminist in the way that I define feminism.
I'm a feminist in that I believe women are of equal value in every way to men. Most importantly, I believe that God believes that. I believe women are of equal value to men, including within church structure. I don't think women and men are the same, exactly, but I don't know how to talk about that yet. I do not believe that women are better than men. I'm a feminist in that I believe that the church (my church tradition, at least) has distorted God's view of women, and gives men the key to oppression in the name of God. That is sick, and I denounce it.
To me, feminism means recognizing and fighting for the sanctity of the downtrodden, and that absolutely gets political sometimes. I've never been vocal about my stance on reproductive rights or marriage rights. I'm for same-sex marriage in the legal sense, partly because I 100% do not buy that the US is "a Christian nation." Therefore, the state is not beholden to religious values (any religion). There are Christians whose values aren't violated by same-sex marriage. I believe there are Christians in same-sex marriages. My personal views on the morality of same-sex marriage are not as clear as I wish they were. I'm not sure that my views, if and when I can articulate them, matter. That's a pretty "liberal" stance for a not not Evangelical.
I've also avoided giving direct opinions about reproductive rights because again, my feelings and beliefs are much more complicated than my labels would have you think. My dad commented that the modern feminist camp has made abortion their litmus test - you're FOR women if you're pro-choice, your're AGAINST women if you're pro-life. In some ways, that's absurdly simplistic, but in other ways it's not. Do you know any anti-abortion feminists? I can think of two that I know personally, but I don't think either of them would call themselves a feminist, so maybe that means I know zero.
While I am indeed against abortion, I'm much more emphatically "pro-life" because that term encompasses a lot that "anti-abortion" refuses to tackle or even acknowledge. I'll get to that other stuff in a minute, but even in the most-used sense of the idea of being pro-life, I begin to toss and turn with the discomfort of it. I am pro- every life, but I am anti- a lot of circumstance in which those lives begin. I deeply understand the circumstances surrounding not wanting a baby and the circumstances in which birth is less than ideal, put lightly. I have personally been there. I'm not pro- the circumstance of a baby born into a family that can't or won't take care of her. I'm not pro- the circumstance of children being brought into a world where someone was against their killing, but not willing to care for their mother or take an unwanted child. I'm anti-innocents-suffering. Many lives that are not aborted begin in circumstances of misery and heartbreak, and recognizing that makes being pro-life a way, way more difficult stance to take than most people give it credit for.
I think it was Albert Mohler who explained that in a society that wants the freedom to define our bodies - the choice to identify our sexuality as what feels most right or comfortable to us - it seems only fair that women should have the same right to not be pregnant as a man. That is, to be in control of her body. To be honest with you, I find that very appealing in a logical sense. I did not like being pregnant and it doesn't feel fair that pregnancy - which traditionally requires a man and woman - falls upon a woman's body, every damn time. Yes, I see the awesome raw power of my body and it's ability to foster life. Yes, I see the blessing in my children. But we're kidding ourselves if we think it's always wanted or always the woman's choice to be in that position. It's nuanced and difficult to deal with the fact that as a pregnant woman, you are in a situation - growing a human - that will affect you forever more (even if that life is terminated) and that is simply out of your control. I didn't like that part. Becoming a mother is one of the most helpless things I have ever experienced. I didn't like being helpless in the face of something that was more than me, but also very much within me. It's confusing and painful at times, and that doesn't go away when your child is born, even when the child is loved greatly.
This article - which doesn't mention any religious reasons behind being pro-life - points out that abortion isn't a fun thing that women want to do because it's somehow empowering. It's a frequent practice because it seems like the best or the only option. It's a mother recognizing that she will have no support in having the baby because then there is a responsibility on everyone's part not to ignore that baby. It's the easier option for everyone else, not always or only the mother. Most women who end pregnancies describe feeling trapped, "like an animal caught in a trap, gnawing off their own leg", as the author puts it. I never hear this acknowledged by Evangelical pro-lifers.
Being pro-life means a lot more than being anti-abortion. Being pro-life means I'm against the death penalty. It means I'm against generations of men rotting in prison over shoddy justice work and petty charges. It means I'm against immigrants and the poor being robbed of aid and legal ability to keep themselves alive. It means I'm pro ALL LIVES, even the ones I don't like. I am for the lives of unborn children, uncared for elderly, the uninvited foreigner, and unforgiven convicts, even as I am deeply aware that an unwelcome life carries with it intense pain. A pain felt by those we begrudgingly let live, and a pain felt by the givers of life who feel unable to bare one more mouth to feed, one more inconvenience.
I'm pro-life in that I believe every person deserves a chance and that it's not my right to decide whether that chance is "worth it". But I'm not happy about it. A life saved is treated like a victory by the loudest anti-abortion sign holders, and to their credit, it should be. But you never hear about what comes next; a broken life. Part of a life that is not aborted is a tragedy, and I credit pro-choice advocates for calling it what it is in that sense.
A feminist is a realist. A feminist is someone who recognizes that the world is not as it should be because women aren't properly loved. Men aren't properly loved. Children aren't cared for. And we can't always fix it. And that really, really sucks. But as a not not an Evangelical Feminist, where I go with that realization might be different than where a secular feminist goes (not to lump all secular feminists into one). My answer has to be, say "yes" to that life - the young, the old, the unloved - and then to stay by their side, serving. Not abandoning them to their freshly-saved but miserable life.
Rosaria Butterfield wrote, "all around you, people hunger for the covenant of God to include them."
I have believed in God for most of my life, but I have hungered as a woman to be fully included in the covenant, because sometimes the church tells me that I am not. I see the LGBTQ community bristling at being actively uninvited by Evangelicals into the covenant of God. I see refugees weeping when they are not included in this made-up idea of America as God's land. Land they're clearly not welcome in. I see people turning to terrorism to find a sense of purpose because the church did not call to them in their darkest hours. I see mothers crying out and alone because no man, no church, no friend has helped them see the birth of a child as a viable option. How can she know that she and her child are invited into the covenant if no one will tell her? If no one will see her there, and then stay?
To say that anyone is not included in the invitation to God's covenant of belonging is to spit upon the entire reason for Jesus's coming - he reached out when I, we, were still lost. And he continues reaching out again when I get lost again. I am invited. You are invited. And those who honor God should be angry when anyone is uninvited. Angry enough to fight. I'm saddened that cultural membership in the church and the idea that women are of invaluable worth and power ever came to be viewed as opposing rather than being, in fact, one and the same idea.
Feminist of God, walk the line.
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