Jots and Tittles

Got a letter from Fuller yesterday afternoon, which I didn't read until last night.

I've been accepted to Fuller Northwest!  Hooray!  So that means that I'll be in Seattle come the fall, unless I hear back from the housing folks in Pasadena and transfer myself down there.  Honestly, I'd rather be in Seattle, but if I get housing in Pasadena I'll go there instead.  Still, God has done some amazing things in the past few days.  I heard back from Group and they want to pursue an internship with me, after I had given up all hope of that.  Then I heard from my friend Rachel who might have a place for me to live this summer, meaning I wouldn't have to commute from Brighton, which seeing as how gas prices are so freaking high might well be more expensive than living here, especially if I take the bus and a bike to Loveland from Fort Collins rather than drive.  And it means that I get to stay with my friends and don't have to go back to the boonies of Brighton where I'm not really friends with anyone anymore and I'd feel so dreadfully out of the loop and lonely.  So that's happy.  And now I hear back from Fuller, who is happy to accept me.  Hooray, hooray, hooray!  It's so nice to have things work out!  Thank you so, so much, God, that things are working out!  Forgive me for ever having doubted that they would.  And please let me get the job with Group.  I know that whatever happens is completely in your control - and you've brought me this far, which is AWESOME, so I have no doubt that you'll bring me the rest of the way to where I need to be.  ^.^

-Jaya-

I don't know whether I'm even coherent at this point. I watched "Chicken Chicken Chicken" on YouTube today and giggled for at least 20 minutes at the thought of doing it for my thesis presentation. It's not THAT funny... except it really is, in a completely ridiculous way. Actually, at this point, I could probably listen to freakin' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" and understand the deep and profound meaning behind the lyrics. And I'm not even on any mind-altering substances, unless you count a severe lack of sleep and several weeks' worth of school-induced stress. So maybe I'm not the best authority.

Anyway, considering that, the following sounds pretty darn good to me. Perhaps I will view it in a month and realize that I might have unknowingly inhaled any number of mind-altering substances, because the only other explanation for my current state of mind is multiple alien abductions, and as much as I love the X-Files I don't really believe in alien abductions.  ...Most days.

But I'm going to turn it in to my GR teacher tomorrow as my second-to-last journal entry, and it's going to be freaking sweet. Especially the part about abortion. I think I toned it down a bit, especially toward the beginning when I thought I might still care, but by the time I got to the abortion bit I pretty much decided, you know what, screw it, I'm right anyway so who cares what she thinks. And then I realized what I'd done and backed off toward the end. But still.

Well, maybe you should read it for yourself.

( Penultimate GR Journal OF DOOM, because everything's cooler when you add OF DOOM to the end. )

So, there you have it.  I'd like to say that it's pretty good but I'm really in no position to judge.  When I first wrote it I thought, "Wow! That's really amazing!  I'm going to post it on the LJ for all to see!" and now that I've posted it I'm thinking, "Hmm, maybe this was a bad idea..." but it's 2:30 in the morning and I still have reading to do before I can sleep.  So I'm going to go ahead and post it, and we'll hash out the details of whether that was a good idea some other time, eh?  All righty then. 

Peace out.

-Jaya-

I only have about half an hour to write this, so it won't be as in-depth as I would like.  However, since my Goddess Religions professor was kind enough to attempt to indoctrinate me regarding her position on abortion, I thought I would air my own views on the subject.  It shouldn't take long; they are quite simple.

If you're looking for a very long, in-depth, thorough and (in my own humble opinion) excellent defense of the pro-life position, I suggest reading Rebecca Kiessling's essay.  I especially like her reasoning regarding partial-birth and other late-term abortions - at that point, it has NOTHING to do with the mother's body, as it's quite possible to deliver the child by c-section or inducing labor, and in many cases the child stands a chance to live.  In those cases, is it not the obligation of the mother to attempt to preserve life where it is clearly possible to do so?  What right does the mother have to dictate that this child be killed, when very little effort on her part will secure its survival (or at least make survival possible)?  If she wants to avoid raising it, there are plenty of adoption agencies out there which would be glad to help her find a home for her child.  At that point, it is nothing but sheer, selfish laziness that is prompting the mother to seek abortion.

My point of view on the matter is somewhat simpler.  The only time in which abortion is permissible is when the mother's or the child's life is threatened by carrying the baby full term.  In the case of the mother, she has the right to act in what is, essentially, self-defense, and save her own life at the cost of another's, assuming that is the only way she can save herself.  I may not like it, but I will grant that right.  In the case of the child, well, if it won't survive the birth anyway, why make the mother suffer through a pregnancy that will come to nothing?  However, in all other cases - including that of rape - while the inconvenience of a nine-month pregnancy may be unappealing, that is absolutely NO reason to deprive an innocent child of its life.  The child is not the guilty party in the matter, regardless of how one thinks of it.  And honestly, the majority of abortions are done in cases where it was simply inconvenient for the woman to be pregnant, for whatever reason, and she puts her own personal comfort and ease ahead of another person's life, for which she is wholly responsible and with which she has been entrusted its sole care.  That's not only selfish to the extreme, but it's quite sick.  Kiessling gives an example of a man snowed in to a cabin with a child who is too small to reach any of the food stored in the cupboards, for nine months.  If he were to refuse to get food for the child because it would inconvenience him (perhaps he has a bum shoulder which makes reaching up to the cupboards painful), and the child starved to death because of his inaction, would not everyone be up in arms?  He has the means to provide for this child, and while it may have been inconvenient for him to do so, that does not absolve him of the responsibility to do it. 

It frustrates me to no end to hear all these women saying that "it's my right to choose what happens to my body."  What kind of selfish, unfeeling, stuck-up, evil person are you?  How dare you?  Nothing angers me quite like that. 

But anyway.  I should head to class.  Just thought I'd get that off my chest.  :)

-Jaya-

I can't believe it.

Wait - strike that.  I can believe it, which makes it all the more depressing.  While I was looking online for the rubric for an upcoming Goddess Religions assignment, I stumbled across another article posted on the class's electronic reserve page.  This article is called "A Consistent Life Ethic?: Supporting Life After Birth" and is by Rosemary Radford Ruether, and can be found for free on this page.  Considering that, on the class page, the article is referred to as "Abortion/Ruether," I of course was immediately curious, and opened it up.

Actually, the article itself is pretty impressive, when you consider that it manages to spend two pages critiquing the Catholic church without once even mentioning the Bible or anything even vaguely resembling God, AND that it covers almost every single one of the liberal hot issues: abortion, the war in Iraq (and with it the nation's completely failure to do anything good, in her not-so-humble opinion), global climate change, global disarmament, unfair distribution of wealth... am I missing anything?  On second thought, it's not that special after all - she just shoved God out of the picture to make room for her pet issues.  Typical.

I could spend a long time pulling apart her argument, especially her criticism that, because people will do it anyway, we should just concede that abortions are ok.  That's very much like saying ,well, people will murder anyway, so we might as well make them legal, since it's not going to stop anything anyway.  She cites some horrific case of a mother of three who was imprisoned for getting an abortion in some other country, and her three children were of course left completely helpless as she languished in jail. Depressing, certainly, and by no means is that the best way to go about punishing a woman for her bad decision - but does that mean that she is not in the wrong for choosing to end the child's life rather than seeking help?  One of the girls who went on the Arizona mission trip with me shared her story - she was adopted, and her birth mother had had several abortions before becoming pregnant with my friend.  She didn't say why her mother chose not to abort her, either, but she stated very clearly that she recognizes how easily she might have been aborted, too.  No wonder she is against abortion.

 But I digress.  Regardless of whether or not I agree with a single word the Ruether says, what on earth is this article doing in my course reserves?  Granted, it's not required reading - at least, not that I have seen so far.  But, despite the fact that Ruether is a well-known feminist theologian, whose arguments I have encountered and refuted before, this article mentions nothing that is even vaguely related to goddesses OR religion.  So, what is it doing on a list of  offered readings for a goddess religions class?  I'm no rocket scientist, but even I can clearly see that this article is way out of line.  There is no reason whatsoever for her to post this other than to foist her own political beliefs onto us, her unwitting students.  Never mind that most of the people in my class probably agree with the article.  Never mind that it isn't required reading.  This is WAY outside the scope of the class and has absolutely NO reason to be on that list.  This sort of thing makes me absolutely livid.  It's exactly what Indoctrinate-U is all about.

If I was not so close to graduation that I am scared of saying anything that would potentially jeopardize my  chances of being done (I do need this class to graduate, sadly),  I would try to do something about this.  As it is, while I was already planning to give a scathing review on the course evaluations at the end of the semester, I now must remember to include this, as well.  Perhaps I will included something to the effect of, 'Dr. Mitchell, I suggest you listen to the Right Brothers' song entitled "SHUT UP AND TEACH."'

It's almost too bad that I already have a calling.  Otherwise, I might consider contacting Evan Maloney and seeing if he needed any help fighting the liberal indoctrination going on in our universities, because this is just plain wrong, folks.  And it needs to stop.

-Jaya-

I'll get to some substance later.  Right now, I need some haiku-style complaining about Goddess Religions.  We're a little bit behind in class, but the reading for today was about God and Genesis.  The "tribal Yahweh," as Mitchell calls it. 

The attacks are back
God is not respected here
they cut Him to bits.

Why is it so cool
to try to make God look like
a complete moron?

Or make Him a mean,
evil, corrupt, and worthless
patriarchal jerk?

That is not my God!
My Father is kind, loving,
majestic and good.

He is a savior,
extending His love to all,
who are unworthy.

He is vengeful, yes,
He has every right when His
perfection is wronged.

But we deserve more
than even the wrath we get;
His love protects us.

Just because His Book
reflects the myths of the
goddesses of old...

...this does not mean that
they are not true - they are
Truths behind the myths.

They can't both be true
but that doesn't mean that both
must be wholly false.

There is nothing that
frustrates me more than seeing
these dumb arguments.

In case you can't tell, I found the reading for this week very frustrating.  It was all about how this stupid Hebrew god shows up and ousts all the goddesses, eradicating so much of the rich beauty of the previous religions and replacing it with the stark, ugly evil of Patriarchy.  With a capital P.

Grr. 

I really struggle with this crap.  It gets to me on more than an intellectual level, and frustrates me to no end.  Thank God that the moment I step outside, I can take a deep breath, revel in God's creation, and know that He is God, no matter what these stupid books tell me.  Sometimes, I have to cling to a truth as though it was nothing more than dogma, not because it is but because that's the only way I can deal with it without losing my head.  Only later, after the fact, can I look at the arguments being made and refute them logically.  My first reaction is to freeze up and panic, and the only way I can save myself is to cling to what I know is true.  So that's what I'll do when I get out of class today - I'm going to cling to the Truth and I'll deal with the lies later.

-Jaya-

P.S. As a rather irrelevant side note, what on EARTH is my teacher wearing today?  That's got to be the most hideous thing I've seen in a long time.  Shiny bronze MC Hammer-esque pants with a velvet-looking shirt that hangs down low  and completely destroys any form she might have had to her body.  Ick - looks like a wannabe Aladdin or... something.  Wow.  I'm quite at a loss for words to describe it.

I have been thinking about this particular subject an awful lot lately, as it seems to be cropping up everywhere.  One of the biggest problems I see cropping up in modern Christianity is a desire to rob God of His majesty, His glory, and His dignity to make Him more "approachable."  We see this in many modern praise songs, where the swelling tones and triumphant words of the old hymns are replaced with wimpy chords and repetitive dribble.  When I was home this Easter, I got from my parents a copy of a CD set called "More than 50 Most-Loved Hymns," and have listened to it several times through while driving around. And I noticed that most of those hymns, familiar to me as they are, still managed to make my heart swell to bursting with the sense of majesty and glory they imparted.  Think of singing "All Praise to Thee" or "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" - do you know the sensation I mean?  It often comes with the last verse, when there's usually a key change, and the entire piece builds to this crescendo that just explodes with power and you're practically shouting instead of singing because it's that exhilarating. It even comes at the end of hymns like "Be Thou My Vision," whose last verse goes like this:

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

This is back before key changes had the cheesy connotation they do now, and instead denoted a climax to the piece that increased its intensity and majesty.  Oh, I wish I could play some of it for you so that you would understand what I mean!  I can only pray that you do. If you don't, spend some time on SeeqPod and see if you can find some of the music I'm talking about - usually it's accompanied by an organ or a full orchestra, though sometimes you'll get something with bagpipes that's pretty nifty.  It's rather difficult to find if you don't know the names of the hymns you want (and even then, you go through a lot of bad ones before reaching a decent rendition) - I suggest starting with something really common, or something like the Hallelujah Chorus.  This sort of music worships God in a dignified, majestic, even stately manner - yet the worship is no less fervent for that.  Contrast this with the limp vocals of "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever."  Need I say more?  God is loving, and nice, and sometimes even sovereign and powerful, but no longer does he have the dignity afforded him in the old hymns.

This trend is not limited, however, simply to music.  In books, too, I find it runs rampant.  I recently reviewed John and Stasi Eldredge's Captivating, which is a perfect example of this sort of thing.  Another is a book which I have not read myself, but judging by what people have said in reviews and synopses, it's a dreadful shambles of bad theology that aims to take from God all majesty and glory He has ever possessed.  The book is called The Shack and represents God as three people: the Father has been replaced by "Papa," an African-American woman who, when not going by gender-bending familial names, goes by "Elousia"; Jesus, a Middle-Eastern man (though, by all accounts, a rather effeminate man), and the Holy Spirit, an Asian-American woman named Sarayu.  Now, anyone with half a brain and the capacity to read can find out in about ten minutes of browsing the Bible that this is completely ridiculous.  Apart from my usual complaints about God being portrayed as a woman (although, at least the book goes so far as to admit that this world is in need of some masculine role models and God provides that), with which we won't bother just now, here again we have this problem that God has been completely stripped of all majesty, dignity and glory to provide us with someone who is a little bit more manageable.  This god is friendly, sweet, never gets mad, likes hugs, is kind of clumsy (Jesus is, anyway), and, while seems to be fun to hang out with, isn't exactly, you know, powerful or wrathful or even dignified or majestic or glorious. 

I think the reason for all this is simple: it's way easier to deal with a really cool "Papa" who's hip six ways from Sunday and never wants us to be anything other than who we are.  We don't want God to be majestic, dignified, or glorious, because that means He's better than us and that we need to treat Him with respect.  Respect, for all it's tossed around these days, isn't something we much like to give to anyone.  It's cooler to just slack off and diss everyone.  Easier, too, because no one will listen to someone they don't respect.

God, however, deserves our respect, and He's not getting it.  The symptom I've pointed out here may manifest itself in many different ways, but it points clearly to the loss of respect we have as a culture for God, and that's very frustrating to me.  I'd much rather sing praises to God that fill me with awe at his majesty of which that music is only a glimpse, and read books that challenge me to think about a Being I can never fully comprehend, than to sing songs and read books that put God in a nice little box that I can carry around in my pill case and take it out when I need a fix.

-Jaya-

One more note.  I was playing on SeeqPod and found a version of the Hallelujah Chorus by Dan Sindel which is just SWEET.  DJ will love it.  It's a little slow, and I'm not sure what it does for the dignity of God as portrayed in the original version, but it's STILL a darn sight more majestic and glorious than the "Jesus is my boyfriend" music.  ROCK ON, JESUS! ^.~  And if you're looking for a good version of the original, look for the one by Drexel Choruses.

http://www.ldolphin.org/audio/agape.mp3

I've begun to rediscover my love for C. S. Lewis.  It's funny - the last time I was at Barnes and Noble, I was thinking about getting another of his books, and Ashley told me to get something else, because I have too much Lewis already.  But I can't help it!  He and I are kindred spirits in some - many - ways.  Right down to the quote I found of him last night saying, "You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me." 

It's funny, though, because as many times as I have dreamed of having a conversation with the man, I haven't ever imagined him sounding anything like that.  Especially not that accent - there's some stupid American prejudice saying that particular accent is very hoity-toity, very stuck up and pretentious.  But I've come to enjoy it - he speaks very clearly and of course I love what he has to say.

This particular clip is about just that: love.  It's challenged me to rethink my craving for love and what I really need, as opposed to what I think I want.  I find that even Lewis is somewhat steeped in the mysticism tradition (no great surprise, considering his interests and profession), which is somewhat frustrating, but I have come to a point where I have to begin learning to look past the romantic mysticism and into the truth that might be lurking behind it.  Lewis is good practice for that, because he has a lot of excellent thoughts and expresses himself very well.  And he makes me smile.  So that's good.

One not-terribly-related side note.  I looked up my Media and Culture book on Amazon.com, to see what people had to say about it.  One review contained this sentence: "The author doesn't always keep his liberal agenda well hidden, but that is perhaps forgiveable (sic) in an age of increasingly conserative (sic) media."

Wow.  Can you say, deluded much?  Have you read the news lately?  Granted, on a college campus I'm in something of a liberal stronghold so maybe all I see is liberal media, but WOW.  I know the politics of most mainstream media, and they are not conservative by any stretch of the imagination.  Just, wow.

I repeat my emphasis of before.  Watch Indoctrinate-U.  The truth will set us free, if we can get enough people to listen to it.

-Jaya-

Some of you will remember when I first posted about John and Stasi Eldredge's book, Captivating, which spoke to my heart in such a way that I was absolutely enraptured with their ideas.

Whoops. 

As a reminder, the basic premise is that a woman has three major desires in her heart:

1. To be romanced/pursued
2. To be an essential part of a grand adventure
3. To unveil her Beauty, to be Beautiful

These three desires can be summed up in the simple Question, "Am I lovely?"  And the only answer to this question can be found in God.

So far, so good - I can definitely say that I have a desire for all three of those things, and I can see how the Question sums up at least 2 of them (though I fail to see how being part of a grand adventure has anything to do with being lovely).  And I definitely agree that the best way to answer the desires of one's heart is to look to God.

I was bored with the reading for class today, so I thought I'd skip ahead to the Sophia stuff.  And within that, I found an all-too-common assumption about the early Jewish culture.  The assumption is that Jews were patriarchal, therefore, their God reflected those patriarchal values.  It is as though the culture came first, and then God developed from that.  But if all the cultures around them were distinctly different, especially if they were matricentric as is argued in my GRs class, it makes no sense that the Jewish people would randomly develop into a patriarchal society for absolutely no reason, and then create a God from that.

What makes more sense, to me, is that the Jewish culture was and is "patriarchal" (though without the evil connotations that word has accrued in some circumstances - there is nothing wrong with competent male leadership and you can see yesterday's entry if you want more) because they were a closer reflection of how God wants his people to live.  In other words, the patriarchal values of the Jews reflected  their God.

Now, you have to be careful when speaking of this sort of thing, because patriarchy has taken on such negative connotations.  However, as I've read more, I'm beginning to understand that, in fact, masculine leadership tends to be more beneficial for everyone, including women. This is not to say that all leaders must be male.  However, good leaders will all employ tactics which are traditionally considered "masculine" (and yes, much of this comes from having read Why Men Hate Going to Church yesterday - it's on my mind), and those benefit both men and women.  People need to be challenged, especially men, and sometimes they need to be thrown to the wolves because they're ready, even if they don't think they are.  Traditionally, the masculine leaders are the ones who are willing to do this, whereas the feminine leaders are more likely to comfort and coddle. While that has its place, this constant emphasis on not hurting anyone's feelings and protecting everyone to the extent that no one can grow is hurting everyone.

Just something to think about.

-Jaya-

I have a confession to make: I hate praying with other people.

Well, that's not entirely true.  Sometimes I really love having the opportunity to pray with someone else.  But there are things about the modern idea of "prayer" that drive me ABSOLUTELY BONKERS.  Troy can attest to the fact that I am exceedingly reluctant to pray out loud in the presence of other people.  For a while, I struggled with this, especially when we first started dating, because he was always wanting to pray together, and my version of praying together was: he prays, I listen, and when he stops saying words I pray silently.  Thankfully, that has changed, but I am still uncomfortable praying in a group with other Christians.  Why?  It's not like I have a problem praying when I'm alone, at least not most of the time.  I can just pour out my thoughts in whatever jumbled manner they come to mind and talk through whatever is troubling me - it's a good conversation, except that sometimes I forget about the listening part... but while I have trouble listening, I never have trouble speaking, until you get me in a group.  Then I'm tongue-tied and silent.

It took me a long time to figure out why, and I didn't discover the reason completely by myself.  In fact, it's best articulated in a book called Why Men Hate Going to Church, which is quite possibly the last place I would have expected to find such clarity into my own feelings (more about that in a minute).  In it, at the end of Chapter 20, there is a section on Christian "prayer-speak."  This is what Murrow has to say about it:

[Some Christians] repeat God's name again and again in prayer, like a mantra.  "Lord, we just thank You, Lord, for this day, Lord, and Lord, we just ask You, Lord, to bless us, Lord."  Would you call a friend and say, "Helen, how are you, Helen?  Helen, would you like to go to lunch, Helen?  Okay, Helen, see you at noon, Helen"?  Helen would think you were nuts.

YES. Yes, yes, yes, and lest I've been unclear about this, YES.  That's exactly what bothers me about the modern version of prayer!  Rather than just saying your say and moving on, like you would in any other conversation, there's this weird need to obsessively remind everyone that you're speaking to GOD.  Because we might somehow otherwise forget... or... something.  Not only do people repeat "Lord" or "Father God" or, like one girl I knew, go for the combo shot and pray to "Lord Father God" every third word (you have NO IDEA how annoying that was after about, oh, thirty seconds), but then there's this need to repeat the word "just" prior to everything you say to God.  We "just" want to thank you for this time together.  We "just" ask you to bless our gathering.  I "just" ask that you would be with Sue as she goes through this trying time, Lord Father God.  And by the time you're done praying, you've gone through "just" thirty or forty requests!  Look, people, you don't say "just" unless you're going to get in and get out in a very short time.  If you call someone without much to say, you might tell him that "I just called to see how you're doing."  That's fine.  But no one calls and says  "I just want to thank you for what you did for me, and I just want to ask if you would do this next week, and I just wanted to say this and I just want to do this and I just want that and I just, I just, I just"!  Quit lying to God.  "Just" implies ONE OR TWO things.  And repeating it throughout a prayer, however long it might be, makes you sound like a broken record. 

Jesus gave us a model for prayer, and in it he does not repeat God's name at the end of every line, nor does he ever use that loathsome "just" word.  His prayer is simple, short, and to the point:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for yours is the kingdom, and the glory, and the power forever.  Amen.

How many times does Jesus call on God's name?  I count a total of ONCE.  After that, he uses these nifty things called PRONOUNS, and he doesn't feel this odd urge to throw in "Lord" after every one.  If we were to pray the Lord's prayer the way most people tend to pray, it would look more like this:

Our Father God, in heaven, we just ask that your name would be made holy, Father God.  And we just ask, Father God, that your will would be done, Father God, on earth as it is in heaven, Father God.  We just ask that you give us our daily bread, Father God, and we just ask, Father God, that you would forgive us our debts, Father God, as we forgive our debtors.  And, Father God, we just ask that you would not lead us into temptation, Father God, but that you would just deliver us from evil, Father God, because yours is the kingdom, Father God, and the glory, and the power, forever, Father God.  In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

You're laughing, I know, but it's true!  I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. That's what prayer has become!  Jesus would cry.  Okay, maybe not quite, but sheesh.  GOD KNOWS YOU'RE TALKING TO HIM.  You don't have to repeat his name every time you finish a thought. It's okay to treat him as an intelligent member of the conversation, rather than speaking to him as though he were a child with ADD whose attention needed to be constantly pulled back to what is going on.  That sort of prayer is so stylized it sounds fake, and quite honestly it makes me want to go shake whoever is praying like that until they snap out of it. 

I have no problems praying with people when I know there's no expectation on me to pray like that.  But when that's how everyone else is praying, I tend to slip into it, too, and I HATE sounding like that.  I have a deep respect for language, being an English major, and it hurts my heart to hear it mutilated like that.  Really, it's pathetic!  People who have no problems conversing in day-to-day situations suddenly become stuttering morons when it comes to speaking to God.  Why do we feel a need to treat God like he's a two-year-old with the attention span of a gnat? 

I don't think this is conscious in most people - they just pick it up from the people around them.  I don't know where it started or who started it - if I did I'd go back in time and throttle them until they started speaking like normal people (okay, not really, but it's tempting).  But it's time to stop it.  If you're one of those people who pray that way, STOP.  For heaven's sake, stop.  Become aware of what you're saying, and that you're speaking to God.  Treat him as one worthy of your respect and of a real conversation, rather than all this stylized mumbo-jumbo.  See if removing this kind of language from your prayers doesn't encourage others to jump in on group prayers where previously they were silent.

This isn't the only thing in David Murrow's book which really resonated with me.  The vision he paints for the church, one in which masculine leadership is valued and masculine needs are met sounds like a church that would meet my needs, too.  If that's what men need, count me in!  I totally agree that those sorts of things would be great for women, too.  Something I have been struggling with lately is my need for a spiritual leader, and what I need from said leader.  I know that I need to be led, because I'm burning myself out running on the way I am now, and I feel like I'm doing all the leading and never doing any following.  But what form that leadership should take, how I need to be led, is harder to figure out.  But the picture painted in the books I've read about the masculine leadership so badly needed in the church sounds like exactly what I'm missing.  I'm already something like the antithesis of a feminist: I like to be dressed up and treated like a porcelain doll, I don't particularly want a "career" and my highest aspiration is to someday be a good wife and mother.  And now we can add to that, I long for masculine leadership.  That isn't to say that I want someone to be my own personal dictator, because I do want to have some input into where my life goes and how it unfolds, all that sort of thing.  It's just that, I'd like to find someone who can ask me, "This is where I'm going with my life, and I would be honored to have you join me.  Interested?"  That sounds fantastic right now.  Maybe it's because I've been watching too much Driscoll and thinking too much about the gaping hole of uncertainty which looms in front of me, after May 17, but that would be SO nice.  Some days I feel like I'm surrounded by boys, and I need a man.  But who's up for the challenge?

-Jaya-

PS. For those interested, a more formal collection of my writing can be found at  www.vow.org - look for articles written by Brittany Dowdy.

Our next post in the series against IDHEFTBAA (which is an incredibly annoying acronym to type out, but at least it's shorter than the title of the book) can be found here, and it takes a step back into the foreword of the book, written by David Limbaugh.  In it, Limbaugh speaks out against the hypocrisy of the "tolerance" preached by the left, claiming that it is not, in fact, tolerant at all, but often downright hostile toward Christians.  And, this time, our Professor actually has a very good point.  If Christians are going to claim tolerance for their views, they're going to have to tolerate other people's views as well.  In other words, if we demand tolerance for ourselves, we must be prepared to tolerate other views that conflict with ours.  Both Limbaugh and the Professor agree that tolerance does not necessarily mean accepting other beliefs, but allowing others to believe them without fear of harm as a result of that

Yet the Professor misses the point of LImbaugh's argument.   The point, which is clear to any Christian reading it, is that Christians are not always welcome, and their beliefs are not always tolerated.  While lip service may be given to the idea of tolerance when speaking of Christian views, because Christians are called to spread the Gospel and preach the Truth and therefore cannot simply "live and let live," often our views are not tolerated.  Ask any Christian you meet, and they will tell you that there have been times when, realizing that the Truth would not be tolerated, have kept silent when we should have spoken.  It's a common failing - and while the early Christians were willing to be ridiculed and even killed for these beliefs, we in America have become so complacent, so isolated from the war which Christianity is fighting against Satan, that we are not willing to suffer a little bit of humiliation because of our beliefs.  I'm as guilty as anyone else.  As vocal as I am here, in the safety and distance of the internet, I'm a wimp in real life.  If someone confronts me on my beliefs, I tend to back off and be submissive, not wanting to start a confrontation.  It's one of my biggest failings, and as much as it bothers me, as much as I struggle with it, I can't seem to do anything to change it.  I know that's something I need to work on.  But part of the outrage that we feel at being labeled "intolerant" is because, in the act of labeling someone thus (in the context of the connotation that word has taken on in our modern culture) is rather intolerant, and hypocrisy bothers us just as much as it does anyone else (unfortunately, it also infects us just as much as it does anyone else, but that's another story altogether). 

Actually, though, Christians are intolerant, when you think about it.  There are some things which should not be tolerated, and those are the things that are sinful.  Murder is one of them, and one on which everyone agrees (until you get so far back into the life of a person that he's not born yet - then for some reason people get this "out of sight, out of mind" mentality and assume it's suddenly ok to kill him... but again, that's another argument for another day).  And then there are things like homosexuality, which, according to the Christian world view, is sinful, and therefore should not be tolerated.  So of course we are against tolerating homosexual marriage.  It's sinful, and sin is not to be tolerated.  The problem I have with tolerance is not so much that Christians are not tolerated (that's to be expected) but that people actually think that tolerance is a viable way to run a society.

Think about it.  There are some things that are simply intolerable.  Murder, rape, theft, and arson are among them.  Society is worse off if those things are tolerated, and not even the tolerance advocates would disagree with that.  And yet, if you subscribe to the theory that individual preferences should be tolerated, who is to say that those things are exempt?  That's a very arbitrary distinction that you seem to be making on personal preference, and arbitrariness is not a good base on which to build society.  In fact, tolerance is something of a cop-out.  Rather than undertake the difficult process of discussing alternatives and deciding what is tolerable and what is not, or what a society can permit and what it cannot, people would rather take the lazy way out and "tolerate" all sorts of conflicting opinions.  It's an excuse to be lazy, quite simply - a way to escape thinking about difficult subjects, instead of tackling them.

So, I suppose my objection is to both the Professor and to Limbaugh - both are operating on the assumption that tolerance could somehow work as a viable means of running a society.  And, in the long run, it simply can't.

-Jaya-

So, Goddess Religions today was really tough, for a couple of reasons.  First of all, we have the one that REALLY bothered me.  In the course of discussing the difference between polytheism and monotheism, Dr. Mitchell made the point that polytheistic religions are more tolerant of other faiths, since they already have so many gods (an addition of one or two isn't a big deal), whereas monotheists tend to be less tolerant of other religions because the believe that their god is the only one and everyone else is just wrong.  To illustrate this point, she claimed that initially, Christians were not persecuted by pagans "for a long time" because they worshipped "just another god."

Um, I BEG your pardon, but Christians have NEVER not been persecuted.  I will grant that Stephen's martyrdom was at the hands of the Jews, a monotheistic people, so it doesn't count for this argument.  But then we have people like James the brother of John, killed by Herod, a pagan.  Peter and Paul, killed by Nero, a pagan.  Actually you can take any of Nero's victims - there were certainly enough of them.  Only one of the disciples, John, was not martyred, and that wasn't for lack of trying - the story goes that they boiled him alive, and the Catholics still celebrate his mass as though he had been killed (the theory is, he underwent an experience which would have led to martydom if God had not intervened, so that's close enough).  The Jews certainly weren't happy with the Christians, but it was the pagans who carried out the majority of the persecutions against the band of Christ's followers.  This is WITHIN ONE GENERATION of Christ - these are the men who traveled with Jesus during his earthly ministry.  By historical standards - indeed, by just about any standards - that is anything but a "long time," thank you.

Her next claim is that , even when the persecutions began, they weren't that bad.  She says that "what the Christians did to each other a little later is far worse than what the pagans ever did to them."  Hmm, that's funny, I must have missed that part of the church history.  When did the Christians start boiling each other in oil?  Or feeding each other to lions?  Or hanging each other on crosses and then setting those crosses on fire to light the streets of their cities?  Or dragging each other through the streets tied to rampaging horses, then thrown off a cliff?  Seems to me those were all PAGAN punishments for CHRISTIANS, and simply running a guy through with a sword or smashing his head in with a mace seems almost humane after that.  I mean, that was really sick stuff! 

Ah, but the worst is yet to come.  For her next statement is that "the Christians probably deserved it."

*blinkblink*

I'm sorry, can you run that by me again?  The Christians probably DESERVED IT.  They deserved to be hung on crosses and set on fire, to be boiled in oil, to be beaten and humiliated and killed for simply preaching that Christ was God and that he was the only way to heaven.  They weren't forcibly dragging people off to become Christians.  They weren't rampaging through the streets and killing people.  They were just teaching, like plenty of other people did every single day.  Yet they deserved the persecution they received.  Wow.

What's her justification for this?  "I mean, they were so intolerant - some of them - so fanatical - some of them." 

I'm sorry, did you say intolerant?  Did you say fanatical?   Can you say,  the pot calling the kettle black?  Because, whoa.  I seem to recall, from my reading of Acts (granted, Troy and I are only halfway through, but still, I've read enough of it before to be relatively certain of this), that the apostles were preaching very peacefully.  They were doing exactly what Christ had instructed them to do, namely, to preach the Truth in love.  Who were so intolerant as to refuse to allow them to preach whatever they wanted, even when others were allowed to teach in the forums (remember, this is Rome)?  Who were so fanatical about the supremacy of the Emperor that they hunted down and killed all those who taught that the Emperor was not a god?  Was it the Christians?  No, it was the pagans.  And who is so intolerant as to be using her position as teacher to indoctrinate the class against Christianity?  Who is so fanatical about feminism and relativism that she can't imagine any reason for Christianity to continue teaching that it is the only way to God?  Is it the Christians?  No, it's you.

Okay, that was harsh.  Obviously, for a woman who grew up in a Methodist church, something has happened to hurt her and turn her against the Truth.  Maybe it was only a perceived hurt, something she learned to perceive as painful during the feminist movement in the 60s, but that doesn't make it any less painful and I need to recognize that and remember to be compassionate toward her.  But when she treats Christians, my family, with such flippant derision, it's kind of hard for me to keep my temper.

And that's not even touching on the whole evolution part.  That doesn't bother me quite so much, though there are some things which are really frustrating.  Like how she talks about the Scopes "monkey trial" and suggests that the book and the play are accurate representations of what actually went on (they're not - many thanks to the wonderful apologist grammastola for that explanation).  Or how she claims that, not only was Darwin a Christian, but he saw no contradiction between his theory and Christianity (on the contrary, he recognized that it would be a blow to Christianity and by the end of his life had abandoned all religious beliefs).  Or how she says that "since then, of course, there has been an incredible amount of evidence to fill in all sorts of gaps that were still there when Darwin did it" which is simply false and I'm not going to bother going into it AGAIN, especially considering that a future installment of "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist" will cover that.

So, yeah.  Today was incredibly frustrating.  I just have to keep reminding myself that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and that's a fact.  Christianity is the Truth.  It is.  I've proven it to myself and to others countless times and I'm going through it again with IDHEFTBAA, and no matter what they throw at me, it doesn't change a thing.  The Truth is a precious, precious thing.

-Jaya-

So, we're going to take a new approach to this book.  While looking into things about the Anthropic Principle, I discovered this blog, written by an atheist who seems to be an intelligent sort of person, at least on the surface.  This person, whose pseudonym is "The Professor," is going through the book chapter by chapter, tearing the arguments of poor Geisler and Turek limb from limb.

Or is he? (As a disclaimer, I have no idea regarding this person's gender, so the generic "he" will have to suffice until that time when I discover otherwise, if any.  I can't believe I have to put that, but I've learned well the consequences of doing otherwise...)  I'd like to go through what posts he has made and see whether or not his argument is actually valid, or in fact the very atheistic fear of the truth that Geisler and Turek (henceforth G&T) predicted as a response to their book. 



It is an all-too-common fallacy to presuppose the nonexistence of God and miracles, call it all "superstition" and interpret the evidence from there.  However, it is a fallacy.  To be truly, honestly objective requires admitting the possibility of God until that possibility can be ruled out.  And we have yet to find ANYTHING that rules out the possibility of God.  If we are going to cite lack of tangible evidence, as many atheists do, we must also rule out the existence gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces (by the way, those are the four fundamental forces which dictate the way our universe operates, according to the current physics theories).  Those, like God, are not directly observable - we can only observe their effects, direct or indirect, and infer from that the forces behind them.  To a truly objective mind, the scientific evidence laid out in this book points pretty clearly to God.

But, sadly, "[t]he natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2:14, ESV)  So, no matter how clear the evidence is, there will always be some who cannot see it - and there is nothing that we can do to change that.  Only God can grant a person the spiritual discernment to see the truth before his eyes.

-Jaya-

P.S.  As a semi-related side note, since I don't want to forget to mention this, later on The Professor will object to one of G&T's arguments because they mention that the argument is intuitive to anyone who looks at the universe (it's the Anthropic Principle they are discussing).  I can empathize with their assertion - anyone who knows me knows my delight in space, galaxies, the universe... I find it very difficult to argue using the Anthropic Principle simply because I get so wrapped up in wonder and delight at the clear, obvious, amazing, gorgeous, beautiful design of it all that I tend to wax poetic and forget about the logical part.  That doesn't make the argument from the Anthropic Principle less valid, but it does make it harder for me to stay on topic when discussing it! :)
-J-

Oh, what a relief it was this weekend to have a book to read that not only affirmed the truth of the Gospel but actually and unashamedly considered it factual that the Christian God is real!  You see, on Thursday, Troy took me to Barnes and Noble to let me pick out a book.  My boy is so good to me - he knows there's nothing I like more than going into a bookstore and getting to wander around and pick out my own book, rather than have someone pick it out for me (not that I would ever turn down the gift of a book, but half the fun of it is getting to go to the bookstore to begin with).  So it was incredibly sweet of him to do that for me on my birthday.   But I digress. 

The book I finally selected is called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and is by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek.  Its title is a claim that I have also made many times, and its premise is that it takes more faith to be an atheist, or subscribe to any other religion, than to believe in Christianity.  Put another way, there is sufficient rational proof for the existence of God, and specifically the God of the Christian faith, as to make it the most probable explanation for the world in which we now live.  And, because I am so impressed with the logic of the argument (Mr. Spock would be proud), I will reproduce it here, in miniature, though of course with many important elements removed (as I can't exactly repeat the whole book here).

One of these days I'm going to learn better than to procrastinate.  I swear.  Until that day, I'm going to have to suffer through times like this, when all of a sudden I realize that I have an assignment for Goddess Religions due TOMORROW and I haven't really started it yet.

But it wouldn't have mattered if I'd had a month of Sundays to finish this - the assignment would not have been any easier.  I still wouldn't have the stomach to sit down and read things like this.  I get to the point where I have to stop and go pray, read the Bible, pray, pray, pray... and even then I feel dirty.  Ritually unclean, if you will.  Because that stuff is sick, and it's twisted - literally, as they've twisted the Bible to their own stupid purposes.

Now, this is, once again, nothing new.  But it's amazing how difficult it remains for me to read.  In the same way that I still get creeped out when I'm listening to that tape of the Re-Imagining conference, this stuff still (and probably always will) gives me the feeling that something is wrong, something is very wrong about this, if only I could get past the panic it engenders in me to figure out what it is. 

So, friends, keep praying for me.  It's going to be a long night.

I have often said that my problem with feminist theology is not that they choose to practice pagan religions, but that they choose to insist that said religions are actually compatible with, or a form of, Christianity.  It's still true.  I mean, I would much, much rather see these women (and the occasional spineless man... ouch, I know, but think about the kind of man it would take to believe that God is Sophia and should be worshipped with phrases like "with nectar between our thighs we invite a lover, we birth a child" and then tell me I'm wrong) back in the arms of the one true God, but there comes a time when you have to shake the dust off your feet, realize that you've lost, and move on.  Unfortunately, I can't do that when they continually insist on calling their blasphemies Christianity, because when they do that, it's personal.

Now, the linguistic history of Christianity is an interesting one. Troy and I did our Bible study last night on the second half of Acts 11, wherein we learn that the followers of Christ were first called Christians at Antioch.  What we don't learn until we (and by "we" I mean Troy, because he's awesome like that) do some more research is that, at this time, "Christian" was a derogatory term, akin to the way we view the infamous N-word.  In those early days, you didn't go around telling people that you were a Christian or you'd get yourself crucified.  Literally.  So it's not like the name has honorable origins.  The fact that it is again becoming less than desirable to consider oneself a Christian in our world is not really surprising, in view of this knowledge.  Even within the church itself, you will hear people (like me - I've said it too) say that the biggest problem with Christianity today is Christians.  Because, guess what - we're not perfect, and we've messed up the church something awful.  But the solution is not, I think, to change the way we name ourselves ("I'm a disciple of Christ" just doesn't roll off the tongue quite as readily).  Rather, it is to change the way that Christians relate to each other and to the world.  And to stop people who really aren't Christians from using that name as a way to justify their new religions.  Like the feminists.  My crusade is to preach the truth in love, and to show people that this new feminist faith is not Christianity.  To show the feminists themselves that this faith is not Christianity.  I will consider myself successful if and when this new feminist theology is acknowledged as a different religion from Christianity - not if and when all the women who practise it are converted back to the true faith.  Honestly, I have no control over that.  In fact, I have very little control over what they choose to call themselves, either - if they choose to call themselves Christians I can't really stop them from saying it.  But I can make people understand that they're wrong, whatever they say.  That isn't excluding spreading the gospel and making disciples of all nations, but part of the way I've been called to do that is through showing people what discipleship ISN'T, and that includes self-worship in the guise of goddess worship.

One thing further that caught my attention on Wednesday night but didn't really sink in until last night was something only marginally related and comes from Genesis 3, when God is cursing the serpent, Eve, and Adam for their disobedience in the garden.  Eve's curse is that she will have pain in bearing children, AND that her desire will be for her husband and that he will rule over her.  Now, we all know the pain in childbearing part.  But we often gloss over the second half of the curse.  It has often been used to justify the subjugation of women, and often people have used it to justify the view that women are supposed to be inferior to men.  That's ridiculous.  Eve was created as Adam's companion and equal, his ezer in the original Hebrew (a word that is used elsewhere in the Old Testament only to describe God coming through for the speaker in desperate circumstances).  But when she fell, THEN she was cursed - cursed - with subjugation to Adam.  Of COURSE it's a bad thing.  It's a CURSE.  Those are generally BAD.  But that's the way it is, ladies - we've been cursed to be ruled over by our husbands.  Now, it's pretty obvious that we have pain in childbearing.  It's pretty obvious that we have to work hard to obtain food from the ground, that it isn't just handed to us any more.  So it stands to reason that, like it or not, we are technically ruled over by men.  We can rebel, but it seems to me that we can't ever regain ourselves until God lifts the curse himself -we can't do it.  And, guess what - I just now figured this part out, because I'm that slow - he did!  That's part of what Christ did for us!  So, ironically enough, the only way to lift the curse and obtain equality with men is through the very sacrifice that the feminists are trying to remove from their faith.  Whoa.  I love it when everything comes together like that!  Exciting!

Anyway, class is about to start, so I'm out for now.

-Jaya-

I hate seeing myself slipping into old familiar habits, but I'm finding it harder and harder to pay attention in Goddess Religions.  Last time, she spent the entire class period lecturing us about why the assertions made in the readings were just tentative, possibilities, etc. Apparently I wasn't the only one whose journal consisted of "you know, none of these claims have anything substantiating them..."  She had no problems admitting that some of the images depicted in the book weren't necessarily clear in their femininity. 

That's great.  We don't exactly have a lot of evidence to make any claims - be they regarding goddesses or anything else - from the paleolithic and neolithic ages.  But the problem I have with these readings is the lengths to which the authors will go to prove that every single pot ever dug up points to a goddess-based religion.  They'll take abstract images like swirls, swastikas (which were actually a symbol of GOOD LUCK until Hitler appropriated them, just so you know), zigzags, etc. and claim that those are somehow evidence for this pervasive goddess religion.  Like, every single spiral image ever is supposed to be a snake.  NOTHING is just a pretty design anymore.  Nothing is made which does not point toward the goddess.  And some of those images just don't look like what they want them to look like.  It's not a matter of ambiguity, it's a matter of pulling stuff out of their collective @$$ and assuming everyone else will see it, too.  And of course, we all know what assuming does to people.

Really, it's quite laughable, in a very sad sort of way.  These people, Baring and Cashford, the authors of this book, are trying so hard to create an argument in favor of this universal, pervasive mother-goddess religion of the early people that they're pulling things out which are ambiguous at best and often simply ludicrous.  Who in the world took this seriously enough to let it be published?  I feel like an adult looking at a child's firm belief in Santa Clause, a child who should probably have grown out of that belief several years ago.  It's kind of amusing, in a way, but mostly it's just pathetic.

In other news, I'm not dropping the honors program, much as I long to.  I have to find a committee member, though, and get Mitchell to agree to do GR as an Honors Option - we'll see if she lets me.  If not, well, there's no reason to do the thesis cause I still won't graduate with honors.  But we'll see where it goes.  I don't actually care that much, which is kind of nice - doing something against your will means that you do what you have to, but if something goes wrong, you don't really care.  Probably not the best way to feel about it, but I'm so done with CSU, I just don't care.  Just give me my diploma and let me go, thanks. 

I'm going to the health center this afternoon to hopefully get an appointment and get my ear checked out.  I'm getting sick of not being able to sleep normally because I can't put pressure on my ear.  So we'll look into that. 

Tonight is the lenten path thing at church, in which I am very interested since I remember when Brighton did the labyrinth thing, and I want to compare the two.  Luckily, my core group has decided to go to that and the Ash Wednesday service tonight instead of doing regular Bible study, so I can do it without having to miss out on anything.  Core group last week was amazing - we have a tiny, tiny group - last week it was just me, Peg, Steph and Joanna but we had a great conversation and it lasted forever.

And that's all the news for today.  People are starting to come in and talk (why do they have to talk at the top of their lungs?) so I'm having trouble concentrating, anyway.  I'm out.

-Jaya-

Goddess Religions yesterday was all about the term papers and how we're supposed to go about doing them, so there's nothing exciting to report from class.  However, I do want to post the first (and longest) part of my journal entry for this week, as it contains some fun stuff from our readings for the week:

 

I'll try to post another entry tomorrow afternoon if something remarkable happens in class.  :)

-Jaya-

So, I didn't get the second book for this class until this morning, meaning I didn't get to do a very thorough job on the day's reading.  But there's one thing that I've noticed repeated again and again in these readings, and it drives me nuts.  It's the assumption that, just because early cultures (early meaning, like, paleolithic) worshipped goddesses, we should too.  Because obviously we haven't learned anything in the thousands of years since goddesses were worshipped en masse.  Obviously the paleolithic people were much more intelligent than we are, even though we have thousands of years of human experience from which we can learn and draw conclusions.  ...wait.  How does that follow? I thought that conservatives were supposed to be the ones who clung to tradition and the way things used to be.  Why are these ultra-liberal feminist theologians clinging to the traditions of old people when they lambaste us for doing the same thing?

And then there's the images of goddesses.  I'm sorry, but some lazy obese woman (yes, yes, it's supposed to emphasize fertility or pregnancy, whatever, you don't have to be too huge to move to be pregnant) is not powerful or worthy of worship.  LAME SAUCE.

But I should head into class now.  More when I get home.

Ack.  I'm somewhat in crisis mode right now, so forgive me if I only give a basic overview of class today.  I've other, more important things I want to discuss.

Now, on to the stuff that's actually concerning me.  See, I'm looking at all the seminary applications, and I'm encountering a problem.  Seminary isn't like undergraduate school, where you can come in as "open option" and figure it out after you've been there a while and have a better idea of what's going on.  You have to know what degree you want when you apply, so you can apply to that program.  And that means I need to know whether I want an M.Div or a Th.M. or a MA in Theology or whatever else, and I need to know it, hmm, yesterday.  But I just don't have a clue.

So my next thought is, well, I could take a semester off to figure that out, get some work experience, not be in school for a while, that sounds rather nice.  But I don't know what the heck I'd do for that semester.  I mean, I know I want to get an internship with a Christian publishing organization over the summer.  But would that last through till January of 09?  Would I be able to get a job with them after it ended, if it doesn't last, and stay those extra few months?  I don't know, but I'm not ready to start the application process for Seminary yet, and that's really scary and really frustrating.  Princeton's application is due on Friday.  I started it, yes, but for the M.Div program, and I'm not sure I want an M.Div, and I'm really not sure I want to go to New Jersey, and I'm really really not sure I want to jump headlong into even more school.  Sigh.  So I don't know what I want or what I'm going to do to get it, and I'm something of a big conflicted mess right now.

And that means it's time to go pray, and see if I can talk to Andrew again, and talk to other people, and write about it more after all that, and we'll see what decisions I come to.  I don't know where this is going to lead me.  I do know that God is in control, so no matter what happens he'll take care of me.  And, really, with that knowledge in hand, I have the courage to step out and do what needs to be done... once I figure out what that is.  But it's ok.  God's got me covered, and he's not going to let me down.  

-Jaya-