Jennifer Danielle Crumpton 2013-05-23T03:55:00-04:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=jennifer-danielle-crumpton Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jennifer Danielle Crumpton Good old fashioned elbow grease. A Fountain of Faith: Women, Water and the Hope of New Life tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2980033 2013-03-29T14:34:29-04:00 2013-03-29T14:53:21-04:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/ "Satisfy the needs of the oppressed then... The Lord will guide you always... You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." -- Isaiah 58:10-12



Water is so fundamental to a life of faith that the Bible references it 722 times. In the stories of Scripture, water has both spiritual and physical power to purify, sanctify and restore our bodies, both on the inside and the outside. It is the foundation of all life, it is what we are made of, and it sustains everything in the world.



But there is also a spiritual discipline to be found here in relationship to water. Perhaps it can also be said that when we "satisfy the needs of the oppressed ... waters never fail" because when water fails, it does indeed oppress. It steals life, on many levels. And people of faith have the ability to change that for our sisters and brothers around the world. Our sisters are in special need of the spiritual and physical healing of water, not only because they deserve to have life to its fullest, but also because the unique and systemic oppression they face affects whole communities.



It is a threat most of us in the United States do not know and really cannot fathom: the close link between the oppression of women and girls and the lack of access to safe water and sanitation in much of the world today. According to WaterAid, studies in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, India and the Solomon Islands all confirm that fear, indignity and violence are commonplace anywhere women lack access to safe and adequate sanitation.



Consider the day-to-day life of a young mother named Sandimhia, 18, who lives in Mozambique. She must walk 15 minutes into the bush to defecate. "Sometimes when I go I feel ashamed and go back without defecating. Sometimes I wait until dark to go there so no one can see me. I will be very concerned about my daughter going to the bush because it is so far from here. At night it is very dangerous. People get killed. A woman and a boy were killed with knives. One woman I know of has been raped."



Others will be molested along deserted paths while collecting water for their families, forced to trade sex for water, or like two sisters in rural India, ages 16 and 21, held at gunpoint and gang-raped, because they went to a nearby field in the early morning hours to relieve themselves.



That is oppression.



So is the fact that women can spend up to 60 percent of their day hauling heavy containers of (often filthy) water for their families. They have no alternative. It takes them away from caring for young children, growing food and earning additional income for their families. Families remain in poverty. Bodies break down over time under the backbreaking weight of water. Families get sick.



That is oppression.



The poverty cycle continues as girls leave school to help their mothers shoulder this burden. Or when there are no gender-appropriate bathroom facilities to take care of their personal needs as they get older, they drop out of school rather than face taunting and humiliation.



That is oppression.



No mother should have to watch her child die -- suffer and die -- for lack of safe water and sanitation. But it happens 8,000 times every single day. Under the age of five, it is even worse: a little life is extinguished every 20 seconds. People are terrified and helpless and in constant grief.



That is oppression.



At this time of year when we look inward and explore ideas of what it means to sacrifice, we are particularly reminded of Isaiah in anticipating Easter and spring rains, reflection and renewal. We find ourselves looking outward at the sacrifices millions of women make for something we take for granted everyday: a safe glass of water and a toilet.



But we also think of the redemption that comes with this season, and here too, women play a vital role. About three hours outside Calcutta, a happily married woman named Rani was one of five women trained as a well mechanic. U.S.-based Water For People is empowering women to transform their communities by giving them the tools and know-how to keep clean water reliably flowing in their villages. In just four months, Rani earned 8,000 rupees for her family by repairing wells. Rani decided to become a well mechanic because she had seen so many children die from diarrhea, and the two wells in her village were constantly breaking. She loves her work. Other women look up to her. "Water is life for people out here," she says.



When we think about Rani, we think about the role water holds in our texts and rituals -- from the formation of the earth out of the mysterious waters of the deep to the formation of a new spiritual life out of the immersion of baptism -- we see her, too, as a creator of new worlds, a giver of life. In Matthew 25:35, Jesus tells us that the divine is present in every last human being and all are blessed by an active response when "I was thirsty and you gave me water." In Amos 5:24, the prophet, seeing widespread and devastating oppression in the land, pleads: "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Reading these and so many other passages, something becomes clear. Water is never neutral or passive, and no longer can we be.



Our powerful collective voice can give life to hundreds of millions of families by bringing much-needed attention and urgency to the oppression of lack of safe water.



Satisfy the needs of the oppressed then... The Lord will guide you always... You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." We can share our faith and be life-givers by supporting and growing both secular and non-secular sustainable water development, the linchpin to improving global health, nutrition, poverty, the environment, food security, gender equality and yes, even peace.



World Water Day was March 22. What a great day to start the flow.



Find out how to get your community involved: www.faithsforsafewater.org



Learn more about sustainable fieldwork:


www.waterforpeople.org


www.wateraidamerica.org

]]> The God Who Shows Up When God Disappears tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2316514 2012-12-18T10:47:28-05:00 2013-02-17T05:12:01-05:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/ "The courage to take the anxiety of meaninglessness upon oneself is the boundary line up to which the courage to be can go. Beyond it is mere non-being. Within it all forms of courage are re-established in the power of the God above the God of theism. The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt." -- Paul Tillich, "The Courage to Be"

Friday morning I was getting my thoughts together to write a Femmevangelical blog about the God in our minds -- the one we picture when we pray, the image we conjure up when we think about God in action or God watching and listening to us. For many of us, God started as a simplistic idea that may have taken root when we were little kids in Sunday school and pictured a great old man with a long white beard, part aggressive lightening bolt wielder and part big, soft cloud hug in a robe. I had lain awake the night before considering my own life-long journey of imagining God, and the dramatic ways God had morphed in my head over time, mercifully maturing and expanding as I did. Sometimes the transitions were painful and I struggled against them, holding on to my comfort zone and considering every other concept of God to be wrong, even as something greater than me gently tugged me along. Other times, I begged to have another iteration revealed to me, horrified by what I heard, saw, experienced or realized while brushing up against God's representations and permutations.

Then the breaking news came on CNN that there had been a shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Throughout the day I followed the story, and cried much of the weekend as more terrifying, heartbreaking details were revealed and the death toll rose to six adults and 20 children under the age of 7. People from media anchors to politicians to community leaders to social media networks were understandably asking: How did this happen? And why did this happen? Those who contemplated the event through some form of religious lens put these unanswerable questions in terms of God: Where was God? And why did God let this happen? Answers ranged from rote to dodge, from comforting to finger-pointing. I realized that the sleep I lost Thursday night was not in vain; our image of God, who God is, what God does, our concepts of what God "wants" and even who God protects or sacrifices is in serious need of discussion.

Fox News asked politician and evangelical personality Mike Huckabee, "Why did God let this happen?" The first problem is that the anchor's question assumes God allowed 20 6- and-7-year olds to be shot and killed, along with six caring and heroic teachers and administrators. This belies an image of God held in the mind of the questioner that either pre-determines or at least glimpses what happens with human beings before hand, and then just watches it like a TV show with the potential to step in, yet is not always inclined to do so, depending on ... something none of us can quite get.

2012-12-17-ImageofGod.jpg
Is this the guy in the sky? This is how Michelangelo imagined God.

This presumably stems from stories of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, in which the Israelites, a wandering, vulnerable people, attributed the moments they were spared destruction to a God who steps in and defends them, but also attributed many disasters to God turning his face away from them in disgust when they did not obey him. God is a powerful, moody man-god who considers Israel and Jerusalem his beloved wife, expressed by turns with gooey romantic adoration and raising a hand to angrily strike her, smite her to her death. These are oral traditions of a group of people who at the time desperately tried to understand their tenuous circumstances in an ancient world that was deeply oppressive, violent, unpredictable, devastatingly painful and confusing, and also not very respectful of women. So of course, God was those things too. People lived at subsistence and so also thought that way; they were not educated nor were they often in control of their own destiny to any extent. But biblical fundamentalists carry this almost superstitious image of God forward into the 21st century, and God remains petulant, retributive and prone to sacrifice men, women, children, even animals to his anger.

Huckabee answered in lock step:
We ask why there's violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? ...

Maybe we ought to let (God) in on the front end and we wouldn't have to call him to show up when it's all said and done at the back end.

I take issue with politicians, religious leaders and commentators who point fingers of blame at school systems, the policy of freedom of religion, and people of other faiths or beliefs for senseless tragedies and inexplicable incidents of terror. To then furthermore try to make people feel guilty and wrong for calling on God in a time of great sorrow and upheaval is a mean-spirited and irresponsible way to use authority and notoriety. Remarks like Mike Huckabee's implicitly insist that people who do not adhere to his personal evangelical Christian religious doctrine, and who resist religious coercion in public spaces meant to elevate and educate all citizens, have incited the wrath of God and/or paved the way for mass murder across our country and in our schools.

The fact is, God has never been removed from our schools, the schools have simply been opened up to make room for God as known and imagined by students, teachers and administrators of all types, backgrounds, religious beliefs and faiths. So God is very much present in schools, residing in the hearts and actions of all these various people. When Huckabee bellows that God has been taken from our schools, and when thousands of Christians take to Facebook and Twitter to echo him, they are essentially saying that Christian doctrine as interpreted and expressed by a very specific group of people is no longer being forced upon everyone else in public schools. But actually, public school students are allowed to express their religion (i.e., wearing cross jewelry, having their own religious books to read at break periods, or talking about it among their friends), pray alone or in like-minded groups, have religious student groups, and have even been allowed to use signage with Bible verses around campus and on football fields. The key is so can others express themselves, without the public school sanctioning or enforcing one over the other. This not only evens and focuses the learning environment, but helps students learn respect and love for differences and how to practice and hold their own confidently amongst them, which they will face in the world after school.

The divisive, blaming rhetoric took off like a wildfire across the Internet. I read posts on networks that made my stomach churn. My partner, who is Jewish, endured posts of friends and friends of friends who said Jesus wouldn't show up in schools where he wasn't welcomed, and therefore we should all expect bad things to happen, as if it were the fault of everyone who was raised in a different tradition that a mentally ill man took his mother's legal weapons into a school and started shooting. I had to say something. Before we left for dinner Friday night, I quickly pecked out my gut thoughts and posted them onto Facebook:
In my role as a Christian minister, I have to speak up about the lie politicians and others are putting forth, that the CT shooting happened because "God has been removed from our schools." This is a dangerous, irresponsible, and and theologically immature statement. God is not found in the rules or activities sanctioned by a school, or the doctrines that make that an issue. God is in the hearts of human beings, children included. And praying to God will not in fact avert the tragedies of our world ... we've all seen/experienced that tragedy happens inexplicably. God does not "allow" things to happen because we do not adhere to human-concocted doctrine and superstition. Where is God? God is grieving with us. But God is not smiting children because of the separation of church and state.

We went to dinner and I didn't look at Facebook again. To my surprise, when I woke up the next morning, it had gone viral. As of Monday, 22,750 people have liked the post,more than 5,000 people have shared it with their networks, and around 1,800 people have engaged in quite an intense debate by commenting on it. It seemed to resonate with people who are trying to increase the amount of love available to help heal our country's wounds rather than tear people down and make things worse. People seemed to resonate with a God who is no longer tethered to ancient assumptions, patriarchal doctrines and interpretations meant to keep serfs humble, quiet and abiding.

It occurred to me that Huckabee's explanation and the disturbing crusade it caused is unfortunately not just a simple protected expression of a point of view, which is always encouraged and appreciated. Instead, it knowingly exploits a confusing, gut-wrenching time in our already polarized country to incite hatred and rage toward people with different beliefs, making them vulnerable to discrimination and attacks, especially among children in schools who are being led to think that "taking God out of schools" is why "God allowed [the murder of children] to happen." How terrifying that is to children of all backgrounds!

Further, it is offensive to religious people for authority figures to spread a malicious belief that God is such a murderous and retributive God, or such a judgmental, careless one or one who is so easily offended at our attempts to govern ourselves. And here it is important to state again that God has not been taken out of schools. American schools have simply been opened up to allow for children of all beliefs and faiths and practices to be equally included, equally valued and equally free to feel good about their faith while in a public school setting, and not to oppressed for it. We must respect and allow that freedom for all our children. To instead blame that opening on behalf of all citizens for this act of terror is dangerous, incendiary and the equivalent of putting a bounty of sorts on the heads of schoolchildren who are not evangelical Christians.

Asking "why did God let this happen" is an understandable but often unhelpful question, one that leads human minds used to doctrine into a paradox that takes us nowhere good. Especially as we learn that many of the children who were killed were Christians who attended church regularly and prayed daily with their families, and furthermore, that the shooter attended church at St. Rose in Newtown and even attended the religious school there for a while; to say it happened because of lack of prayer or God in schools forces us to question various beliefs and Scriptures, which not everyone is ready to do. The question we can address is: Why do we human beings keep allowing this to happen? And what is our image of God that we keep pointing fingers at others while never taking a look at ourselves? Why do we think we can push everything bad off on a God who turns his face from everyone who is not us?

A book I read years ago in seminary has been mysteriously following me around my apartment lately. On Saturday morning I picked it up: "The Courage to Be" by Paul Tillich. His brilliant and eloquent words spoke a feeling I had been grappling with for days, and for months, no maybe years, before. The theistic God, the one of institutional doctrine and man-made creed, tends to disappear when tragedy strikes. Maybe, as Huckabee would have us believe, that's because he thinks we've abandoned him, shut the door on him, not included him in something he wants to be a part of, like stubborn, omnipotent gatekeepers. His God stalked off and let children be murdered and then started ugly, hateful fights on social media.

But Tillich reminded me that when this God goes, another God shows up: the God of mercy, faith, hope and love. The one none can really imagine in our wildest dreams, and the one none of have a corner on. The one who stays no matter what we do, hurts when we hurt, and loves us beyond belief. The one that is for us all.

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My heart and prayers go out to all the victims and families and friends today, as well as the community of Newtown, and I write this post with all respect and deference to what REALLY matters above debates and reactions such as this -- their hearts, lives and memories.

Image by Michelangelo, from Wikipedia

This post was originally published at Patheos.com.]]> A Good Scandal: Kathie Lee Gifford Brings the Gospel to Broadway tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2220207 2012-12-06T12:17:24-05:00 2013-02-05T05:12:01-05:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/ truth. When it comes to worldview she is less partisan, more shalom. When it comes to practice, she is less textbook (and less holy book), more viva la vida.

Which is why I consider her a Femmevangelical -- a woman who doesn't submit, who challenges the status quo, who lives her compassionate faith and feminine worth out loud. It is also why she has dedicated the past 12 years of her busy career to bringing the life story of Aimee Semple McPherson, the first female evangelist in America, to the public in the most significant way since they sang of her decades ago in the classic song "Hooray for Hollywood":

"Where anyone at all from Shirley Temple to Aimee Semple is equally understood," Gifford rings out in her crystal voice.

Almost a century after the height of the charismatic preacher's career, Sister Aimee's namesake and notorious reputation has traveled from Los Angeles to Broadway in "Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson," which opened at the Neil Simon Theater on Nov. 15. Gifford wrote the book and lyrics, clearly a labor of love for a woman who believes faith must be transparent, honest and made relevant to today in ways that reveal people for what they are (worthy works in progress) and the gospel for what it was meant to be: good news that brings hope and transformation.

Gifford can bring the evangelista's well-documented triumphs, trials (literally) and tribulations to the stage with equal conviction. The show plays out Aimee's perceived hypocritical moments -- from using money left for her by Klan members ("what you meant for evil, God uses for good") to multiple marriages, allegations of affairs and a post-surgical pain drug dependence that ultimately killed her -- as equally relevant to her legacy as her godly deeds, which included feeding 1.5 million people during the Depression and giving inspirational new direction to the destitute, prostitutes and otherwise disenfranchised souls of her day.

"There is no redemption without sin," Gifford quips. "What is the point of sugar-coating [a] woman's life? All of history is written one human story at a time, and we have to take life in context and understand choices" in order to learn from history and continue improving ourselves and the world.

"Billy Graham's life would not have made a musical," Gifford says decidedly, "but Aimee broke every rule, was very human, and dared to try things no woman in the 1920s had ever done before." One creative path she forged was illustrating stories of the Bible using actors and theatric flair, to bring the concepts to life. "It was like the 'The Real Housewives of the Old Testament,'" Gifford laughs.

Despite the schtick and entertainment angle, realness was still the thing.

"The message Aimee Semple McPherson brought to people was that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose, no matter your past or current situation," Gifford says. This non-judgmental message of love and human worth resonated across the country and the world. It also surprisingly took root where Aimee built her church, Angelus Temple, in the land of dreams and heartbreak...Hollywood.

Ah, Hollywood. I suggest to the media mogul -- in the form of a question about the value of resurrecting Aimee's ethos for our time -- that today's popular "reality" culture finds some women pressured to emulate entrepreneurial entertainment personas that may lead us away from real purpose and the genuine, selfless qualities our faith calls us to develop. You know (I throw out the first association), like the Kardashians.

"I'm the godmother to the two youngest, and close with Kris Jenner," she says, "I actually told her the family should consider a reality show." Oops. But Gifford is here again understanding, open and transparent, always bringing it back to the real.

"I've [since told] Kris that I support [her], but can't watch it. I've been stunned with what the show is. I'm not judging the choices at all, but it's not [reflective of] the people I know." Gifford is adamant that judging others is never an option, especially as it relates to living out her faith and practicing feminism. Gifford says that feminism is "all about choice, even when we don't agree" about how women can be our best selves in a world that often tries to define us by our sexual allure, question our higher ambitions, and diminish our intellectual and leadership value.

Listening to her reflect, I hear Gifford practicing what her beloved Aimee preached. This was what the controversial minister fought for in her own time, in her own way, by becoming a respected and revered authority in a space dominated by men. Her life and choices were often twisted and misrepresented. Furthermore, she faithfully endured personal attacks for courageously inserting her unique talents and vision into what she knew to be an influential and important realm in all aspects of culture: religion and the church.

* * *


"I think the church should die," declares Gifford, "of natural causes."

I couldn't have said it any better myself.

Her statement is elicited by my curiosity about the significance of a musical tale of a Christian evangelist in a time when Pew studies declare the younger generations "more spiritual than religious" and people are leaving churches, and organized religion in general, in droves. The heroine of "Scandalous" attracted tens of thousands to her revivals and sermons, but in 2012, for the first time in history, our country's representation consists of less than 50 percent self-identified Protestants.

To explain the demise of people's interest in religion, Gifford quotes Jesus as recorded in John 15: "No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."

But the church -- or some of the leaders and communities who represent it -- seems to have broken from the central command of Jesus: to love God with all our hearts and love our neighbor as ourselves. Its withering, she says, is caused by the judgment, hatred and bigotry that often stem from old and outdated religious interpretations and traditions.

"Jesus broke every rule of tradition and went straight for the human heart. His biggest battle was against 'religion,'" Gifford says. "Jesus was radical in his willingness to speak to, touch, heal and include women [in that society]. He lifted them up. And he was also always to be found hanging out with the people religious society judged and dismissed." Aimee Semple McPherson did the same, spending time with people in places where "most respectable women of the time would not be caught dead," Gifford attests, lest rumors and questions arise.

Raised in a very strict, rigid religious home, Aimee rebelled early against her mother's version of faithfulness. A genius who wrote 13 operas and played the piano and organ with hardly any formal training, Aimee was a staunch atheist until she was 17 years old. Then she met her first husband, Robert Semple, a charismatic Pentecostal preacher who made the word of God come alive and focused on the principle of love. Discovering a faith of freedom and vibrant expression changed her.

A relationship with God that provides spiritual freedom within a set of healthy guiding moral principles is also where Gifford tells me she bases her faith, not in the deadening confines of rigid religious doctrine. Throughout our conversation she refers to her relationship with a living God who transcends religion, and she acknowledges the dangers of the God of mis-translated and mis-interpreted scripture, trapped in the ink of ancient words and worldview. That faith is dead. The love of God is alive, she says, and therefore remains relevant today.

* * *


I ask Gifford about the relevance of "Scandalous" in the wake of a tense, polarized election cycle, and the effects of a war on women perceived to stem from conservative, evangelical religious ideals. There are evident parallels to Aimee Semple McPherson's daring interruption of the male stronghold on religious authority, to some of the professional repercussions for besting them in respect and effect, to the personal attacks and setbacks she endured, and also to the conservatism of Aimee's own preaching. But Gifford, in true form, can only focus on the elevation of those who persevere against the odds, all in good faith: "I've had every opportunity that a woman of no means can have in our country."

"Of course I have experienced sexism [in my career]," she confirms. Her antidote was to keep moving forward unapologetically, just doing her thing, being true to herself, and staying authentic in the process.

So, why should likewise ambitious, smart, modern young women of faith go see a musical about a female evangelist who has until now been scarcely remembered? "Fear," Gifford replies thoughtfully. "There is fear in our culture." She reflects on why all of us are fearful for the future: times are hard across the board. And women in particular are also instilled with insecurity about physical perfection, staying desirable, aging, menopause, having it all and living up to impossible standards. All this pressure on top of real fears like breast cancer and supporting our families.

"Aimee was fearless. She never stopped living and doing long enough to [let] fear [set in]."

Was Aimee a feminist?

"Absolutely."

Are you?

"I don't call myself one. I am one. I just live it."

So, what is the gospel according to Kathie Lee? Here is her impromptu sermon to seekers of all types, and fellow Femmevangelicals:
Be encouraged. In all your ways acknowledge God, your counselor and dearest friend, and live not by [an enforced] bondage of God's commands, but live in the freedom of them. Focus on your purpose. God's picture is so much bigger. Do not let this world or any man define you, let God define you. Your body, your face, your situation will change ... but God won't.

Coming from a woman in entertainment and media, at the white-hot center of the expectations and scrutiny of the public eye, both her faith and her advice are (forgive me) rather scandalous. That is what Jesus was in his time, and what Aimee was too in hers. Could the faith-revival phenomenon of an Aimee Semple McPherson happen again today? Who might ignite it and what would it look like?

"It would look like Oprah but steeped in the word of God!" Gifford muses. "Although God has a way of surpassing anything I could imagine. It would look like acceptance and abundance, not condemnation or self-righteousness. It would look like mercifulness, serving the poor. Heaven and hell are mentioned far, far less in the Bible than concern for the poor.

What would faith revived ultimately look like? Gifford doesn't hesitate.

"It would look like love."

scandalous

This article was originally published for Patheos at patheos.com/blogs/femmevangelical.

Tickets for 'Scandalous' are available here.

Gifford's children are involved with the Angelus temple (what Gifford lovingly calls a "mosh pit for Jesus") today via the Dream Center in L.A., which serves the poor, hungry, those suffering from addictions, victims of sex trafficking and domestic violence, those living with AIDS, and gang-related issues, among other things.

'Scandalous' is currently partnering with New York Dream Center to help victims of Hurricane Sandy find a moment of relief and hope by giving them donated tickets to see the show. To donate, visit newyorkdreamcenter.org.]]> Breastfeeding In Public: Can Women be Spiritual in a Male Fantasy World? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1947160 2012-10-10T18:00:36-04:00 2012-12-10T05:12:02-05:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/ American University assistant anthropology professor Adrienne Pine breast-fed her feverish, fitful baby in the classroom in order to avoid cancelling the first day of class.

A debate about the appropriateness of this brief, covered act--of which the class of grown adults was forewarned--erupted immediately in the national news media after the school paper reported that some students were offended. The topic of a woman's last-resort need to breast feed her child in (semi-)public ignited the ethical dynamite of "appropriateness" much more quickly and fiercely than say, Brett Favre texting pictures of his penis as an aggressive sexual solicitation to uninterested women in the professional setting of his own workplace - the NFL football field and field house. Boys will be boys, right? But for some reason the non-threatening, natural, and necessary human instinct for breast feeding really tweaks people's personal sensitivities.

Ironically, the class Pine was teaching was an anthropology class entitled "Sex, Gender & Culture." Hmm, a class about the science of human nature, our biological characteristics and social customs with a focus on the norms and anomalies of sex and gender, what might that mean? Maybe the natural-human-condition-squeamish should not sign up.

One student's reaction to the convergence of these topics and his own presence in the class led him to tweet of the incident: "Sex, gender and culture professor, total feminist, walks in with her baby, midway through class breast feeding time #wtf". WTF, you ask? WTF that you got into American University without understanding simple human anatomy and biology 101! Instead, the student, reported to be an 18-year-old male, felt so accosted and confronted as to characterize a woman responding to the most fundamental aspect of sustaining human life as a "feminist" act, later telling The Washington Post, "I was kind of appalled."

While many news reports and blogs have rightly claimed the moral of the story as the importance of access to emergency childcare, or the persistence of a double-standard within the personal-professional juggling act requirements of women and men, I see something else equally troubling: the empty chasm between the shaming of the female body and the sexualization of the female body as physically, practically and spiritually debilitating to women and girls. This is not the first time openness about breast feeding has caused controversy, and there is more than - ahem - meets the eye when it comes to the ridiculous ferocity of reactions.

On the one hand, functional breasts are culturally shamed into closed-up rooms; on the other hand, sexualized breasts are culturally demanded to be exposed. Women are often shamed for behaving according to our nature and the physiological requirements of our female embodiment in any setting outside of a closed up room, alone, where many say breast feeding belongs. Call me crass, but I'll call it hypocritical - here is what I would like to know: functional breasts in discrete action to benefit a hungry baby offended that 18-year-old male student, but how appalled is he by sexualized breasts? What role do de-personalized images and fantasy-caliber re-creations of breasts play for the average male on a daily basis? How much time does the average 18-year-old male spend with sexualized breasts in a closed up room, alone? How much space and money and time and human capital do we spend overtly offering sexualized breasts to young (and old) men in public?

Here is the truth revealed in the Pine controversy: the natural breast function carried out by the women who own and utilize them for their own practical purposes is shunned, but sexualized breasts used to cater to men's desires and erotic needs are heartily socially accepted...even demanded...in public.

We all (even small children) see the larger-than-life, sexualized version of breasts every day, multiple times a day, all over the place -- in advertisements on TV and in print, on billboards, in movies, in video games targeted to teenaged boys, on magazine covers at the grocery store checkout counter or plastered around the news stand, even in kids' cartoons. We see sexualized breasts painted seductively with faux string bikinis in Sports Illustrated and bouncing around on cheerleaders in skimpy tops on the sidelines of the sporting events that little boys (and little girls) watch with wide-eyed, impressed reverence every week during football and basketball season. Sexualized breasts are used for entertainment, for vicarious sexual satisfaction, for hefty economic profit, for lucrative marketing ploys. They are hoisted up and padded to the impossible standards of the male sexual fantasy ideal and smushed together provocatively in every front store window of Victoria's Secret for all to see, in every mall across America, and hey...no one seems "appalled"!

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Photo caption: The smart and lovely Adrienne Pine.

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Photo caption: The infamous over-sexed boob charachiture Jessica Rabbit. We might want to be "appalled" by THIS one.

Hundreds of thousands of girls and women in the U.S. use their paychecks or savings to undergo a very serious and painful surgical procedure to get breast implants made of materials that endanger our health and have to be surgically removed and re-inserted every 10 years - such is the socially recognized and rewarded power of the sexualized and exposed breast. The commodified, consumerized breast is in high demand and available on-demand (online and mobile porn ensures a steady supply, if the mainstream stock is not enough). But the natural, functional, real-time, female-owned and female-controlled breast is controversial, condemned, grotesque, offensive, shameful, appalling. And somehow, also "feminist".

This is a problem.

And not just because of the loss of physical and practical ownership and use of our bodies and breasts. You wouldn't guess it if you were an alien come to Earth to see how most Americans live, but women of all faiths and religions also actually have a deep spiritual stake in our bodies. We are embodied spirits and souls. My Christian faith tells me that my body is a temple, a spiritual home where God dwells, a miracle of utility and creativity, and the only sacred vessel via which I experience all aspects of being alive. I have all my experiences via my body (and its organs like my brain, nervous system and heart), even -- and especially -- spiritual experiences of worship, prayer, praise, gratitude, joy, contemplation, meditation. My body is where I discover, know, and play out my connection to nature, my love of God and others, my conceptualization of who I am on every level. (If you are interested in more, one small place to start is "Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief".)

Yet popular culture, normalized male fetish, and the media advertising machine that makes trillions off the insatiable female-body-and-breast-consumption phenomenon constantly tries to steal it from me. When my body (whether personally or in a collective sense of female experience) seems to belong to the men and the popular culture who either approve or disapprove of it--in all the forms that women are rated publically on a scale of desirability normalized and measured by the sexualized breast--I no longer feel my body is mine. It becomes hard to remember that I am a real, live human being living in this female body, because so many vocal, opinionated others (whether in the media or on the streets of NYC) do not recognize that I am a real, live human being living in this female body. I learn to detach from my body out of fear, doubt, self-consciousness and embarrassment.

When boys and men throughout the years of my childhood (yes, childhood!) and womanhood have said to me and my female friends that they are either definitive "ass men" or "boob men" and hence favor women with the largest/best of either, the judgment on my worth and my status as a "body part object" has been made clear to me. I learn to see my body as a constant disappointment. I am forced to deal with it as a consistent incitement of crude exclamations.

When I walk down the street in New York City and see beer ads that use images and word plays on breasts to illicit product sales from men, I realize that in the society in which I am expected to function successfully, I am diminished into a game of "have or have nots" and "you're either sexualized or inconsequential and ignored" that turns my embodied experience into demoralizing, confusing code meant to trigger male (purchase) power. Money makes the world go 'round, and sexualized breasts apparently make men spend money.

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Photo caption: Really? Those are the "night rules"? Another Coors ad in NYC reads, "Our mountains are real. And they're spectacular." Wonder who they're targeting?

Given the mind-spirit-body connection, how can women have a truly healthy spiritual life when our bodies are riddled with doubt, self-consciousness, fear, judgment, disappointment, and demoralizing references? We may try to separate spiritual experience from bodily experience, but then we are split into splinters and only certain compartments of ourselves are able to engage spiritually. I have to applaud Adrienne Pine for being a strong, secure woman who sees herself as a cohesive whole, both a professor and a mother, unafraid and unashamed to be both at once when needed. Most of us are much more frightened and fragmented into "appropriate" parts.

Interestingly, in the Bible, the bosom or breast of all humans is where spiritual elements of life are said to be nurtured and manifested, and the bosom of God is where spiritual seekers are sent for comfort, wholeness, and restoration.For instance, Luke 6:38 implies that the bosom is the location where God will impart good things to people:

"Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom." (No, this does not refer to bra cup size.)


Isaiah 40 describes how a shepherd protects and cares for the sheep:

"He feeds his flock like a shepherd, gathering the lambs in his arms and carrying them in his bosom..."


John 1:18 says:

"No one has seen God; the only-begotten son, who is in the bosom of the father; he has declared him," indicating that Jesus being in the bosom of God was ultimately one with God.


To experience God, then, is to lie on the breast of God, to burrow in, to connect there at that point of powerful love. The bosom imagery is one of few overtly female characteristics of God portrayed in the Bible, a Mother God, and the breast is used to make creator and created into one being that is at once fully loved and love itself.

Aha! This is what women were created to do with their children, too, just as God does. Is it the purity of the love and the power to bring life exemplified in the breast that disturbs our culture so, makes it suspicious and condemning of the breast? Or is it really the irrational fear of seeing a flash of nipple or watching nature take its course in an anthropology class? Either way, this is why it is essentially blasphemy to call the natural purpose of women's breasts appalling and especially egregious to do so while simultaneously exploiting them for profit and de-personalized pleasure.

In fact, the social fear of pure, powerful, unifying, unadulterated love -- like that of God -- is probably a factor in why society oppresses the breast into a sexualized object that is rendered unable to simply connect and nourish as intended. Lust is so much easier to handle, so much easier to satisfy, such a simpler expectation than real, deep, transforming love. In an odd back-handed way, the cultural kidnapping of the female bosom into sexual servitude proves there is scary power in them: healing, nourishing, comforting, warming, protecting, loving, and yes--selective, personal, mutual, life-affirming and empowered sexual connection. Culture has tried to control breasts by subverting them into either shame or social-consumer-fantasy sex, but Femmevangelicals, only we women ourselves can ensure we have the ability to enjoy empowering, holy female embodiment. Only we can take the real power back, own it, and use it to make ourselves -and men, and children, and society--whole and unified. It's a power that can change the world when respected for what it really is, but we must respect the power ourselves first.

Prayer: God, give me the strength and conviction to reject the shaming and sexualization of my body that diminishes my spirit. I come to you for oneness, wholeness and confirmation of my natural, embodied holiness.

This post was originally published at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/femmevangelical/

Femmevangelical is published at Patheos: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/femmevangelical/
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Photo credits:

Adrienne Pine, American University at http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/pine.cfm

J. Rabbit by anawarakaalley at http://media.photobucket.com/image/jessica%20rabbit%20cartoon/anwarakaalley/jessica-rabbit.jpg?o=5]]> Challenge: The Authenticity Risk tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1641905 2012-07-06T18:23:45-04:00 2012-09-05T05:12:07-04:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/ When it comes to dismantling digital deception, a man emerges as an ideal female model.

Last week, an enemy of women became a hero. And I'll say something I rarely utter: I want to follow a man's lead, and you should, too. Come with me for a moment.

You're standing in the grocery line after work feeling great about a hard-won success, when suddenly you are struck with a bizarre bodily self-consciousness. You realize you've been mindlessly staring at the check-out display of magazines. Those cover girls are perfect. You can't figure out why after such a productive day, you feel so bad about yourself.

You're brushing your teeth in the bathroom you share with your partner and glance at a stash of Maxim and GQ. You take in the impossibly flawless, barely-clad woman on the cover, heralded by the caption "Every Man's Ultimate Desire." You look in the mirror. I'm nothing like her. When you climb into bed with the person you love, you don't feel like being touched.

You finally motivate to the gym and open Vanity Fair on the elliptical. Flipping through ads for wrinkle-erasers and cellulite-reducers, you consider the artwork-like models that have neither. You can't reconcile the images to reality and default to self-criticism. To compensate, you think exactly what the advertiser wants: That could be me. You can't decide whether to give up, go home and eat a gallon of ice cream or hold down the "speed up" button and run without going anywhere until you pass out.

The scenarios are as endless and varied as the diverse women who experience them. Regardless of nuance, it's likely we all have been subdued, intimidated, or sent into a distracting mental shame spiral by the ridiculously other-worldly, digitally enhanced images of women we see constantly in advertising. This is nothing new. The interesting thing is this: Many of us whose lives are diminished to any degree by this practice are still hungrily consuming the media and products that employ false images of female bodies. We've never organized to stop it, even though we have the spending power of over 50% of the population.

Despite our knowledge of the insidious dynamics, we accept the excuse "it's business, not personal," and therefore normal to put the well-being of companies over the people they're created to serve. Women stay paralyzed in self-doubt, when we could free up that energy and be out changing the world. Are you done buying in? Me too.

And an unlikely hero is stepping up by outing himself. Roy A. Cui, a well-established digital retouching artist for high-profile ads, launched the video blog Roy A. Cui: Traitor to the Media Machine. He explains why he became a digital retouching artist, how wealthy companies standardized wide-spread digitizing, and his own epiphany about how damaging his daily work is to women. He speaks gravely and bravely into the camera:

I'm a part of the media machine that has suckered you into thinking that you need to look like this flawless person who does not exist anywhere in the world. You then feel unhappy with how you really look, so you buy the products that the person of perfection is using in the image that I retouched.


Cui says he never realized his manipulation of reality was psychologically deadly for women. Many buy in to the same excuse: "Everyone knows everything is retouched right? If they don't, it's not that big of a deal. We take everything we see with a grain of salt, right?" At the alarming rate eating disorders are increasing and plastic surgery is skyrocketing, I'd suggest that's a short-sighted assumption to make about the impressionability of the human psyche.
Cui says things changed when he saw Jennifer Siebel Newsom's documentary Miss Representation and was shocked when an ad he retouched was a featured example of sexism and female objectification in media. As the father of an 11-year-old daughter, he had to do something. Although he has a family to support, he is risking his career and reputation to speak out against his own trade.

What if we each did something similar in our own sphere of influence? What if we measured our own success by whether we make life better or more difficult for all types of women, everywhere? Communal thinking is imperative to equality and respect for both genders and all gender identifications. Considering the precariousness of the environment and global sustainability, we benefit from publishing women's ideas more than women's digitally-lengthened, slimmed-down legs. Similarly, a wise economic solution is not putting bartenders in short skirts so churlish men buy more beer. That perpetuates the old economy, the old regime, the outdated and overused, the ultimately futile and flaccid. Upgrading the value of women's dignity and full development is the answer. It's undeniable that our confident, focused presence is desperately needed at this point in history.

And what does it mean culturally that women as they are are no longer good enough for advertising? That's one collaboration women have always been assured. We've been focused on proving our worth as intellectual leaders, only to find our physicality being newly upgraded to "humanly unattainable" by powerful (mostly) men. As we achieve more, it's suspicious that we're being shamed back into old obsessions with the skin our brains are in.

Those of us who point out sexism are often considered "too much," annoying threats to the status quo (what if women really think and stop going along with our whims!?). But apparently women who meet high cultural beauty (salability) standards are "not enough" anymore. This is a tricky trap.

As Cui illustrates, real-life super-models no longer peak the need and close the sale. Even after hours of professional make-up, hair extensions, complex lighting, push-up bras and full body re-shapers, super-women are still extensively retouched. Throw in liposuction, Botox and plastic surgery on everything from breasts to belly buttons to vaginas, and consider that even the women who have embarked on that frontier still require digital perfecting.

What are we letting them do to us? What are we doing to ourselves?

We must protest the systemic re-creation of women into idealized, overly-sexualized caricatures of what some seriously misled (I'm being generous) exec thinks constitutes "the perfect female." Consumers must be the voice of reality when the realness of the silent ad image is brushed away. This removal of humanness has dangerous consequences.

This harsh treatment by the media for which we are hired to produce revenue recalls a time women were bought and sold as property subjected to another more powerful will. Our acquisitive society still utilizes women as if we were an abundant natural resource -- inter-changeable, disposable devices for developing capital. We're collectable too, even more valuable in indiscriminate, vacuous herds coaxed and harnessed by some smug dude using X product or drinking X beer.

This indicates that in our economy, women are primarily valued as malleable marketing tools that can be manipulated indefinitely to generate revenue. Yet even as profitable commodities, it is made clear to us that our prototype has not been performing up to the heightening expectations. With digital re-creations at (usually the wrong) fingertips, the sky's the limit for perfection and profit that lines another pocket. This doesn't pay, crippling us emotionally and economically.

Are we doomed to be either too much, not enough or be franken-fembots? Not if we take the risk of authenticity by asking tough questions and thinking deeply about what the media machine asks us to do, buy into and be. Spend money on what nourishes, not kills, your spirit. Share Cui's blog. Write petitions, write policymakers, write poems. We can't re-write our troubling history, but we can script a healthy future.]]> Christ and Consumerism: 'Priceless' At What Price? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1140822 2011-12-14T21:16:25-05:00 2012-02-13T05:12:01-05:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/
Over the 12 or so years I spent in the corporate marketing world as an advertising executive for global entities like Citigroup, MasterCard and the ad agencies that animate their brands, it became an increasingly perplexing problem. Even as I developed high-profile campaigns and promotions for my clients, I felt distracted and uneasy with the work. Sitting in meetings, it seemed everyone was speaking an odd language I couldn't wholly follow, a vernacular inspired by a buy-in I could not seem to achieve. I gave myself pep-talks. I beat myself up for not appreciating my "glamorous" job. I tried my best to heed the corporate creed pleading loyalty to a doctrine that while arguably logical on a spreadsheet, made zero sense internally. Why was I so bored at board meetings? Why couldn't I force myself to care more about the office politics or the latest buzz products in the financial sector? Maybe I just didn't have what it takes.

Three and a half years ago I followed a call to seminary, and quickly realized that my trepidation in my former career had nothing to do with me -- and everything to do with me. Nothing was wrong with my career efforts, my business practices or my level of intelligence. But the core of my being -- the person I am at heart -- rejected every slippery acquisition presentation that promised ever-higher profit margins, every business plan that banked on the instinctual insecurities and mutated desires of consumer culture. The ultimate goal of my work all those years had been to shape human behavior into a spending pattern, to open up a bottomless hole of desire and then promise to fill it with something that could actually cause people to lose more than they gained, or at the very least leave them ultimately unsatisfied so their longings could be exploited again and again. We most openly witness the ultimate consequence of this exploitation every year when Black Friday rolls around and people trample, pepper spray and literally kill one another over slightly discounted products. When our tender psychological wounds are consistently dressed with the weak band-aids of consumerism, dangerous compensational behaviors are formed and normalized. Even considering the relational, emotional tug of the MasterCard "priceless" commercials, the experiential payoff of each sweet scenario depends upon a preceding purchase path. Dependent upon credit worth and buoyed by buying power, the moment of truth is based on lies.

No, nothing was wrong with me, per se. But because of my faith, reality -- or truth -- takes a form that would spark little recognition within those towering office buildings: a truth embodied by a man whose nature was to give everything and take nothing, who did not have a place to lay his head yet held the weight of the world on his shoulders, and who was willing to risk and lose life to give others a chance at it. I'm not so sure that the reality of Christ has a Return On Investment that would be attractive to the big banks. They are two very different ideas of what's "priceless."

At Union Theological Seminary the academics did not tend toward sentimentality, but I learned more in those three years about the action of loving God with all my heart and loving my neighbor as myself -- the social justice aspects of my Christian faith -- than in the lifetime of Christianity I had claimed. Yet I also realized that there is indeed a Holy Spirit that I learned about back in my early, conflicted upbringing as a Southern Baptist in Alabama. It is a Spirit that lives within us if we will allow it, and once it takes up residence it will not allow us to live by any other standard than that of Mark 12 and the greatest commandment without sounding an alarm in the core of our beings.

The companies I worked for were putting profits before people consistently, investing in short-turn profit runs over the long-term common good, and even though at the time I was generally naive about the level of my complicity (at age 21, I simply thought advertising would be a cool, creative job), something in my core being would not let me feel comfortable with it. In my particular job, I certainly had not been propelling humanity forward day by day. In order to succeed, I was being required to think backward.

In light of the great commandment to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves, it's easy to see that many (most?) of our societal norms are backward: the consumption of far more than is needed by many while others barely survive or do not survive; the widespread preferential treatment of people who exhibit certain physical qualities or social status; an economic system based on the callous exploitation of animals, natural resources, and the beauty and utility of creation. Yet we are impervious, desensitized, senseless. We don't get it. Besides, giving of ourselves to nature, to others, without expectation of a generous ROI, would threaten our precious "standard of living."

Yet this was not the expectation or the standard by which God came to Earth, as we of the Christian tradition are called to remember especially during this Advent season.

This, it seems to me, is also the message of Occupy Wall Street. There is a Spirit that will not let the occupiers rest in a world of gross inequality and oppression of the vulnerable as it stands. Media, politicians and pundits are continually confused about what they're up to; OWS is simply refusing to be forced to think and act backward in order to succeed.

While criticized for a perceived lack of leadership, decorum, demands or action plans, OWS picked up on something far more profound, something that has the potential to change the world. If it came in the form of a business plan or a savvy political scheme led by a select few who had the power or clout to make it take off in popularity, it would not be a forward-thinking idea with a better sense of priorities than our current systems. (Hint: forward-thinking does not equal more profitable.) Besides, isn't it oxymoronic to demand compassion? Isn't it counter-intuitive to carefully construct a publicity campaign for spontaneous acts of passionate protest, for extemporaneous takeovers to inspire extreme makeovers in the most crucial sectors of society?

Occupy Faith NYC, a multi-faith group of clergy who support the new democratic spirit of OWS, sensed the subversive potential present in the rag-tag appearances of the movement. Faith communities of all types have unified behind OWS because the movement comes the closet of any effort of late -- religious or non-religious -- to illuminating the sheer life-and-death nature of our choice to obey the principles of economic justice, social responsibility and merciful dealings that all scriptures and inter-religious ideologies promote.

In the Bible, God asks the people repeatedly to care about one another as they care about themselves, to want the best for everyone regardless of circumstance, even it if means compromising or taking less than one might believe one has earned or otherwise deserves. Is it impossible for human beings to actually care about one another? Or it is that many of us who are powerful -- or even just comfortable -- don't know how to care for others because we don't know what it means to truly care about ourselves anymore?

In his new book "The Price of Civilization," world-renowned economic advisor and scholar Jeffrey Sachs describes the current economic crisis as a moral crisis, a product of "the decline of virtue among America's political and economic elite." He begins his entire thesis narrative by saying:

A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world. America has developed the world's most competitive market society but has squandered its civic virtue along the way. Without restoring an ethos of social responsibility, there can be no meaningful and sustained economic recovery.


I believe the occupiers would wiggle their fingers in the air at that.

But before we fix our glare on politicians, Wall Street, capitalism, corporations and absurdly compensated CEOs alone, Sachs reminds us that "[the] breakdown of politics also implicates the broad public. American society is too deeply distracted by our media-drenched consumerism to maintain the habits of effective citizenship."

People generally know more about the Kardashians than American socio-economic policies and political procedures, and people generally buy into more of their ideas, brands, personas and products, too. So, which one shapes our goals and priorities?

Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation of Economic Trends and advisor to the European Union, wrote "The Empathic Civilization" to argue that the overall arch of history bends toward an increasingly compassionate and unified global culture, if for no other reason than our common, ill-fated environmental conundrum. He points out that no matter who or where we are, we all ultimately want and need the same thing: to keep our planet from self-destructing, and to ensure positive economic, social and environmental prospects for our children and those we love.

To realize our shared goal, it is imperative to recognize that although there are individual or nationalistic advantages at stake, which make agreeing on the right course of action a contentious proposition, our fate as a species depends on our ability to loosen our tightly wound self interests and cooperate. Only then can we pull off the sizable revolution that will be "saving the world" and restoring humanity to a sustainable future.

As a pastor, a theologian and an activist, I have to believe Rifkin is right: Human beings are on a trajectory of experience, growth and change that evokes our empathic sensibilities, encouraging the practice of compassion toward the "other" more intensely with each passing decade. With the advent of technology fostering global interconnectedness, the rate of realizing the benefits of collective care increases with each passing day. But to propel us along this trajectory, we must face challenges, we must correct setbacks, we must point out our missteps to one another, we must speak out about systemic malfunctions. Charity cannot sustain us; the systems that either provide or deny avenues for education, training, support, and opportunities must be reworked to promote human dignity and allow real change that lasts. This is why we urgently need protests, movements, occupations. This is how human kind provokes the movement of God in the world:

The Lord rises to argue the case;

And stands to judge the peoples...

It is you who have devoured the vineyard;

the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

What do you mean by crushing my people,

by grinding the faces of the poor?

says the Lord God of Hosts.

-- Isaiah 3:13-15


The tempting truth is that in our profit-driven world, backward makes bank. But as people of faith, alive with the Spirit, we are called to live out of our conscience into a new consciousness. This is the coming of a new reality that some may call the kingdom of God, some may call social responsibility and some may call an empathic evolution of humanity. God's presence is called forth by our rejection of the status quo, and our desire for new way of being. In this Advent season, let us be occupied by a forward foretaste of hope.

This article was originally published at State of Formation.]]> Six Degrees of Charlie Sheen: God, Fame Games & the Global Female tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.838634 2011-03-22T11:02:23-04:00 2011-05-25T18:40:24-04:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/ When Jesus announced his ministry to a synagogue of marginalized Jews in Nazareth during the upheaval of the first-century Roman diaspora, he read from Isaiah 61 to summarize his mission: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because The Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. [The Lord] has sent me to proclaim freedom of the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Jesus was telling his audience that God had heard their cries and recognized their oppression. Jesus was telling them he had come to elevate truth by exposing systemic injustices, to speak out on their behalf, and to offer healing and hope both physically and spiritually for those who were afflicted by the world's ways. He had come to set a new reality in motion ... a reality that would engage humanity in a trajectory that departs from disgrace and grows toward benevolence and esteem. In the modern world, what still separates us from this promise? Can we still believe it?

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It pains me to invoke the subject of the Charlie Sheen drama, especially now that its initial allure has mercifully waned in (some parts of) the news cycle. And even more so because there are so many other devastatingly important things happening in the world -- Japan, Libya, Egypt -- right now. But in the slightly more composed wake of the Sheen publicity frenzy, its reverberations deserve deeper reflection. Actually, we should consider the spectacle especially in the context of our global interconnectedness. More to the point, half or a bit more of the world's population -- girls and women -- stand to benefit from our collective contemplation on the Sheen machine, the media who propel him, and the info-tainment-cloaked misogynist American ethos that is exported around the planet.

In America, we possess a menacing 'luxury' simply by way of our logistical positioning in the world. Our socio-economic and individualized-expression-driven privilege affords us the freedom to make light of the socially destructive behavior of people of power and notoriety, to laugh it off as mindless scandal. Distracted by our own desires and preferences for entertainment consumption, we are conditioned to overlook the diminishment of the powerless and voiceless each time havoc is wreaked and reported among the super-rich and famous. Yet it is this echelon who ultimately drive the behavior of our business sectors and invent the intent of our industries. From celebrities to CEOs, they canonize our consumer content and shape our social norms via the unfettered access and influence we allow them in our culture at large.

Many in our first-world, American-Dream cocoon enjoy the convenience and leisure of consuming large quantities of entertainment, social media and news media. Some (over 2.8 million, actually) might say it's innocent fun to follow Sheen's delusional rants on Twitter, and on some level it might be, especially if we put aside general human decency, which suggests his illness and addiction should be addressed seriously and not pandered. Many would say it's also business as usual to accept unquestioned the widespread media minimizations (if not glamorizations) of Sheen's mental condition and related antics. This attitude even applies to his long, well-documented history of publicly demeaning and violently attacking women. In case you haven't heard, this includes shooting a former fiance, physically assaulting girlfriends and wives with weapons and threatening to kill them, and in more generous times, merely intimidating a sex worker to the point of locking herself in a pricey hotel bathroom while he trashed the place.

There are too many examples of this pandering to name, but possibly one of the most egregious -- which set the tone for the ensuing media onslaught -- was CNN's Piers Morgan, who got his best ratings yet in the first prime-time interview with Sheen on February 28. After thanking Sheen for giving him a big career break with an interview in the early 90s in Aspen, Morgan said earnestly: "My view is I think you're entitled to behave how the hell you like. As long as you don't -- in the old-fashioned sense -- scare the horses and the children and you turn up to work on time, and you do your job." He alluded to the ratings for 'Two and a Half Men' and concluded, "I don't really get what the problem has been here." Apparently women rank below the animals, and we are meant to assume along with Morgan that ratings and revenues trump all human dignity.

Late in the interview, Morgan barely brushed the topic of Sheen's violence against women, mentioning only that there had been "hints" (hints?!) of such stories in the media, dancing around a couple of let-him-off-the-hook questions, and then trailing away into a conversation about the departure of Sheen's publicist. Sheen's primary statement on the issue -- a punctuation mark applied to a string of disjointed, nonsensical denial narratives -- was that the purpose of women is "not to be hit" but "to be hugged and caressed." Read: if you can't beat them, sexualize them.

When a personality on a major American (internationally broadcast) cable network dismisses such violence, girls and women across the world are affected physically, economically, socially and spiritually. How, you ask? And what has this to do with God? Remember that popular pastime "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" that made the world shrink in hilarious, often shocking ways? The game is played by connecting the famous actor to just about anyone, anywhere on the globe by linking the overlapping destinies of a mere six people's paths. This is that, without the star names, the 'Footloose' quotes, or the hilarity:

1. Sheen's character on 'Two and a Half Men' is a drunken womanizer who tears through one-night stands and prostitutes; thinks his father committed suicide because he couldn't live with his purportedly evil mother; feigns humor by manipulating people and situations to trick, trap and subdue women; and popularizes lines like: "If I can't eat it, bang it, or bet on it, it's not [listed] in my phone." The majority of women on the show are overtly sexualized, infantilized and downsized in ultimate consequence. The three primary female characters referenced regularly on the show (his mother, his brother's ex-wife and their housekeeper) are described on the CBS website as "emotionally toxic", "deeply neurotic", and "domineering and unapologetically blue collar", respectively.

In the general arc of the show, the act of conquering women or getting out of a questionable situation "unscathed" often somehow twists Charlie into a lovable hero to root for. The show's network positioning as a family-oriented situation comedy (the "half"-man is a young boy) render such behavior an "American value" that becomes if not aspirational for some, at least normalized for many. Broadcast to at least 50 other countries, and areas of the world where American culture is idealized, this skewed picture of the assumed "liberated American woman", how her character is portrayed, and what she is forced to accept from men is translated into dangerous terms.

2. Sheen's personal behavior amplifies and realizes the performance of a supposedly endearing and humorous leading man (otherwise why the high ratings?), blurring the lines between sympathetic character and real-life perpetrator. The character 'Charlie Harper' is widely known to be modeled after Sheen's real life. His media-covered interactions with real women in the real world capitalize upon the notion of females as disposable commodities for consumption. Sheen's constant, proud references to the services of "the goddesses" illustrate how females are de-person-alized and become easily interchangeable products for economic transactions. These transactions mark status for wealthy, powerful men who collect women for diversionary entertainment, social presentation, and personal comfort. In the aforementioned interview, Morgan had the revealing audacity to ask Sheen: "And what function do these goddesses perform?" Sheen's answer: "I mean, name it. Name it." He then went on to specifically describe their sexual role in football terms. And sadly, it is always the women who are villanized and scandalized for participating -- the men are idolized and immortalized for it.

3. Such flippant yet corporately-hyped dialogue creates a media-perpetuated, popular-culture ethos in which women (especially certain "types" of women) are seen, treated, and spoken of as sub-human -- or at best, are portrayed as inconsequential in comparison with male satisfaction and male-preferred outcome (does "winning" ring a bell?). Once media "scoop" is touted, high ratings are established, social media sharing kicks in, and international viewership spikes, other mainstream and social media outlets feel pressure to not only follow suit, but to heighten the stakes of sensationalism by reinforcing the message in increasingly provocative ways.

Hence, Sheen's message spans the globe, and Sheen can easily be seen as having a quite loud and accommodated -- if not "important" -- voice, and many legitimate platforms. The media not only fails to balance the commentary on the message, but typically hawks it with a smile, a wink, and a nod. For example, now Sheen is embarking on a tour called "Charlie Sheen Live: My Violent Torpedo of Truth". I cannot begin to imagine what a live show like this will entail, but it will be happening in April in cities across the country, from Radio City Music Hall in New York City, to the historic Fox Theater in Atlanta, to Nob Hill in San Francisco, CA.

4. One of the most powerful, influential nations in the world, where women supposedly have an enviable quality of life and some of the best opportunities for equality, growth, education and economic independence, America hence sends the signal to the rest of the world that women actually are inherently inferior and subservient, despite the carefully-constructed trappings to the contrary. We legitimize a false liberation dripping in exploitation, and so implicitly endorse conditions in less economically stable, less industrialized, and less "progressive" areas that continue to restrict women's political participation and socio-economic rights, neglect protection from sexual violence, and sustain educational and vocational discrimination.

5. This exploitation and demonizing of women perpetrated by privileged Americans makes a mockery of the brutal daily conditions of women in other parts of the world, especially where it is nearly impossible for women to support themselves, and therefore they have no choice but to be dependent on those who may exploit them. The UN Commission on the Status of Women can attest that subsistence, violence and war, lack of educational opportunities and decent employment prospects, poverty, rape, sexual abuse and mutilation, lack of health care, harsh labor conditions, and political and social intimidation are the reality of the majority of women on our planet. The CIA can report that 80 percent of the millions of international human trafficking victims in the world are women, and 50 percent of them female minors. Obviously the U.S. is not exempt from these phenomena, but there is no shortage of irony in the fact that one of the most privileged societies has "evolved" to employ more "sophisticated" and "socially acceptable" methods by which to commoditize, sexualize, scandalize and oppress its women. The message is that there is not yet true respect, consideration or equality of women even under the best circumstances, and furthermore, based on what "sells" in our American culture, that there is not much hope.

6. As Hillary Clinton exhorted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995: "As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes -- the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized."

In other words -- in the language of faith -- God's will cannot be done, the imprisoned cannot be released, the oppressed cannot be liberated, the voiceless cannot be heard and the diminished cannot be redeemed. The impending reality of the Lord's favor cannot be expressed or experienced.

Jesus modeled an imperative to call the powerful, the elite, and those with great influence to reconsider and reify their responsibilities for improving reality for all people. In the gospels, he called tax collectors who benefited from loyalty to powerful Roman forces to recognize and renounce the life-stealing burden that unfair taxation put on the poor for the sake of the rich rulers. He stopped a self-righteous mob from stoning a woman accused of some form of adultery, reminding the crowd of their own complicity in her oppression, and beseeching the woman to walk away with a vision of a new reality for herself in relation to society and to God.

Today we must emulate this imperative to create equality and justice in the world -- we each have our own unique sphere of influence and the personal responsibility to make it happen. Couching the issue in a dead-end debate (like that modeled by Morgan) about the professional success vs. personal behavior of a small percentage of wealthy, notorious people who create a large percentage of the American cultural ethos makes no logical sense, and furthermore, does no one any good. The dualism created when we excuse the misogynistic personal behavior of powerful figures in the public realm implicitly excuses and exacerbates the oppression of the vulnerable in our country and other parts of the world.

Of course, it can logically be argued that the patriarchal language and stories of the Bible generally offer no better protocol for societies or hope for women than the language and stories perpetuated in our entertainment and news media today (which probably says more about the backward state of modernity than the troubles of ancient mores -- we've had a couple of millennia to change, after all). Quite possibly, given the Bible's formidable religious authority, its results have been and continue to be much more damaging than the Sheen effect. This is why Jesus' choice of invoking Isaiah 61 to announce his ministry's purpose is so crucial: "[The Lord] has sent me to proclaim freedom of the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." It invokes a living, organically growing promise that transcends time, texts, cultures, demoralizing social milieus, and human shortcomings.

We can still believe this promise when we focus on the actionable ethos of Jesus, unbinding him from the old dualism created by the ancient language and customs of the biblical literary contexts that surrounded him. Ancient hope is found in modern life when we allow Jesus to be the embodied expression of God's ultimate will for humanity: that societies put the well-being and the realization of the full potential of others -- especially the most vulnerable -- ahead of our own indulgences and luxuries. We can -- and must -- hold every false motivation and demeaning narrative in our modern environment up to the revealing light of Christ, which helps us recover our vision; only then can we help free the prisoners and liberate the oppressed. By refusing to consume or perpetuate Sheen's message, we can live that promise even today.]]> Femmevangelical: A Modern Girl's Guide to Sharing the Good News tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.826271 2011-02-23T21:33:42-05:00 2011-05-25T18:35:25-04:00 Jennifer Danielle Crumpton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-danielle-crumpton/ As Generations X, Y and the Millennials declare themselves more "spiritual" than "religious," where does the Christian Gospel fit into modern belief and practice? Is the Gospel good news for only some, and actually bad news for others? Can just anyone claim and live by the Gospel? These questions will be the focus of a series on New Evangelicalism seen through the lens of several current social issues.

It was August, 2008 and sweltering in my home town of Birmingham, Ala. I was back home from New York visiting my family in my last few free days before embarking on an odd twist in my 11-year advertising career: seminary. The opportunity to study and work toward a career in the realm of what truly interested me (Theological Ethics) had appeared before me like a spring in the desert, and while I wasn't immediately sure what seminary would mean for a woman raised in the Southern Baptist church, I was sure of one thing: God had found me in a dry land and was leading me to restoring waters. The days before graduate school started were to be spent drawing from a spiritual spring of sorts: reading and praying, transitioning into the mind-frame of a new purpose and listening for God's voice, ever ready to follow.

During the visit, I heard that a prominent evangelical mega-church in a wealthy suburb of Birmingham had recently brought on a 29-year-old pastor. This was notable. Though I had disassociated with the Southern Baptist scene long before, I interpreted this new youthful authority as a sign of hope. Maybe this guy would shake up the traditional church format with a fresh worldview and an emerging Generation-X edge? This could start a trend. Maybe the Bible Belt could don a new buckle?

I visited the church, ready to find inspiration in the crowded, cavernous auditorium. The congregation was nominating elders and deacons. During the sermon the young pastor launched into an unexpected direction: his conviction that women are not allowed by God to serve in such leadership positions in the church. He gave an awkwardly apologetic and wobbly argument based on 1 Timothy 3:1-13, which basically "excludes" women from being a deacon or an elder simply by way of the innate social assumptions and unending masculine pronouns it employs. Never mind that this would be expected of most any first-century document of the Roman diaspora. But this was 2008, right? Many of the well-off women in the congregation who tithed to the church were probably CEOs of corporations, small business owners and community political leaders, but were listening to a young ordained man tell them God didn't desire, accept or bless their diverse leadership skills in the church.

I looked around to see if any other women looked confused, but all eyes were on the spot-lit stage. I thought that this kid must be kidding. Could it be that a voice of my own generation was oppressing women in an idolatrous act of worship of the ghosts of centuries-old, patriarchal political structures that happened to be captured in the Bible? The pastor generously added his own extra-biblical addendum that children's education, administrative work or social planning were areas God would surely be pleased to see a lady lead, and since he still wasn't laughing, I decided it was no joke. I personally couldn't help but chuckle at the irony. A young, post-evangelical woman visits sweet home Alabama for pre-seminary preparation and gets put back in her place. Forget a new buckle, the belt had actually tightened up a couple notches. Equally disconcerting was the fact that I could recall several evangelical-based churches I had attended in New York City which also restricted the roles of women.

That sermon changed the way I went to seminary. You might think it burned enough to seal the deal -- that any sentimentality or lingering value I held for the evangelical religion of my youth had been scorched. But actually, it lit another kind of fire inside. Instead of turning away, I decided to take back my tradition.

I started to wonder, what does it really mean to be "evangelical" anyway? Diverse and loaded as the meaning is today, at its core it connotes a foundational relationship to the "evangel." This term comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning "the good news," commonly called "the Gospel." The good news proclaimed by Jesus was a declaration that God had come for humanity. The Gospel of Mark tells us that "Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 'The time has come,' he said. 'The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!' (Mk. 1:14-15).

Jesus announced the in-breaking of a new way of being into the world that reflects the being of God: loving, just, merciful, healing, inclusive. God came to us, not to put a magic spell on us and get us to fall into line, but to model The Way that offers life at its fullest to all. The term "repent" also has a meaning too often misunderstood. The Greek metanoia implies a change of perception after an event, the act of changing one's mind to accept a new reality. It has nothing to do with guilt, finger pointing, confession, suppression or oppression. Things like letters to Timothy came about later on when apostles of the time were debating and competing, trying to suss out what a "Christian" religion would look and function like in the context of their social, political and economic structures. But Jesus didn't bring a new religion, he brought a new reality. This reality is constantly asserting itself -- even in the face of opponents -- over the course of human history. Those who perceive it know it sets people free to become all God created us to be. Period. End of the Evangelical Story.

Women have little to hold to in scripture by way of role models or positive accounts of the female experience. I believe this is less an effect of God's inspiration and more a lack of human imagination. For instance, the Gospel of Mark has at least two endings, and interestingly the difference hinges on the role women are "allowed" (by ancient Judeo-Roman culture's writers) to play in witnessing and announcing the resurrection of Jesus. In the last chapter of Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary "mother of James" and Salome go to the tomb of the crucified Jesus to anoint his body, but instead a figure in white tells them Jesus is risen and has gone ahead to Galilee, where they will see him. The earliest ancient manuscripts end Mark's story by saying, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."

But later, scribes added back in the popular, traditional knowledge that the risen Jesus actually appeared first to Mary Magdalene, a brave and beloved disciple (this is the second ending you will find in your Bible today). She was entrusted by Jesus to not only witness and believe this shocking new reality, but also to take the news that he was alive to the rest of the disciples. Jesus chose a woman to reveal his resurrection to the world, and to prepare them for his subsequent appearances. Talk about being the bearer of good news!

In the version of the resurrection story found in the Gospel of John chapter 20, Mary Magdalene again has the primary role in the angelousa, or the announcing of the appearance of the risen Jesus. Mary arrives at the tomb while it is still dark, sees that the body of Jesus is gone, and notifies Peter and the "other disciple" who then go to the tomb, see that it is true and go back to where they are staying. But Mary does not turn away. Once she is alone, Jesus appears to her, and he calls her by name: "Mary." He then tells her to go and tell his brothers that he is ascending to "my God and your God." He waited for her alone, and hence Mary is literally the recipient of of the initial Easter Christophany upon which the faith of the Johannine community of Christ-followers was based.

Even less obvious stories like that of the servant surrogate Hagar in Genesis 16 remind me of the important role of underdog women in the story of God and humanity. Here it is found in the short-sightedness of "Father" Abraham when he fails to trust God's own birth plan for the forthcoming "people of God." When the pregnant slave Hagar runs away from Sarah and Abraham's harsh treatment into the desert, God finds her by a spring and promises her a future. Then she becomes the only biblical character to actually name God: El Roi, the God who sees me.

Likewise, I can trust that my value and position in my faith tradition has little to do with a young male pastor's ancient hierarchies and everything to do with the God who sees me. This is good news. We do not have to run from a deadening evangel, but can find life at its fullest in a new reality. Like Mary Magdalene, Jesus calls us by name, as women, to serve his God and our God. This is God coming for us specifically as females, calling us to lay claim to our evangelicalism -- our important role in the in-breaking of God's kingdom into the world -- no matter what our religious affiliation or belief system. Like Mary, we cannot turn away. Femmevanglicals, repent and believe.
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