Taking a Principled Stand March 28, 2010
Posted by Matt in Christian Beliefs.Tags: church of christ, gender discrimination, Lads to Leaders, Pharisaic ideas, principles, problems
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A little over a year ago I wrote a blog entry about my problems with Lads to Leaders that you can read here. This evening it again reared its ugly head during a conversation with my seven year old. Here is how it went.
My oldest daughter tugged on my shirt sleeve and when I looked down I was greeted by her big blue eyes, full of questions and wonder.
“Yes, honey,” I said, “what’s up?”
“Daddy, umm,” she stammered, “I was just wondering why I don’t do Lads to Leaders.”
She had asked this question sometime in the past, maybe last year, and I had tried to explain to her my reasoning for not supporting the program, but being only seven years old, that explanation went in one ear and out the other.
“Well, honey, there are a few reasons why we don’t participate in the program. First of all, I don’t think they treat little girls very well.” At this point I went into some long soliloquy about gender discrimination in churches and how they, along with the Lads to Leaders program, have promulgated these false teachings over the years. I told her about how they were so wrapped up in their own “rightness” that they would not even let me watch her do anything at the competition.
“Honey,” I said, “Daddy is a man with strong principles. Do you know what that means?”
She shook her head so I continued.
“It means that there are some things I believe in very strongly, things that I can’t break.” I looked her square in the eyes to let her know just how serious this issue is to me. “Rachel, I can’t allow that to happen.”
I expect my children to be leaders in church and elsewhere, to stand up for injustice, to be at the forefront of the change in ideology that is sure to come in the ensuing years. I don’t want them to be held back by their gender or to accept a role of being meek and mild, sitting in the corner waiting for a man to explain the things they don’t understand. I want my daughters to be forceful, powerful voices as they become women. I want them to reach their full potential, whatever that may be. And, of course, those things will be greatly hampered by a program mired in the false teachings of 50 years ago.
“Do you understand, Rachel?”
“Yeah, I guess so…., but why can’t I just go and have fun?”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, “The answer is no, honey. Believe me, you’ll understand and thank me some day.”
Peer pressure stinks.
Discriminating against women is part of the charm of the Churches of Christ. Why do you expect to shift the waters of an entire church– an institution? I ask sincerely– have you heard of a church like yours making a total shift towards total gender equality?
I don’t understand why you don’t go and enjoy the freedom of gender equality in a different church. I really don’t. Your daughters could currently be treated as equals in a different church, but instead you hold out for something that will probably never happen at your church. Or at best– they get to pass a communion tray.
I respect what you believe and I respect what you’re trying to do. But I think you need to ask yourself if this is actually doable. Churches of Christ teach that they have the corner on truth– that they way they interpret the Bible is THE correct way. Getting them to rethink their ‘truth’ is going to be practically impossible b/c if someone allows you to crack one part of their ‘truth core’ then that means everything else is game too, and that’s just too damn scary for most.
If you really want your daughters to experience gender equality then I highly suggest you go to a different church.
Also, your Church is into ‘social justice’, and that’s another good reason to leave, or so I’m told.
Matt, this doesn’t have anything to do with L2L, but I just finished a book you might appreciate. It’s called Things Unseen by C. Leonard Allen, and in it he argues that the Restoration Movement (A. Campbell, specifically) and its (his) hermeneutic is a product of the Enlightenment and that the problem the CofC is having now is not a conflict between a 1st century mindset and a postmodern world, but a modern mindset vs. a postmodern world. Really interesting. And enlightening (pun intended).
I don”t know the answer to this Matt. I’m so discouraged because your
dad says all the time ” We don”t belong here” and most of the time I think he is right. This is the first time I’ve really been sorry that I didn”t leave the church when Aunt Kay and Uncle Frank did. Maybe your spiritual life and ability to serve God would have been better if you had been raised in a different church. I believe I held you back and I put your Dad’s struggling faith in jeopardy. I’m sorry. Mom
can I link to this at rudetruth?
I find myself in the in-between place. While I believe the Scriptures allow a greater role for women in the church than most churches of Christ practice, I don’t believe that public teaching in worship is a part of that.
That said, L2L is not a church and their competitions are not worship. I would like to see men allowed in all competition rooms, and have said so to those in authority. For all its church ties, however, L2L is a business that believes it would lose large amounts of its participants if it made those changes, so it won’t change.
So what are parents to do? We made the decision to encourage our children to participate because we believe the good of L2L (and there is a LOT of good) outweighs the negatives. I don’t believe it has scarred our daughters; we have much more influence over them than L2L. You have chosen differently, and that is fine. Every parent has to make his or her own decision, and your girls will benefit from seeing their parents make decision based on beliefs. They won’t always agree with your decisions, they may not even thank you someday, but they will be blessed, whether they know it or not.
One more thought– and sorry if I came across rather impassioned in my first response. I was just re-reading and thinking, “Damn, I didn’t mean to come across so strongly.”
Anyhow– if you believe you can affect change by remaining on the inside of a place you don’t entirely agree with (like in your church), then is it possible for you to do the same thing in L2L? It seems like you’re taking two different approaches here.
I have no desire to leave our local church. It is the focal point of our lives. Almost all of our closest social relationships are through our church and it gives us a great avenue for serving the local community. For the most part, we are more concerned with relationships than doctrines. These are my people and I love them.
I feel like L2L (and those churches who are even further right than them) represent some of the worst aspects of our heritage. Our local congregation is not like that, though, and I greatly appreciate the work of our leaders (including GRH above) in creating a balance and fostering an atmosphere of moderation.
And no, mom, you did a great job. You have nothing to be sorry for.
Definitely, JTB. Anytime.
thanks. it’s up, with a brief intro, because it reminded me of a comment Sara Barton made at CSC last year. and if it’s cool with you, I’ll archive it in the women in CofC series too.
I’m honored. Thank you.
R-Liz, one reason Matt needs to do what he’s doing is so that the leaders in his congregation will hear about it. Maybe (yes, I’m a bit of an idealist) — just MAYBE if more parents say, “No, I won’t participate in this program because of way it treats girls and women,” then maybe the leaders will hear it and quit supporting the program itself.
L2L has a strong hold in lots of places. The more individuals step out of the program but remain in their congregations, the more the message will be heard.
Lisa– I hope that’s what happens. I really do.
I feel really torn about situations like this. On the one hand I commend someone for committing to a situation with the hope of changing people within.
On the other hand, sometimes it reminds me of someone who comes from a dysfunctional family marrying someone who exhibits the same dysfunctional behavior they grew up with. It’s familiar, and yet perhaps there’s this hope that THIS time they can really change things for the better.
And even though parents may try their best to convey their beliefs to their children, we all know that in the it-takes-a-village setting of a church that kids will undoubtedly hear doctrine the parents don’t agree with. I think it’s a gamble which person/event will make the biggest impression upon a child. Sometimes it’s the parent, and sometimes it’s not.
I have to agree with R-Liz’s last comment. I grew up in Churches of Christ and while my parents didn’t always teach the same thing the church taught, I sometimes went which what the church taught. For example, I thought that all Christians had to be Republicans even though my mom and maternal grandparents were Democrats. This sort of thing happened so much in my own upbringing that once I had a child of my own I didn’t dare raise her in Churches of Christ. Now we are at a church with a woman priest and my children are truly perplexed at the idea that there are churches that forbid women to do certain things.
As for Lads to Leaders, I grew up in an area that didn’t have this program, but one of the first times I heard about it was someone trying to explain how a girl’s non-Christian grandfather was made to watch her give her speech through a series of mirrors because that was somehow different then putting him in the actual room where she was speaking. That was really one of the final straws (there were many final straws, I’ll admit) that convinced me that the church of my youth was dysfunctional to the point that it was unhealthy for me and my family to remain.
wow, indie…a great example of the fact that what’s operative here is *not* theology or hermeneutics, it’s just plain, obvious sexism. what counted there was simply maleness…without the cloaking of “spiritual headship”–because, tracking the traditional CofC theology on this, a non-Christian male shouldn’t have counted as the spiritual authority over this girl.
and a great example of how we’ll bend over backwards to be consistent in our applications of principles when they enforce gender roles…and blithely abandon them when they subvert gender roles…again, provoking the realization that it’s not about our biblical principles, it’s about the gender roles themselves.
JTB or Matt– I bet you all could collect a ton of interesting/funny/maddening stories from CoC folks of examples in church life that do just what you’ve said here, JTB– examples of when people bend over backwards to be consistent in applications of principles when they enforce gender roles.
One that comes to mind for me was when I was having a discussion with a gal in my dorm during my first few months at Harding. I was trying to understand this ‘role of women’ as determined in the CoC, so I asked her:
Let’s say you were brought to Christ by a group of Chrstian women, and you felt compelled to be baptized, but there were no Christian men around to do the job, but plenty of non-Christian men. Would you ask one of the Christian women to baptize you or one of the non-believing men?
Her answer: Ask one of the non-believing men to baptize her.
Unbelievable.
It’s believable.
Wow, R-Liz. That’s telling.
And I guess you can’t wait for a Christian man to get there because the possibility exists that you could die before they arrived, thus condemning your soul to hell for eternity.
Matt– Exactly. And a woman baptizing a woman is obviously not a valid baptism (less valid than a non-Christian man baptizing someone).
About 3 weeks ago I witnessed my first baptism presided by a woman. I’ll never forget it, and I’m so glad to say my kids saw this for the first time at ages 4 & 5 instead of age 32.
I know I’ve blogged this before but I can’t help but mention the reply given to the Chinese friend who requested that I baptize her–the reply she got was “isn’t God a man.” needless to say, she was totally confused, and when she told me about the conversation afterward, I couldn’t help her out, because I was speechless.
It’s a shame that you have such a resentment to a fine, outstanding program. Our youth (including the young ladies), have grown tremendously.