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by Atticus Shires Making a conservative, evangelical, Christian college become my home has been quite the ride. I have had to live, li...
Archive for July 2013
Struggles and The Miracle-Gro Church
by Atticus Ford Shires
I wanted to start out this article with a bunch of single-word sexual buzzwords to make it Look. Really. Dynamic. But I couldn’t think of enough to make it work, and the ones I thought of weren’t that great. Except for one — Struggle.
I wanted to start out this article with a bunch of single-word sexual buzzwords to make it Look. Really. Dynamic. But I couldn’t think of enough to make it work, and the ones I thought of weren’t that great. Except for one — Struggle.
Ah,
yes. We all know and loathe that word.
With it connotes thoughts and realities of failures, unmet expectations,
secrets, addictions and any onomatopoeia that resembles the feeling of blech. When we think of sexual holiness,
“struggle” is usually the first word on our why-I-can’t-achieve-sexual-holiness
list. I can’t achieve sexual holiness because I struggle with porn. I can’t
achieve sexual holiness because I can’t stop masturbating. I can’t achieve
sexual holiness because I like guys. These are just hypotheticals, of course…
Often,
sexuality as a whole is considered to be in the shameful/don’t-touch category
when it comes to sexual holiness, which is quite ironic considering we’re
talking about sexual holiness. We are told we can’t be sexual and sexually holy. We can’t possibly
look at a woman or man’s body with delight and be practicing sexual holiness.
We can’t wrap our minds around the concept that the act of self-stimulation
might be something that can garden sexual holiness. And a young man with
undeniable same-sex desires has only one option if he is to live in sexual
holiness: deny the undeniable, reject the desires and live in spite of them.
Well,
these things work about as well as telling a horny, teenage Christian boy to
carry a stress ball, find a hobby, or pray for a once-in-a-blue-moon wet dream
to relieve the sexual frenzy going on inside his chemically imbalanced body.
Sweeping our sexual desires under the rug
or in the closet or beneath the fig leaf is not the answer to achieving sexual
holiness. It’s the problem.
This
is a why I have a huge issue with the ever-popular Christian narrative for
modesty that goes something like this: “Omgosh, Stacy, I’m so proud of you for
wearing that one-piece. And don’t worry; if your boyfriend truly puts Jesus
first, he won’t think it’s frumpy at all,” or, “Ugh, look at Stacy. I can’t
believe she would wear such a slutty two-piece to a church pool party.”
Chances
are, Stacy doesn’t struggle with modesty issues, but rather Miss
I’m-a-better-Christian-than-you has a serious, fear-based people problem. My
high school was riddled with these Jesus freaks, where martyrdom meant sacrificing
your soul for the sake of status, and honor meant covering up—in every sense.
Cover your passions, cover your personality, cover your soul, and you sure as
hell better cover your body and your struggles. Ain’t nobody wanna see all
that, okay? Nobody. I mean, my god, this is church. Put a freaking cardigan
over those, Stacy.
It’s
ironic and sad that the very shackles of shame Jesus’s ministry sought to
destroy are the same legalistic pre- and post-requisites we place on people of
the Church.
The church many of us grew up in told us
that sexual holiness is like a report card, and God was your angry dad who
would neglect you if you didn’t make straight A’s. So when you’re a B
student with ADHD like me, you’re screwed. So to speak.
But
Jesus tells us that sexual holiness is a growing seedling that must be gardened
with time. It’s normal to go through drought seasons; it’s okay when occasional
frosts stunt blooms from budding. But
gardening never ceases, and neither does the love and perseverance of God.
The sun always melts away ice and dries up monsoon floodwaters.
The
church tells us that chastity and virginity are the utmost achievements of
sexual holiness, which will one day be rewarded with a perfect husband or wife
who is also “pure”, with whom you will have 2.1 children. So keep that wedding dress
white, okay, ladies? But
Jesus was single, and he never married! He didn’t tell single people to buy a
Match.com account, nor did he see married people as pedestal elites. He saved a
woman who was stones away from being clobbered to death just because she was
caught having an affair. I doubt this Jesus would tell Stacy to cover up her
midriff. But Lucy Whinealot might
have some ‘splaining to do.
The
church tells us that our struggles are parasitic evils that we need to
exterminate fast. The faster you break your porn habit, the more sexually holy
you are. But you’re still not as good as Timmy, who hasn’t ever looked at porn.
So even if you do quit fast, you’ll still be a B student. Just wait until your
father gets home.
But
Jesus says that sexual holiness is a growing seedling. I don’t care how much
Miracle Gro you put on that little sprout; it takes time, Jesus says.
It takes a lot of time. Gardening never ceases.
Even for you, Timmy. So,
when it comes to “struggling”—and we all struggle—we need to stop listening to
spiritual abusers and ignorant church-y traditions, and start listening to the
daring, cross-cultural, sexually revolutionary, provocative and untame:
Jesus—sexually holy and Gardener of souls.
Tag :
Atticus Shires
,
An Introduction to Our Belovedness
by Katelyn Skye Seitz
A reconciliation needs to happen.
We have pitted our sexuality and our spirituality against each other and a reconciliation needs to happen. I invite you to take a step back with me, back from all the confusion, all the hurt, all the lies and all the tension that has informed so many ideas we have been given about sexuality. This step back we're about to take is not to escape our sexuality, but to get a fuller look at it.
The avoidance narrative has taught us that sexuality is, well, something to be avoided, that our ignorance implies our holiness and that our sex drive is something to silence. This is an effective narrative because it uses an effective instrument: shame. In her book, Daring Greatly, Brené Brown states, “shame derives its power from being unspeakable”. If any subject has been silenced by shame, it’s our sexuality.
A reconciliation needs to happen.
We have pitted our sexuality and our spirituality against each other and a reconciliation needs to happen. I invite you to take a step back with me, back from all the confusion, all the hurt, all the lies and all the tension that has informed so many ideas we have been given about sexuality. This step back we're about to take is not to escape our sexuality, but to get a fuller look at it.
The avoidance narrative has taught us that sexuality is, well, something to be avoided, that our ignorance implies our holiness and that our sex drive is something to silence. This is an effective narrative because it uses an effective instrument: shame. In her book, Daring Greatly, Brené Brown states, “shame derives its power from being unspeakable”. If any subject has been silenced by shame, it’s our sexuality.
We have been asked to "stay virgins until marriage". But I believe this is asking too little of us. I believe this standard does not do any justice to the beauty, depth and intricacy of what it means to be a sexual being. Healing from the damage shame has caused will take grace and it will take courage; but it ushers in celebration. And that is what I would like to introduce into this conversation: grace, courage and celebration. Grace for ourselves, courage to believe in our belovedness, and celebration as we live into it.
Now prepare to re-enter into this conversation with a new narrative — one in which the protagonist is our belovedness. That is what this conversation needs to be about. Sexuality was never meant to get in the way of spirituality. Something Amy Frykholm adeptly communicates in her book, See Me Naked, is that the body is a vehicle of the holy, not a barrier to the holy.
This narrative says God created us as sexual beings on purpose and He believes it is a good thing. Whether we own this or not determines how we engage in our sexuality. As Jonathan Martin explained in his book, Prototype, “It turns out that knowing how loved we are by God makes all the difference in the kind of people we will become”.
This narrative refuses to be colored by fear — fear of our bodies, fear of our desires, fear of vulnerability, fear of mystery, fear of connection, fear of tension. Our humanity is deep enough to hold such mystery; it is capable of thriving in tension. It is made for connection, lost without vulnerability and comes alive with desire. God is found in these.
Yet, in this inherited and cultivated shame of sexuality, we have curtailed ourselves from much beauty, truth and goodness meant for this sacred embodiment. Being a sexual being is wild and vulnerable and mysterious, and that can be scary. Scary, but not worthy of shame.
Nothing God created and called good is worthy of shame.
I think it's time we allow our belovedness to reclaim this conversation. We have watched shame inform our view of sexuality for long enough. It's time we hear what God has to say. Turns out, there is no script for stewarding our sexuality. If this comes as a disappointment, go read the array of books on sexual purity giving you lists upon lists of the “do’s and don’ts” and get back to me when you are tired of these lists failing to engage the entirety of your humanity. We are aching for something that dignifies our desires more than rules to manage them.
One thing I have found is that seeking wholeness in my sexuality looks a lot like just becoming a healthy human being. The skill of knowing oneself requires intentionality, reflection, self-compassion, grace and belief in our own belovedness. And it is when we allow others to do this alongside us, when we believe in their belovedness, sexual stewardship will flow from this place. This will take courage, but most things worthy of our humanity do.
In posts to come, we will look at some of the places where we have been living according to a shame-based script and we will consider how these have been holding us back from stewarding our sexuality. But for now it is enough to breathe in our belovedness. If we do not start here, we will get nowhere. From here, as Amy Frykholm puts it, we can begin "to learn to grant to one another, in the Body of Christ, an opportunity to speak truth in love and to forge ahead toward wholeness." Reconciliation needs to happen.
This narrative says God created us as sexual beings on purpose and He believes it is a good thing. Whether we own this or not determines how we engage in our sexuality. As Jonathan Martin explained in his book, Prototype, “It turns out that knowing how loved we are by God makes all the difference in the kind of people we will become”.
This narrative refuses to be colored by fear — fear of our bodies, fear of our desires, fear of vulnerability, fear of mystery, fear of connection, fear of tension. Our humanity is deep enough to hold such mystery; it is capable of thriving in tension. It is made for connection, lost without vulnerability and comes alive with desire. God is found in these.
Yet, in this inherited and cultivated shame of sexuality, we have curtailed ourselves from much beauty, truth and goodness meant for this sacred embodiment. Being a sexual being is wild and vulnerable and mysterious, and that can be scary. Scary, but not worthy of shame.
Nothing God created and called good is worthy of shame.
I think it's time we allow our belovedness to reclaim this conversation. We have watched shame inform our view of sexuality for long enough. It's time we hear what God has to say. Turns out, there is no script for stewarding our sexuality. If this comes as a disappointment, go read the array of books on sexual purity giving you lists upon lists of the “do’s and don’ts” and get back to me when you are tired of these lists failing to engage the entirety of your humanity. We are aching for something that dignifies our desires more than rules to manage them.
One thing I have found is that seeking wholeness in my sexuality looks a lot like just becoming a healthy human being. The skill of knowing oneself requires intentionality, reflection, self-compassion, grace and belief in our own belovedness. And it is when we allow others to do this alongside us, when we believe in their belovedness, sexual stewardship will flow from this place. This will take courage, but most things worthy of our humanity do.
In posts to come, we will look at some of the places where we have been living according to a shame-based script and we will consider how these have been holding us back from stewarding our sexuality. But for now it is enough to breathe in our belovedness. If we do not start here, we will get nowhere. From here, as Amy Frykholm puts it, we can begin "to learn to grant to one another, in the Body of Christ, an opportunity to speak truth in love and to forge ahead toward wholeness." Reconciliation needs to happen.
Tag :
Katelyn Skye Seitz
,
From Impurity to Practicality
by Shea Davis
So far I
have done a decent job using my sexuality to harm relationships. I have
separated myself from God because I felt guilty (and many other reasons). I
have hurt my relationship with others because I have objectified them or they
have objectified me. I have also broken the relationship to trust myself
because I went against what I knew was right in order to please others and
satisfy my desires. As I turn away from a lifestyle of sexual impurity, I am
now looking for some type of guidance that allows me to love my entire self, and not feel like a second class Christian for not
figuring that out until now.
“The way we treat our sexuality makes a statement of its own.”
Unfortunately,
I can’t remember the name of the brilliant person who shared this with me;
nevertheless, it has made a huge impact on the way I think about sexuality —
specifically how to be a sexual being within the confines of Christianity. I
found his statement to be so thought provoking because my sexuality (and the
way I choose to live it out) is always an interesting topic with my friends at
home. Sometimes it seems to make them almost uncomfortable that I chose to go
from being in a sexually intimate relationship to living a celibate life unless
I get married one day. The idea of me abstaining from sex seems to be a
completely foreign, ridiculous concept. As Christians, we have something that
can clearly make us different or “set apart” — and not in the way we have been
set apart before, by making sexuality a shameful part of our lives.
We have an opportunity to show
the blessings in sexuality. We have something to celebrate; God has given us a beautiful gift
that helps us relate to Him, others and ourselves.
Thus, I
want to change the word I was using to describe my current standing: as
sexuality in the confines of Christianity. By knowing the truth about the purpose of our sexuality and living it out we know we will experience freedom instead of confinement, because the truth will set us free (John 8:31-32). We do have a couple options, of course. We are able to view and use our sexuality either in
ways that honor our relationships or in ways that destroy them.
So far I
have done a decent job using my sexuality to harm relationships. I have
separated myself from God because I felt guilty (and many other reasons). I
have hurt my relationship with others because I have objectified them or they
have objectified me. I have also broken the relationship to trust myself
because I went against what I knew was right in order to please others and
satisfy my desires. As I turn away from a lifestyle of sexual impurity, I am
now looking for some type of guidance that allows me to love my entire self, and not feel like a second class Christian for not
figuring that out until now.
The
Church needs a fresh perspective. It starts with having decent communication
within the Church and then Christians deciding to walk away from the
double-lives we live. It’s hard though; we live in an ultra-sexualized society.
Why not take what I want? Well, I have seen the brokenness that comes from sex
outside marriage, I have felt the condemnation from other Christians, I have
heard the whispers of what she or he did last night, and I have seen the double
standards that all cultures set.
Most
importantly, God clearly calls us to lives of sexual holiness. But as
Christians, as well as being humans, we
have to make that practical. We can’t just look at our brother and sister
and condemn them for their failings or tell them to go pray about it. We need
to walk with one another; we need to be people who accept the brokenness of one
another, who push one another closer to Jesus and other people who are working
towards fulfillment in their sexuality. Sexuality has been a very uncomfortable
topic in the Church, but it isn’t something we can avoid any longer.
So I ask
you: What are practical steps to helping the Church preach a message of sexual holiness
but also of sexuality as a blessing?
Tag :
Shea Davis
,
The Will to Embrace: Acting Out Our Role as Reconcilers
by Chelsea Tonti
This is where my
understanding of our roles as reconcilers comes into play. You don’t need to
preach a doctrine; you just need to introduce your two friends to one another.
As you have the privilege of watching someone who once antagonized Jesus now finally being embraced by him, you are witnessing on a micro-level what is taking
place on the macro- — that Christ is reconciling all things to himself, and
that all heaven and earth is again becoming one with him.
“The will to embrace that comes from the Spirit of God present in Christ seeks to create space for the other to be a part of oneself without either party experiencing alienation or assimilation... this grace is expressed in the will to embrace, since true embrace requires two or more who wish to connect in a way that does not oppress or exploit the other.” —Frank D. Macchia, Baptized In the Spirit
NakID is a ministry
where people are embraced — not alienated or assimilated, not exploited or
oppressed. We embrace because Christ first embraced us. It is for this work of
reconciliation we have been called (see Colossians 1:20-22 and 2 Corinthians 5:18-21). As we work with the Holy Spirit in establishing
the Kingdom of God here on earth, we are charged with the urgent duty of acting
out the Commission Jesus left us: “Go into the world and preach the good news
to all nations.” Essentially, this is to evangelize.
Evangelism is kind of a
scary word though, isn’t it? A worse word I learned just a few months ago in a
Biola chapel is proselytization.
Yikes! That word gives me the shivers! Whatever proselytization is, I thought,
I don’t want to do it and I don’t want it done to me! Yet this is what Jesus
asks of us. So how can we think of sharing the Gospel in a way that is less
terrifying — terrifying for us and those to whom we evangelize?
This may sound lofty,
but this is our call as a follower of Christ. So what are some practical tips
for engaging with people as you learn to operate as a reconciler? Well, I’m
glad you asked! Here are two tips that I think we could really benefit from.
#1 RESPECT: Treat people as if what they believe is true — because to them, it is.
I’m really nervous for
the day I catch a straight person telling a gay person, “You aren’t really gay,
you just think you are because you must have had some traumatic experience or
been abused or had something else happen to you that skewed your healthy
understanding of sexuality, blah blah blah.” Look. The second you recognize
that an individual is different from you (because they have a different sexual
orientation, a different religion, different lifestyle choices, or different
culture), take off your judging ears and put on your learning ears. You don’t
know them as well as you think you do. Have some humility. What they are saying
is true for them, and “correcting” all their “misperceptions” about how the
world works will not lead them to Jesus; leading them to Jesus will open their
eyes to see any misperceptions, and he will correct them in his time, according
to his merciful plan for their lives.
Someone out there is
saying, “But what if I actually do understand what is going on in this person’s
heart because my relationship with Christ has brought me so much understanding?
Or what if I have the gift of discernment, and I genuinely received revelation
about this person from the Holy Spirit, apart from my own judgement?” I really
value wisdom and the prophetic gifts. I’m certainly not telling you to ignore
the Holy Spirit. But here’s how I see it: Where does that understanding about
the other person come from? From Christ. How must you steward that
understanding? As Christ. What did Christ do? He loved the world of sinners so
much he died for it. Knowledge without love is arrogance. Knowledge with love
requires sacrifice. You get the privilege of judging a person when you love
them so much you are ready to die for them. So there.
#2 EMPATHY: Unity is possible when we value people for their hearts.
Now that we have
committed to respect people who are different from us and to place ourselves in
the learner’s seat instead of the preacher’s podium, you may be wondering, how can I ever connect with people since
there is no one I can truly understand?! Take heart — and take hearts
seriously.
For
instance, let's say I’m on Santa Monica Boulevard, and a man in full drag stands next to
me as we wait to cross the street. He’s drunk, smoking a cigarette and
swearing. Do I know what it’s like to dress up as the opposite sex? Nope. What
if he is gay; do I know what it’s like to experience same-sex attraction? Nope.
What if he is transitioning into becoming a woman; do I know what it is like to
feel like I’m in the wrong body? Nope again. Plus I hardly drink, never smoke
and wish I swore less than I do. Gosh, we just have nothing in common! This is
awkward...
This is the moment
where we need to commit to valuing people for their hearts, and where engaging
in empathy will require looking below the surface. The drag queen and I
actually have quite a bit in common if we hold our two hearts side-by-side. I
know how it feels to think I’m beautiful, sexy, eye-catching; I know how it
feels to want to be these things, and I know how it feels to not be these
things. Approval. It’s a deep desire that all humans crave. Now is the time to
give approval. Just as my heart craves to know someone is interested in me, he
wants to know he is interesting. My heart
needs its hurts validated — to know that the wrongs it has suffered really are
wrong.
My heart knows what it feels like to love someone more than it is
loved by them. My heart needs to know it is not alone. And so does his.
If
you commit to seeing people for their hearts, you will see that there is
actually very little separating the two of you from one another. It is the
love of Christ that helps you to understand them as other than yourself, and
the love of Christ that joins you two together again. These two elements are
indispensable for acting as reconcilers for the Gospel. You don’t have to
change anybody; that’s Holy Spirit’s job. You only must love them. You only
must will to embrace them. For if Jesus could look at a hopeless wretch like me
and declare the two of us to be perfectly compatible, could he not to do the
same for anyone?
Tag :
Chelsea Tonti
,
