Let your words be anything but empty

Sometimes healing means doing things that make you uncomfortable. I never thought speaking in front of crowds would ever make me uncomfortable, as someone who used to make her home on ice rinks and high school auditorium stages. But tonight, I was nervous. I think I was nervous not because of the people, but the subject matter. Because it's a subject so close to my heart, I knew I'd take it personally if people responded negatively. But ultimately, other people's opinions don't matter. So I got up there and read a chapter from my book; a chapter that shows (I hope) how big my brave is.

And hey, I even sold a book afterwards. Yep, just one. Luckily I don't measure success in numbers. Success was being able to write it down in the first place.

I couldn't have done it without you, Sara Bareilles.

And my GOODNESS do I make weird faces when I talk.

Why has no one pointed this out to me before??? ;)

Conservative vs. Liberal: a mid-faith crisis

I can't believe I've been doing this Christian thing for almost five years, and am just now hearing about Rachel Held Evans. I can't believe I'm trying to figure out how to integrate Christianity with feminism and am just now discovering her blog. She's the kind of influential writer I hope to be one day...a mover and a shaker who may have to stir up a bit of controversy to make positive change happen, but at the same time isn't stirring things up just to cause trouble.

This blog, in particular, really speaks to where I am right now, almost-halfway through seminary. After becoming a Christian at a liberal party school, my parents joked that seminary would turn me into an atheist. That hasn't happened (and I don't see it happening any time soon), but something else I never expected has...I think seminary is turning me into a liberal.

Then again, my definition of "liberal" is probably quite different from the way most of America defines it (though I'm not entirely certain what that exact definition is). Quite possibly, I haven't changed all that much; it just feels that way because my environment has. The beliefs that caused readers of my column in The Daily Kent Stater to hurl "fanatical conservative" at me are quite normal at seminary (surprise, surprise). But the beliefs I have that would actually make me normal by Kent State standards make me somewhat of an anomaly in seminary.

Like Evans, I don't fit a standard "evangelical package." I don't even like the term "evangelical." I'm not your typical conservative evangelical because:

I really don't mind if homosexuals are allowed to have legalized relationships.

I believe God created the world, but not in seven literal 24-hour days, and I don't think Darwin was a heretic.

I enjoy a good drink every now and then. I agree with Ben Franklin that beer is proof (well, one of many) that God loves us.

I can't stand most worship music, and when a large body of "believers" raise their hands to the music, the first thought that pops into my head is "Is this church, or a Nazi rally?"

I really can't stand the expressions "believer" and "non-believer" (does that mean non-Christians don't believe anything?).

What Jon Acuff calls "prayer right there" (group prayer that, literally, happens just about anywhere, usually in coffee shops) makes me extremely uncomfortable...and I secretly hate anyone who asks me, an introvert, to lead that sort of prayer (okay, I don't *actually* hate them, but you know what I mean).

I believe women should have leadership positions in church.

But at the same time, I'm far from being a "liberal Christian" because:

I do believe in sin. And hell.

I may be a little lax in my attitudes toward gay marriage, but I'm one of the fiercest pro-lifers you will ever meet.

I believe in the Bible. I believe in a literal bodily resurrection. I believe prayer works...but not always the way we want it to.

For all my many mistakes, I still passionately believe in the Gospel, and "being a good person" is not the goal of Christianity. In fact, that's impossible.

So where does that leave me? Am I two different people among the "liberal" and "conservative" camps? Are those my only options to belong?

I like how Evans says "Unity is not the same as uniformity." Too often I look around a church, or a Bible study, see people who appear to have more faith than me, or who express it in ways I'm not used to, and think "How in the world am I supposed to fit in with these people?" They probably think the same about me...or maybe they don't. I realize that I'm far too judgmental for my own good. My goal for next semester will be to force my mind open as much as possible, while not being afraid to censor myself.

I'll let you know how that goes.

The new naked normal?

On the heels of my last post on modesty, this article was just published on Focus on the Family's entertainment review site (yes, I am unafraid to say that I enjoy a lot of FOTF's stuff, even if I don't agree with all of it). It's about society's ever-changing perspective on nudity, and whether it's too risque for entertainment. Should it be censored on TV and Youtube? Or is it time to stop being prudes about our bodies already?

Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that nudity is not inherently a bad thing; we were born naked, after all. To me, the issue isn't nudity itself, but the exploitation of it. The definition of what qualifies as "art" is rather subjective, but somehow I don't think that's Justin Timberlake's intent. Exploiting nudity means taking away one's personhood, and reducing him or her to a sex object. Art, on the other hand, says "I am more than a pair of breasts." There is an exponential difference between celebrating the body and cheapening it. I have to consider Timberlake's new music video to fall into the latter category, but I'm open to any arguments suggesting otherwise.

One of the comments on the article fell into the timeless Christian stereotype: the one that suggests our bodies are somehow shameful. "Adam and Eve covered up after they ate the fruit," this person says. Yes, they did...but my amateur attempt at biblical exegesis suggests that Adam and Eve covered up because they were vulnerable, not because they were naked. Physical vulnerability is connected to emotional vulnerability: if we were never insecure, if we never struggled with lust, if we never had a tendency to take something intended for beauty and wreck it for selfish purposes, there would never be anything wrong with nakedness.

I think American culture's biggest problem with nudity is not knowing how to appreciate and value it well. Our bodies were made for more than just sex. At the same time, Youtube should maintain its policy that one must be 18 or older to view certain videos, and movies should still keep their ratings in check. For the safety of those who don't know how to see the human body as anything but a means to a self-gratifying end.