LOOK. HERE.

"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds."

~Hebrews 10:24

I am absolutely sick unto death of the unloving, uncharitable, unhelpful, and disrespectful manner in which the sexes have come to treat one another of late. 

I haven't the slightest idea where "obviously it's just her time of the month" and "if you want it done right, ask a woman" come from, in the grand scheme of things.  Perhaps Genesis 3.  Is this stuff as old as the hills?  I don't know, but it needs to end.

Single Dad Laughing wrote about this yesterday from the perspective of how men treat women, and what message is communicated.  Check this out:

It is not the impossibly air brushed females on magazine covers who are causing women to hold themselves against a standard of perfection. No, it's not that at all. Holy crap. Why am I just realizing this? Why doesn't anybody seem to realize this?

It is the men that stop and look at those magazines.

It is because of us, guys. It is because we leave them with no other option. We stop. We look. We comment. We joke. We implant those very thoughts into their way of thinking. We make sure they know that we agree with everything the media has brainwashed us to believe beauty to be.

As far as women constantly comparing themselves to other women and feeling worthless, I think he's maybe a little too hard on himself, but it's his confession, so I'll let him have it.  I do want to point out, however, that women can be very, very hard on each other, even when there are no men directly involved. 

Nonetheless, the point I'm making here is about opposite genders.  So, I headed off to a meeting last night just after I'd read the Single Dad Laughing post above, and so maybe it was in my head a bit.  But at the meeting, we got to discussing an entirely different church building that is very poorly designed.  Think about if you had a split level house with the only bathrooms on the bottom level and the only living room-type area on the top level.  It is pretty poorly designed, I'll admit.  But as the group (5 women, 3 men) was lamenting this issue that doesn't even involve any of them, one of the women in the group declared that, "Obviously, it must have been designed by men."  The other women at the table all laughed and agreed (and I'm trying to remember - I think I just sort of awkwardly laughed), and the men shut up, and shut down.  I didn't really evaluate it in the moment; the fact that the whole thing even happened only really hit me after I got home.

Like vs. Lust

Tracey over at palepage wrote about this a couple weeks ago, and I still am struggling with this here Modesty Survey.  (To see the data, click a category on the left, then choose a question on the right, then scroll down for the results.)  The upshot of the survey and its results are that no matter how hard women try, our clothing or makeup or jewelry or the way we sit or stand or walk is always going to constitute some sort of "stumbling block" to our brothers in the faith who (it seems) are constantly battling against the sin of lust.

Now.  I don't in any way want to underestimate or make light of the fact that men are very um...visual.  I get that.  I mean, I don't get it, but I understand the principle.  And I think that men or no men, women have a responsibility to dress modestly.  Our bodies have been given to us by God, and we should therefore treat them with respect.  It also (theoretically) helps protect us against being lusted after, and (theoretically) encourages men to get to know our personalities and characters, and not just our bodies.  And the Bible does indeed say:

...make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way.  (Romans 14:13)

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.  (1 Corinthians 8:9)

It's also true that regardless of what the sin is, as Christians, we should all be seeking to help our brothers and sisters avoid sin. 

If you look under "Open Questions", you'll see that, at least at some level, the guys taking this survey recognize that ultimately it's their job not to lust, and not to treat their sisters-in-Christ with disrespect.  But it seems like the survey language, crafted as it is with an extreme overuse of the term "stumbling block", is meant to suggest that women have an enormous responsbility to dress modestly not because it is a virtue in and of itself, but solely in order to prevent others from sinning.

I'm just not sure what I think about that.  I feel like Paul's admonishment not to place stumbling blocks in the path of the weak is mostly about people who are weak in the faith and have not yet come to enough spiritual maturity to understand proper exercise of Christian freedom.  I think if you can run around demanding that other people not place stumbling blocks in your way, then Paul's not talking about you. 

But let's look seriously at Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, and Luke 17:2 - all of which give us some variation of

And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

All you Bible scholars out there: in light of this passage, is there a difference between deliberately dressing and/or acting to incite lust, and attempting to dress and/or act with a reasonable degree of modesty but still becoming an inadvertant object of lust by others who lack self-control?  Common sense seems to suggest that there is, but this verse in the synoptics paints with a pretty broad brush.  Thoughts?

And finally: There seems to be an implicit suggestion that finding a woman attractive is the same thing as lusting after her.  Maybe someone can clarify this for me, but I don't think they're the same thing.  Maybe this is where male and female responses to visuals part ways, but as a woman, I think it's entirely possible to look at a man and say, "He's really very attractive," and leave it at that.  Vis a vis the survey, I resent the implication that dressing in order to look attractive is automatically dressing to incite lust.  I don't think it's true, I don't think it's how most women think when they're getting dressed, and I think that continuing to push this meme that attractive women are naturally responsible for sins of their brothers-in-Christ can actually be very psychologically harmful. 

Maybe it's just me...

In Which I Become Completely Sold On "Traditional" Worship, Part 3

Where was I?  Oh yes, my supervisor wanted me to evaluate Young Adult Worship.  I got there, and immediately engaged my event-planner side, left over from my days in politics.  I was thinking:

Well, let's start by evaluating how many people are here.  The actual number of people here isn't terrible, but the room is "built" way too big.  It is a gigantic room, with too much space between tables and chairs.  The room is obviously used for different purposes during the rest of the week, the remnants (tables, chairs, etc...) are just laying up against the walls.  The stage is...well, I don't know.  The lighting is strange.  No one is singing...I think because they are sitting at tables.  The PowerPoint is...hey wait a second, where is the cross?  Oh look, there it is!  Stuffed over in a corner with some extra sound equipment.  It feels like a comedy club, not a church.

Ok, so, what do we need to do?  Get rid of about 40 or 50 chairs, and set up some pipe and drape to close off the room a little.  Fix the lighting.  Spotlight the preacher, come up with some sort of lighting plan for when the band is playing.  Get the cross up on the stage, over to the side at an angle is fine so you can still run the PowerPoint against the wall.  Get some music going before the service actually starts.  Etc...

And then it occurred to me:

My goodness, this is supposed to be church, not a political event.  I'm trying to figure out what story the media would write if they had pictures of this, when I should be worshipping the Lord God Almighty.

So here's what I'm thinking: Traditional, liturgical worship, particularly when paired with the Lord's Supper/Eucharist/Communion is necessarily focused on Christ (at least for people who confess the Real Presence).  There is a lot, lot, lot of prep work that can and does and should go into awesome "high church" worship.  But my sense is that most of it is related to the dignity of the service itself.  The preparation is about expecting that the Lord is present in this place, engaging the tradition honorably and worthily, and allowing congregants to participate in that to the fullest extent.

Contrast that with my sense about the prep work of contemporary, low-church worship: I feel like we're trying to create an environment that we can convince people to come to.  We want the lights low and the people crammed together, to amp up the energy.  We need well-designed rooms because it's more professional.  We encourage people to bring in coffee and snacks because it's friendly and supposedly proves that "God can fit into your lifestyle" or something.  Bottom line: we have to create the conditions to make this service succeed.

I want to be clear.  Jesus shows up at contemporary worship.  "Where two or three are gathered," and all that.  "Contemporvant worship" has the capacity to reach people for the Lord, it allows people to encounter God, it creates and encourages faith, it comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.  I would never say that it doesn't.

But when you have the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, when you have the liturgy, brimming with the language of the Bible, language that has stood the test of time, that has steeped millions of people across time and space in the faith, then, just...wow.  It's going to "work" - He always has.  The rest is easy.  Making sure chairs or pews are arranged well becomes about allowing people to best participate in the encounter, not about convincing them to stay or come back.

So, am I anti-contemporary Christian music now?  Am I advocating for an end to all midweek Young Adult Worship that isn't the high-church Divine Service/practically a Roman Catholic Mass celebrated by the pope?  No.  I'm always in favor of everything that God uses to reach people.  Let's keep the music, and let's use it where it's appropriate.  Let's have concerts and clubs and Young Adult Ministry.  But let's stop pretending that the 8:00 "traditional" service and the 10:00 "Contemporvant" service are the same thing, just catering to different preferences.  They aren't. 

**I'm perfectly willing to engage anybody on this topic.  If you think I'm totally off-base, tell me so!