Photo credit: cook think.com

Talking about God is more like slicing carrots than cooking them. You’ve got to be careful with that knife and the more time you take the better.

Pressure does great things for cooking carrots and building faith, but it does nothing for sharing it.

Pressure Free

If we’re pressured for time, friends or approval, we won’t share good news like Jesus did. Consider that Jesus’ good news is on the same level as a marriage announcement (Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a wedding supper in Matthew 22). A wedding invitation isn’t something you share under pressure or with everyone. Good news ought to be for a moment when you have time to beam and explain.

Jesus shared his faith in God carefully, cleverly and practically. Remember Jesus’ refrain, “He who has ears to hear” (Matthew 8:18)?  He knew some people wouldn’t get it.  When you share your faith release the pressurized feeling that God is biting his nails waiting on you to get it right.

Expect Different Soils

Jesus shared carefully, often hiding his end game (John 2:24-25). He never allowed himself to be pressured (Matt 13:58), or induced to jump hoops (Matt 19:16-17). Jesus never felt he had missed a disciple quota, though his numbers dropped dangerously low (John 6:60-64).  Jesus knew that people with rocky, thorny and, dare I say, organic hearts, walked through every audience (Matt 13).

Jesus knew his words would create barren fields with withered seedlings.  Jesus knew that some eager, fragile sprouts would be plucked by ravens.  Jesus expected God’s good news to be discarded (Matt 13, Mark 4, Luke 8).

We cannot expect more than God expects.

Tina Fey Practicality

In her memoir, Bossypants, Tina Fey explains ,“Studying improvisation literally changed my life. It set me on a career path toward Saturday Night Live. It changed the way I look at the world, and it’s where I met my husband. What has your cult done for you lately?” (p 82).

Most people we meet come from Fey’s perspective.  To talk with them we must move into the meaning of “Jesus died for my sins so I could go to heaven.”  While true, this phrase no longer sounds real or even practical to America. What do your friends miss about Jesus that you understand?

With moms I talk about the way Jesus gave me courage to advocate for my son in the ICU. I mention the specific verse in Psalms that got me through the night of fear.

With teens and college students, I share that Jesus gave me a reason to not have sex with my fiancé.  That culturally bizarre “saving my virginity” actually gave me the chutzpah and clear conscience to break off one engagement and have a chance at a happy marriage.

With strangers who care about spirituality but not religion, I share specific Christian practices that make my life richer.

With Buddhists, for instance, I talk about the virtue of humility and how some spiritual paths produce humility more naturally. I might explain how a higher being naturally builds my humility (he is greater than I) or mention how God humbled himself (Phil. 2).

Recently I told a friend I’d pray for her.

“Thanks for that,” she said, “I can use all the good thoughts I can get.”

Wincing, I realized “prayer” just meant positive energy to her.

Prayer throughout Scripture includes labor and silence, wondering and engagement with a person who sees the beginning and end, who loves with kindness and empathy and who knows how to weave darkness into light.

So I took the chance to explain to my friend I meant when I said, “pray for you.” In realizing I was offering more than good thoughts she thanked me more sincerely.  Next time I saw her I asked her about the situation. She knew my prayer meant something different.

Where has Jesus given you a tip or a motivation, a comfort or a direction that makes a difference in your today?

From one introvert who prefers talking about new recipes and her son to relying on her philosophy of religion degree, let me be completely frank – sharing good news is as simple and complex as being honest about God.

The line is endless, the cashier bewildered, the woman ahead of me writes a check and I’m late to pick up my son.

Where does Jesus’ gospel shimmer?

We can be as clever and careful as Jesus’ “Can I have a drink?’.  He is the best example, full of questions, ready to stop and listen.

I step up and watch the cashier sigh and begin scanning with her left hand.

“How are you today?” she asks attempting a full smile.

I wait until she looks up and say, “You’re pretty popular today.”

“Thank you for your patience,” she replies, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Long day?” I ask.

“I just got here,” she says. That’s when I notice the ace bandage around her wrist.

“What happened?”

How does Jesus speak to the woman behind the conveyor belt who is alone in the heat of the day, thirsty for living water?

To read more, watch Dale and I share about more conversations, or buy Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk  and download the free discussion guide by Dale Fincher and Jonalyn Fincher.

Have you found it difficult to talk to others about your faith?

Dale and I realized we needed to think harder and write more on this subject. A few years I authored “Boutique Religion” a Fledge series (spiritual formation articles on how to be Positively Human) with tips on communicating Jesus’ message to those we know and love who have created their own spirituality. I’m sure you can think of people like this, those who’ve added daubs from each religion to fit their personal style.

The series was a hit, so much so that we wrote our first book together, Coffee Shop Conversations (Zondervan, 2010) out of it’s success and interest. Finn was born two months before it released.  Here we sit in our cabin in January, recording the audio version while Finn listens comfortably from inside my womb.  I wonder how much he will remember?

Last Saturday our friend and colleague in writing (see Breakfast Reading), Brandon Hoops wrote a review, originally posted at Jesus Creed, Scott McNight’s comprehensive blog on “exploring the significance of the Jesus and the Orthodox faith for the 21st Century.”

Some of my favorite highlights from his review . . .

In today’s world, as in Jesus’ day, one of the most effective ways of interacting with people about the gospel is through relational dialogue — outside of the church’s walls, between Sunday’s, among the daily, commonplace and ordinary. 

The challenge, I’ve learned after six years of campus ministry, is this path is untidy, it takes time, and Christians prefer gospel-manufacturing (streamlined programs and cookie-cutter souls) to gospel-gardening with its potential for dirt and weeds. 

That’s why I appreciate Dale and Jonalyn Fincher. They aren’t interested in an evangelistic easy button or the pressures of prescription. As I read their book Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk, I didn’t feel confined to a box or stuck with some techniques for more “effective evangelism.” They show that freedom and originality, especially in everyday conversations, may be our greatest assets in going and making disciples. Not only that, they encourage us to get to know our neighbors beyond their labels, showing the beauty of getting into the mess of people’s lives and wrestling with their questions.

 At one point they say, “We hope you will customize your conversations to the unique gifts God has forged in your soul.”

If anything, the Finchers desire to free up our unique humanness to freely love and care and tend to others in their humanness.

It happens every year. Someone will come around to our church for a month or so and then they disappear. When this person stops showing up to Sunday services or small group meetings, I amazed at how easily we lose interest in our relationship with them. We think getting them to our services is sufficient, that if they leave, they must not be interested. 

The problem, say the Finchers, is, “We often masquerade as loving people, but behind our masks we avoid plunging headlong into the grit of each other’s lives.” 

On Sundays, we are comfortable. We know the language, and we know what to expect. But between Sundays, it’s different. We spend time with people who are not following Jesus as we have been. They’re spiritual designers and, “since church authority and traditional church attendance no longer claim people’s loyalty,” they have any number of misconceptions about Christianity. We can’t anticipate what will be said to us or happen to us with these people. The connections points and conversations are different. Like the other day on campus when I heard some students in our union talking about “those crazy Christian apocalyptic people.”

Probably the most notable chapter in Coffee Shop Conversations is the one entitled, “Loving discourse,” in which they give seven manners of loving discourse.

1. Respect one another
2. Step into their shoes
3. Wrestle on your own
4. Never judge a thing by its abuse
5. Update your opinions of others
6. Share your personal experience
7. Allow others to remained unconvinced

With these manners, the Finchers have already given us some “rules” to practice at home. Making the “rules” personal helps us bring Jesus into our own neighborhoods without being pushy or close-minded and cultivates empathy and space for our neighbors to struggle and think. Like the farmer who sows seed and then steps back, we tend to the plant’s needs with water, fertilizer and pruning. We don’t impose our timeframe. We are patient, using these manners to “preserve friendships and allow them to grow.”

The youth have been a problem in my hometown for years. Crime. Gangs. Drugs. The list goes on. A few years ago, the mayor called the city’s spiritual leaders together to talk through the issues. A local pastor invited me along. Afterwards, I was approached a television reporter. He asked me one question, “Will this succeed?” The question reminded me how easily we strive for tangible things to hold up and say, “Look this is working.” 

It’s no different with evangelism. We like to point to success stories. We don’t like to wait 20 years. That seems like too long. That doesn’t seem like successful evangelism.

 The Finchers pack their book with countless examples of conversations they’ve had over the years, some good and some bad. What’s refreshing about all these stories is that they’re not shared as trophies to brag about. They don’t say, “Hey, look at how I led this person to Jesus.”

 As the Finchers said, “Let us tell you straightaway: both of us have made the gospel look ridiculous or paltry, either with our words or our actions. Yet Jesus still uses us, and we’re learning as we go. God’s work is not dependent on our “success”—God isn’t nervously watching from heaven, hoping we don’t get it wrong.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is right, “The church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not the former but in the latter is the lack.” The Finchers relieve the pressure of brilliant and point me in the direction of faithful. For this I am grateful.

Today, Dale and I will greet nine new friends as we open our lives to another annual Soulation Gathering. This one we’ve called “Gold” for the lovely leaves turning and falling around us.  We anticipate having lots of spiritual small talk and deep talk relaxing along hikes and meals, smiling that God isn’t biting his nails.

No sir! God is grinning ear to ear about us, and that’s some good news worth sharing.

Photo credit: Jeff Lefever, taken Sunday for our new promo shots. Thank you, Jeff!

Now I know Jesus wasn’t a masochist, but when a childhood friend drops you like a hot potato, when she tries to hurt you and talks behind your back, when she makes your life miserable and you consider unfriending her on facebook (gasp!) when you want to move toIceland to get away, where does Jesus get the gall to say “blessed are you”?

This unfriended, discarded puddle is where I found myself after college.

Splashing and muddy, I hear Jesus murmer, Blessed are you.

What in tarnation is that supposed to mean? I reply indignant. What is blessed about this situation? Have you forgotten that blessed means in the Greek?  In case you forgot it means HAPPY.  (I get sort of snappy when I’m suffering).Blessed are you when people persecute you.

Really?

How is persecution happy?  I asked my good friend, Su, between hiccups and tears.

There is no happiness in being misunderstood. No zippy spring in my step.

Su wondered if the time hasn’t come yet. If this is a time for patience in what God is doing.  She knows waiting. We’ve walked alongside her and her family as life savings disappeared in the stock market.  She knows patience and its ploddy growth. Even patience grows slowly, like gamble oak. A centimeter every, say, ten years.

But the fruit of His Spirit is patience.

“And you might feel more peace as time moves you through this,” Su adds.

I sniffed a little, already wondering.

“Actually Su, I feel peace right now.”

That’s sort of weird. Peaceful, painful me.  That’s VERY weird as in supernaturally weird. My anxiety has fallen off like a sundress. And I’m bare, cold and still very peaceful. VERY weird.

The fruit of His Spirit is peace and joy.

I know people say joy is not a feeling. “Joy is based on reality not on happenings, like happiness.”

But Jesus said I would be happy. That’s what blessed means.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 

Who else got this bizarre painful happiness?

All those prophets that Jesus footnotes.  Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah.

Weren’t they the happy ones.

Then, there’s Mary, who was pregnant and unwed. And Ruth who had to propose to an older guy at night in his barn.  Sounds terrifying, mortifying, “asking for trouble” and so cheery.  They must have had all kinds of false things said about them, and all on account of God and his plans.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Okay, rewards. Let’s talk about that.
What kind of rewards are you taking about, Jesus?

Kingdom of heaven rewards, stuff that won’t need polishing or get moth holes.

Could you let me peek into the kind of kingdom life Hosea and Amos, Rahab and Mary are enjoying right now. Maybe a dream tonight? Maybe just a hope of what’s to come.

Faith, hope and love.

Splashing about in my suffering I wonder what kind of supernatural God could make me feel compassion for my persecutor. What kind of God could do that. In me.

My compassion child, Anita from Ecuador, draws me pictures in carefully shaded crayons on the backs of her letters. She is now a young teen and realizes I’ve been calling her a princess for the last decade.

She calls me Princess Jonalyn in her replies.

Anita sent me an installment during that time that included an embellished printing of 1 Corinthians 13:13  with pink scrolls at the corners, the verse written in nearly flawless English.

I re-read her crayoned lines.

Now abide. Faith, Hope, Love. But the greatest of these . . .

Love,

Princess Anita

Blessed.

first appeared in Breakfast Reading, where I post monthly with seven writers on what it means to follow Jesus in real life.

Caryn Rivandeniera posts on the trouble with Democrats including evangelical feminists as serious biz at Her-meneutics blog hosted by Christianity Today.

Photo credit: www.feministfatale.com

My favorite quote came when she pulled from Anne Graham Lotz (Bill Graham’s daughter), a woman who has had men turn their backs to her while she spoke to mixed audiences.

In her Washington Post article, Lotz writes that it is, “A privilege to be an ‘evangelical feminist,’ though the moniker is new to her, Lotz fills out the term as describing Biblical women from Eve to Ruth.  Lotz subscribes to label, “if it describes women who are strong, bold, free-spirited leaders inside and outside of their homes, unashamed of their faith in God, his Word, his Son, and his Gospel . . . .”

I think both words are highly explosive, but not necessarily counter-intuitive.  Both are growing to be “dead words” they’ve been whipped into submission of politically pushy and slightly abhorrent (at least to many) groups of men and women.

At the moment, the cultural meaning of feminist often runs the gamut from bra-burning angry felines which I’ve encountered in Christian circles.  For instance, as the only female on the Christian panel for an apologetics conference in the midwest I asked one of the speakers what he thought of Christian feminists.

“What Christian feminists?” he joked back to the all male group’s delight.  ”They don’t exist.”

I kept my mouth shut to reveal one was actually in his presence.  Feminism can also mean anyone who believe women deserve the same amount of dignity, value and treatment as men.  Feminists, can even believe men and women are not identical.  I’m one of those, which is why I wrote Ruby Slippers, to show that woman are distinctly and fully made in God’s image.

I’ve considered renaming my blog FCF: Feminine Christian Feminism.

Do you think more or less people would want to read? And why is that?

Of course, the further problem with the label “evangelical feminism” is that I’m not entirely sure what “evangelical” means anymore. Such a freighted term. Do you think you could describe the meaning of “evangelical”?

Scott McKnight highlights that evangelicalism is at least: inerrancy of Scripture, evangelism and Christian nation.  Not sure these definitions adequately describe my beliefs, anymore.

Today I’m wearing a shirt from Image that says “Beauty will save the world.” Gregory Wolfe, who recently penned a book with this title, lifted this enigmatic phrase from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Nobel Lecture” who in turn borrowed it from Dostoevsky.

I’m wicked tired, so I’m not really illustrating that with my haggard face, unless, of course, beauty is more than bright eyes.

The shirt still stops people. Once the girl at the Elk Farm and Feed asked me, point blank,
“What does that mean?”

Curious?

To begin with, beauty stops us, it gently teaches us about valuing the stopping spot.  Beauty pulleys us to a place where goodness and truth have more meaning. Beauty can lift us out of anxiety and into trust.  Beauty can help us love Jesus.

Beauty gives us conviction even when we are solidly against an idea, even when the craft of rhetoric, political stumping and sophistry confuse our confidence.

“A work of art bears within it its own confirmation” said Solzhenitsyn, “If the crests of these three trees (Truth, Good, Beauty) join together . . . and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light–yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three.” (from “Nobel Lecture” as quoted in Wolfe’s Beauty Will Save the World).

If this sounds strange to you, check out Jeff LeFever’s interview with Father John for a wonderful illustration and explanation.

Jeff, a good friend, compatriot in the Soulation work and long-time artist in Laguna Beach has invited us into his photography. Many of his works hang on the few walls in our cabin.

A few of my favorite quotes from his interview with Father John.

~ Not all are painters or composers but a life well lived with integrity is perhaps the greatest art form.

~ Noticing and appreciating enriches life.  Such acuity can tell many things even to the point of learning the subtle sensations of our body so when there is a change we recognize it. Paying attention may save our life.

People constantly communicate with very subtle signals that we recognize if sometimes unconsciously.   What is kindness but a gentle response to the signals from another. So for me “noticing” is a much greater enterprise.

~  if churches were socially central in their communities – I mean, replacing the local movie theater/shopping mall/food court as a socialization model (which I understand is more convenient toward maintaining and perpetuating a commodity driven market) – and if such a church model offered creative programs fostering the high arts, those arts that discover and expand humanity, critical thinking, cultural analysis (active not passive as much of today’s entertainment is passive).

~ In many ways we face the prospect of re-introducing people to the scriptures, practices and faith of Christianity. Doing this is slow and incremental. This work is done person to person not machine to machine. Soul work has always been done one at a time, not very efficient as a business plan but spot on for relationships.

~ My work is the cure of souls.

Thank you, Jeff for sharing these words with us.

How have you seen beauty save?

The father is the hammer. The mother is the chisel. The child is the stone (please note changes from email).

I don’t receive theology from a woman. When Eve gave Adam theology, the whole word got damned to hell.

The Bible says man is the head of the wife. The Bible was written by men. God came as a man. The elders in this church are all men. I’m glad I’m a MAN!

So he raped you, that’s awful, just awful . . . Can you tell me what you were wearing? (the undercurrent: The Bible’s pretty clear that women need to dress modestly).

You know why I did that? I just can’t help myself. You’re so beautiful.

If you have sex before your wedding day you will not wear a white dress. And if you do, your mother and I will not come to your wedding.

Have you ever heard pastors or ministry leaders say things like,

I don’t blame him for leaving her. Do you see how huge she’s gotten? (the subtext: women have to be thin to keep their husband).

Serve good meals of meat and potatoes and he won’t be looking for cheap meat somewhere else (the subtext: the wife is responsible for her husband’s promiscuity).

Spiritual Abuse

All abusive statements fail to see others as equally made in God’s image, flouting Genesis 1:26-27. The opening statement treats women as a little less, as the gender that needs direction from the male gender. These words were popularized by Rev. Bill Gothard, a man who led charismatic seminars called “Basic Youth Conflicts” on marriage and family in the 70′s and 80′s, a man who was both single and childless.

My family followed his teachings when I was young. My husband’s family respected those teachings, too. The evangelical world seemed consumed by Gothard for a time, in an attempt to create godly marriages and families.

In my family, my childhood years knew patriarchy, chauvinism, unquestioned authoritarianism. I know when I was around my son’s age (1 year) I was held down in my crib while I screamed and cried. I was overtired and needed to sleep, my dad explained. My sinful will was “broken.” This was meant to teach me that I needed to calm down and I would not just “get what I wanted.”

My fingers still shake to write it. My heart feels cramped and cold when I think of my defenselessness in that system.

Spiritual abuse grows powerful in environments of well-meaning, Bible-reading people who are very hungry to do the right thing. (added 4/17/11 – I know my dad did not mean to harm me. I believe he thought his efforts were the right ones).

In an effort to please God (a God who is often exacting and precise) spiritual abusers set up strict rules and exacting punishments. Grace is more about not going to hell. Mercy is something you get on Christmas morning, when you get gifts even though you weren’t a perfect child.

Once, I asked my dad what it meant to “fear God.” I was reading Proverbs at the time.

“You know how you’re afraid of me?” he asked. I nodded.

“Well, the same thing with God.” Though I know my dad was well-meaning, I learned that God was fearful, frightening, heavy-handed and grace-less.

Spiritual abuse masquerades as godly wisdom. As a teen I learned it from authors as wise (and problematic) as Elizabeth Elliot, I believed that men had to initiate or I was sinning. I failed to break off an emotionally abusive relationship because I was waiting for the man to lead. I worked to submit to all men, even when I knew they were wrong. I defended my father better than anyone else.

Why?

The woman is the glory of man. 1 Cor 11.

The husband is the head of the wife. Eph 5.

The woman was not created first. Gen 2 and 1 Tim 2.

The man was not deceived it was the woman. Therefore, women shall learn in quietness and submission. 1 Tim 2.

Behave like Sarah who called her husband lord and served him. 1 Pet 3:6.

I thought submission was what a godly woman looked like. I memorized these verses. I became good at following them (even without a husband). I practiced on boyfriends. I also learned my own subtle manipulation and spiritual abuse on others. I learned that when you feel dis-empowered you compete, you become passive aggressive to get what you need.

I Had Never Heard

When I met my husband I finally found freedom to delve into these verses to see what they really meant, without fearing I would lose his love or approval.

I had never learned that women taught men (Deborah), proposed to men (Ruth), lead men (Esther). I had not connected the verse that perfect love casts out all fear with those in Proverbs. I didn’t know God showed himself much more concerned about valuing and dignifying me than making me feel guilty. I never parked on Gen 1:26-27. I never realized that women supported Jesus and Jesus leaned on women to fund him. I didn’t know women learned as his disciples (Mary and Martha).

So much I never heard.

I’ve since changed my mind, not on Scripture, but what I thought they so “clearly” meant. Read some of that in Unmuted: the Welcome Colors of a Woman’s Voice. I wrote Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home explaining the beginning of that journey.

I know God is for me even when I do wrong. I know my value is as irrefutable as a man’s. I know my strong will is precious in God’s eyes, that my femininity is a gift to this world.

God is not Abusive

One major reason I travel and speak is because I want to free other women from spiritual abuse, women who have come to believe that their womanhood makes them less than men, that their femininity taints them, makes them too seductive for men to engage with, too dangerous to lead anyone other than women and children, too fallen to preach, too wayward to trust.

They believe the lies, believe they’re from God. The verses are there to prove it. right? Right? RIGHT? they ask me.

It’s unfortunate that the prevalent spiritual abuse rarely receives any press because sexual and physical abuse isn’t involved (yet). I regularly get emails from women suffering from spiritual abuse before it turns sexual and physical. I chat with these women on Wednesday nights during our Ask LIVE! I hear how the God we both love has turned into a demon, a Tash (C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle) to condemn and shame them.

The 20/20 special covering Tina Anderson’s forced confession of pregnancy, the shameful smothering of her own feelings in the name of discipline concerns me on several fronts.

First, Jesus gets a bad name, a really bad name.

Second, spiritual abuse is often much more subtle than they make it out to be.

Third, the 20/20 episode points to the Independent Fundamental Baptists (IFB) as a group that takes the Bible literally. Taking the Bible literally is not the problem. Every time we say “Love your neighbor” and take that literally to mean love, we’re taking the Bible literally. No problem there, right?

The problem with the IFB (and Quiverfull and Christian Patriarchy) isn’t their devoutness or serious value of Scripture, we’d hope all God-fearers would do this. When the IFB claims to speak for God, claims that their authority is irrefutable, expects that their beliefs and desires ought to usurp each member’s needs, desires and their own conscience, when their reading of the Bible is believed to be the only absolute, irrefutably true interpretation, when they believe they could never be wrong about what they think God says. This is the problem.

IFB lacks humility and mercy. IFB is in trouble because of their practice of spiritual abuse, not because they take the Bible seriously, not because they believe in the fundamentals of the faith, not because they believe in historic Christianity.

Knowing Scripture, it’s easy for me to come up with spiritually abusive slogans. I’ve heard them, I’ve lived them. I’ve believed them.

Remember Carnegie in the movie, The Book of Eli? He wanted the Bible because they know that people will do anything as long as you can find a verse, any verse to bless what you want to do. And the Bible opens itself up to that. God lets people abuse his message.

All. The. Time.

That’s why Dale and I wrote at length on how easy it is to misquote Jesus. If the charge that we shouldn’t take the Bible literally bothers you, but you don’t know what to say, get Coffee Shop Conversations.

If you want to talk about this more, comment here. Feel free to post anonymously. Or even post your question at myfaithhurdle.com, a ministry of Soulation where my husband (another survivor of spiritual abuse) and I and our community will help you. Even jump over there to see the growing discussion (70 comments last time I checked). You can see some spiritual abuse in action going on in the way people are accusing the gay Christian man of being demon possessed.

Yours in the fight for God’s love and freedom,

Jonalyn Grace Fincher

p.s. If you’re wondering what you can do . . .

• Develop a safe place for your friends find their own emotions, their own beliefs, their own thoughts–the ones God blessed them with, the ones shamed into silence by their abusive leaders. Show them books to help them identify what they’re enduring, what they feel, believe, want. One I love is called Healing Spiritual Abuse and Religious Addiction by a husband, wife and brother team, last name Linn.
• Help them see that there are other ways to interpret the Bible that still take Scripture seriously and literally. See How the Read the Bible for All its Worth
• Ask them what they think God by, “Perfect love casts out all fear” means. You can find it in 1 John 4:18
• Visit myfaithhurdle.com
• Read others breaking free stories to find God is not abusive. For instance this one from Quiverfull, “No Longer Quivering.”

Most of my friends, the longtime ones, would tell you that my plans as a young woman don’t look like my life today. I didn’t want to go to college, instead I wanted to be married fairly young. I wanted to teach at a public high school until I got pregnant.  I wanted to have twelve–yes I know twelve!

But reality has unrolled differently.  Last summer Soulation went out to speak at the YMCA Camp of the Rockies for a Leadership Training conference.  I met a young woman named Lindsay Cochrum a magazine journalism major at the University of Missouri.

A few weeks back, Lindsay re-connected with me asking for an interview as part of her assignment for a Women in the Media class. In reading her transcript of her interview, I thought how differently my real life looks against what I imagined it would be.  It’s not what I would have designed for myself.  But, when I asked Lindsay why she wanted an interview she said, “Because when I first heard you speak last summer with Dale on misconceptions about men and women, I remember how your infant son, Finn, was strapped to you.  You had some really interesting things to say about equality of men and women in the church.”  Lindsay’s questions reminded me why I don’t mind the “detours”, why I worship a God who is good, but not too safe.

 

Finn snoozing in Naples

Lindsay and I connected while I was enjoying some R&R after a business trip in Naples, Florida.  Finn slept on a beach chair under the umbrella and Dale was flipping through a fantastic new book (The Spirit of Food: 35 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God) when I picked up phone.

What follows are the highlights from our conversation like how I got into writing, the process of getting a book published, what it’s like to write, to be rejected and to work as a woman in Christian ministry.

Interview

Jonalyn Fincher, speaker, writer and apologist

November 1, 2010
11 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Phone interview

L: Hi, Jonalyn, it’s Lindsay.

J: Hi there, Lindsay. Just a second. Alright, how are you doing?

L: Good! How are you?

J: I’m good. I’ve got a bit of a cold, so, and my battery’s not 100 percent,  I’m sorry I’m not tip-top.

L: That’s okay. I appreciate you taking time to talk to me.

J: Oh, absolutely. I’m really excited about your project. It sounds so cool.

L: Yeah, it’s been a great class, so I’m excited to hear what you have to say.

J: Aw, that’s so fun. Let’s dive in whenever you’re ready.

L: Okay, if you could, just to start us off, tell me how you got started writing?

J:  I wasn’t like an English writing major or anything like that, but my husband was approached to do some speaking with an international apologetics team called Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. And somebody in the organization thought he should also write a book. And so he signed on with an organization, an agency actually, and a booking agent, and he said to them, “I’d be happy to write and have you represent me, but my wife has been working on a book for a little while, so if you’re going to sign me, you’re going to sign her.”

So for about a year before that I had been working on some ideas about the woman’s soul, and I was writing this “book,” And we’ll put book in quotes because I didn’t think it would ever be published. It was just because I felt God was saying, “Work out these thoughts.” Dale was a big fan, so I worked on a lot of it on my own not expecting it to be published, but when Dale got signed with an agency, he believed in me so much that he wanted me to join him. So I actually published my book before he did because I had been working on it ahead of time.

Signing Ruby Slippers book contract

My book was a response to a need that I saw, how women need to see that they are made in God’s image, differently from men, and beyond their bodies. And I think that need forced me to write. I did journaling and stuff like that before, but never something as big as a book. And looking back I think it’s pretty crazy that I even tried to do that. But I think I saw that I think I wanted to try and answer the question for myself, and I also I wanted to share with anyone else who would be interested. That was the beginning of Ruby Slippers.

L: Awesome. What was your major in college?

J: I was a double major in history and English literature, so I loved reading the great writers, but I hadn’t done much writing besides papers and stuff.

L: So what was the experience of being published like? Can you just walk me through the process of how that worked?

J: There’s so much that goes on. What in particular interests you in terms of what that process is like?

L: I guess just like maybe the editing process and did you have to make a lot of revision to your writing, or how did that work?

J: Oh, okay. Well because I had a literary agent to start out with, I gave her my first book proposal because I had never written a book proposal before. I was just throwing in everything I thought other people should read.  She looked at it and she said, “Jonalyn, you’ve got about ten books here.” And that made me realize, “Okay, just because this is the only book I think I’m ever going to write doesn’t mean I need to put everything I’ve ever thought into it.” I think that’s the way I originally approached it. And she and I worked over a year getting ready for the book to be shopped around to publishers.

I spent a year refining and writing and three sample chapters as well as outlining the entire book, chapter by chapter.  My agent also wanted me to do a little comparative analysis. And then almost write up a little marketing plan. Things have changed and gotten even worse in recent times because the money’s so tight and publishers expect you to do a lot of the marketing. They don’t actually help you that much unless you’re a really big name. So for a first-time author you’re doing a lot of your own marketing.

So that was what was involved in terms of getting the book proposal together, which took a year, and then shopping around, which took another year before we figured out where we wanted to go with it. A lot of publishers wanted this book, so that was nice.  And then I started to write. And I think it took about a year and a half before the book was done.

My editor at Zondervan was fantastic. Not only was she female, but she was also behind the work I was doing to the point where she just said, “Jonalyn, you just write what you need to, and then we’ll edit it down.” Even though I had a word limit, I just kept writing and writing and writing, and I had so many books in this one book. And by the time I gave it to her, she realized, “Okay, you have a book that was supposed to be 60,000 words. It’s about 120,000 words. Let’s cut it down.” And she let me do a lot of that cutting, which was really trusting of her, I think. It showed that women, when they work together over the same goal, can really dovetail their strengths so nicely. I felt so much of her help as a real partner.

She actually went on to edit some other books we did and has become a good friend. That process was about another year and a half, so start to finish, it took about three and a half years. And it was published.  It as so thrilling to see something you write come to your door in a bound, real book, and to find it in bookstores was really neat, too.  The sales haven’t been quite as exciting as I’d hoped for, but I learned quite a lot through that process.

L: And this was the Ruby Slippers book, correct?

J: Yes, that’s correct.

L: So do you think your process would have been different had your editor been a man, or would it even had worked had your editor been male?

J: I think it would have worked. One publisher was interested in it and I had an interview with an editor who was male and he totally got the message. I think the book was better because it was a female, but I don’t think men and women are so different that a man couldn’t have edited my book well.

Editors are not as involved with the content in my experience as I expected. In other words, they’re not saying, “This idea doesn’t seem right,” as often as I was hoping for. I love that kind of sharpening. Or “This idea is so interesting. It totally changed me.” I didn’t get that kind of feedback. I got that feedback after the book was out from readers, but not from my editor. They’re more concerned as a publishing house with things you are writing that are going to end up making their publishing house look bad or getting backlash. They’re not concerned as long as your idea seemed mostly orthodox or if you’re idea is new or interesting, mainly because I don’t think they have the time to do that.

L: Ok, if you could just tell me about what your experience has been writing about the female’s role in the church or has that been controversial?

J: Ah, yes it has. I’ve been writing a book for about five years now called Walking in Her Shoes, which is about women and friendships and how women tend to have tight, tight girlfriends and also really horrible girlfriends who become enemies, or “frenemies” — a friend that becomes an enemy.

I shopped that proposal around about a year ago, and a publishing house picked it up.  They loved it, they were sending me a proposal with the amount they would offer me, and they came across my blog.

They found some things in my blog that made them suspicious that I believe in women and men being equal partners in the

Click image to visit my new friendship blog with Dr. Sally H Falwell

church and the home. And that made them so worried that they said they couldn’t publish me. So they dropped me. The dropped the proposal even though the book I was writing was about friendship, not about women’s roles in the home and the church. (that book has since been made into a free blog letmebeme.org)

That’s the second time that’s happened. My husband and I were both asked to do some work with a pretty well known publisher on a huge book project. It would have been a great break for us, but when they found out we had written together on our non-profit site an article called “Unmuted: The Welcome Colors of a Woman’s Voice,” (our most popular online article) that talks about some of the inconsistencies of women being allowed to teach children but not allowed to teach men, again they pulled us from the project.

So it’s pretty controversial, I think, being a woman who can lead with her gifting and her education. The Christian culture doesn’t really know what to do with us. Anything we have we are welcome to share on Sunday night or Wednesday night, but we’re not really permitted to speak on Sunday mornings during that powerful pulpit time.

Speaking in Missouri, eight months pregnant

So I would say writing about women has been controversial, and I would say at least half of my readers don’t agree with me. But I found, on my blog at least, that my readers are grateful for the way I approach the subject, really trying to have charity for the different sides. I don’t want to attack people for things they don’t even hold, or for like a straw man, which is like a — are you familiar with that term?

L: No.

J: A straw man is a philosophical term describing a logical error, when you end up creating an idea of somebody’s view that isn’t true of them, and then you attack it. Creating a straw man that is easy to knock down, might make you feel good, but it’s not actually a true representation of the idea. So a good example would be, “Oh, you believe that men and women are partners, so you’re saying that women shouldn’t raise their children. You are a femi-nazi. You’re a bra burner.” These are straw men of my position. They’re attacking ideas that I don’t believe.

Both sides do this; I could create a straw men of complementarians (people who believe that gender decides whether you should lead or not) and say, “They’re all about keeping women down.” But complementarians I know who believe, for instance, that women should not preach on Sunday morning, are not trying to keep women down. I know them personally; they’re my friends. And even though we disagree, I’m really concerned, am I writing to not create a caricature, or a political cartoon out of their views.  I want to evaluate clearly for what they stand for and then compare that to Scripture and my own experience.

L: So why do you think you have continual readers who disagree with you, but still come back and ready anyway?

J: I think one thing my husband and I are really concerned about is the humanity of each person. And so when I get people who disagree forcefully on my blog and leave comments that are almost scathing, I try to validate the emotions they feel, their frustration, their annoyance.

Even if they’ve misunderstood me, I try to say, “I can see how you think or feel this.” I want to learn from them, to fully walk in their shoes. Then I might say, “But let me restate what I am saying and what I’m not saying.” So I think they feel heard, and I think that a friendship, and even a respectful dialogue, can exist if you feel heard and understood. I can state to somebody what they believe back to them, and they feel like I get what they’re saying, and then I can say, “I still disagree, and here’s why,” which is very different from saying, “That’s stupid,” and not being able to explain what they believe. And it’s interesting — it’s not just women who are doing this on my blog. There are men who disagree with me, too. And they have emotions running high and intense with them, too. We’re very weak in Christian culture and American culture at being able to talk in a sustained respectful manner with someone who disagrees with us. It’ so much easier to tell people what we think the Buddhists believe rather than actually talk with a Buddhist. And the same holds true in what we think are the “right” gender roles.

L: Cool. So in our class we’ve talked a lot about secular feminism, kind of what you talked about with bra burning and femi-nazis or whatever. How do you see that affecting the church? Women’s roles in the church. Are they complementary, or are they completely separate issues?

J: You mean how has the 1960s and 70s feminism movement affected church culture?

L: Yeah, I guess so, if you think it has at all?

J: Oh, yeah, I definitely think it has. I think it was in the 80s when Susan Feludi, she described a backlash, which is a fear response that if women are exactly the same as men, what’s going to happen to the church and the home and the family unit?! So you see this response of fear coming from conservative circles and almost a hunkering down and a belief that the only thing a married women could do and remain fully in God’s will is be a wife and a mother. I believe responding to a pendulum out to the left by swinging way out to the right is still a reactionary response. I’ve been pretty discouraged by the way people in conservative churches uphold motherhood as the only and the best thing a married woman could ever do. I think this is a direct response to this secular feminist movement in the 1960s and 70s because they’re afraid that if women get a taste of having a career that they’re not going to want to have children. But careers, while great, are not all that great either. I mean many days I’d love to just stop speaking and writing and stop traveling so I could cook, knit and even clean more.

But, we know from scripture that women can be very valued by God and not have children, for instance leaders like Deborah.  We don’t know very much about Deborah’s mothering skills in terms of the children she had or didn’t have, but we do know that she judged Israel well.

I think that any time we’re so enamored by a cultural movement, whether it be feminism or anti-feminism, that we don’t have time for the examples from the Old and New Testaments of men and women, then we have been duped. Out theology has to take into account both the Old and New Testament. There were female prophetesses. There were women who proposed to their men: Ruth and Boaz. There were women who judged like Deborah. There were women who instructed men: Priscilla and Aquila in Acts. Your theology has to include those examples. It also has to include that God is excited about women working with their hands: Psalm 31. And women raising children with their husbands in the fear of the Lord: all over the law in Deuteronomy. I think people know Christian culture and individual Bible verses better than they know their God. They don’t know how to think Biblically. They only know how to think Bible-verse-ly.

L: That’s cool that you mentioned Backlash. We actually read part of that book for our class.
J: Yeah, that’s a really great example. What’s the title of your class again?

L: Women in the Media.
J: Alright, and is that in a secular or Christian college.

L: Secular. University of Missouri.

J: Oh, that’s fantastic. Then you’re probably experiencing more of the secular perspective.

L: Yes, it’s been a very interesting class. I haven’t had a lot of exposure to the feminism movements until now, but just seeing how it plays out in journalism. We’ve kind of talked about a lot of different things. We’ve talked about women’s jobs in journalism and if they’re able to advance and that side of it, but we also talked about how to cover issues like rape and how women are covered in journalism.

J: Sexism is alive and well everywhere, in the church and the world. (for more about this check out Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done) I’m glad you’re learning about the different perspectives on covering a story.  You know, I think the number one thing holding women back is we do not know how to incorporate women and their children into the marketplace. It’s not the getting married that harms women’s careers; it’s the children part.

L: Can you elaborate a little on that?

J: We don’t see women in the state, like in the Senate or as governors or judges, we don’t see women in any of these capacities, very public and important economically and politically, with their children. You see that if women are going to have a career they put their children with a caretaker or they don’t include them in their lives because children are known to be a distraction and to keep people from doing the “real” business of life. So for a woman to have children, she either has to exit the important avenues of the marketplace, the political, economic or even entertainment industries, or she has to hire someone else to raise her children. And those are both viable options, but it’s unfortunate to me that there isn’t a third option, and that is bringing your child with you to work.

Why don’t we allow someone to be on TV holding their baby? “Oh, the baby will cry, and they’ll get in the way.” Why do we think in our Western world that the person who makes decisions shouldn’t incorporate this really important time period of life? We don’t see this in Africa (did you see that movie Babies?) or other developing countries. In Pakistan, the prime minister Benazir Bhutto,

Bhutto with Hilary and Chelsea Clinton

before she was killed by a terrorist attack in 2007, had children and nannies that accompanied her in her work.  Everyone thought this was such an anomaly, such a strange person, but I think she was trying to model a different way to have a family and incorporate her career.

People say, “Oh, that’s so unrealistic. People don’t have the money to do that.” Good point, not all people can. But more people could baby wear and blend their children into their work.  For instance, the work I do, speaking in front of audiences and writing, are vocations in which I can incorporate my son Finn, at least for the first year, without too much problem because my husband and I work together.

This decision has nothing to do with my paycheck, we aren’t docked speaking fees because of this decision.  What if more women who were invited to speak at different universities, or conferences or churches wore their babies on their backs and allowed people to see in front of a church service a baby on someone’s back? They would see that just because I’m speaking in a big, formal church service doesn’t mean my baby has to be excluded.

I think the church services in most modern-day churches teach us something undesirable when we always provide childcare to keep kids away from the adult activities. And I understand that sometimes we need a break. Absolutely. But I think our culture believes that our children can’t handle the things our adults are doing. Maybe we need to change what our services are about if the children have to be pushed into another room to learn on their own.  People talk a lot about learning styles these days: not everyone learns well from somebody lecturing from the front. There are so many different ways to learn things, and I think the way we’ve marginalized children affects a lot of adults as well.

If a child is falling asleep during a sermon, chances are a lot of adults are, too. And I think Jesus was on to this when he said we can’t enter the kingdom of heaven until we become like a child in our humility.  There’s a lot of cross-pollination that could occur between children and adults, if we made room for it.

A good girlfriend of mine who worked in politics talked about how women who wanted to succeed had to cut off part of their humanity — their awareness, their intuition, their quickness to show emotion — because they were trying to mimic men in the marketplace. The problem is you don’t want to copy men who are fallen to try to become more human as a female. That’s a losing position.  If you try to be like a man anyway, you’re going to fail. You’re never going to do it well no matter what because of your body and your soul.

There’s just a deep disrespect of differences between the sexes, the fact that a women’s body is designed to birth and care for a child for a significant part of her life, especially if she has more than one kid. We don’t allow that to interrupt our “important” work in the academy, economics, politics or even the media industry. Every single woman who wants a career will face this. A man won’t. A man doesn’t have to juggle children or career. It’s always the woman’s question.

Why is that? The secular world obviously hasn’t answered that well. I think that’s something Jesus specifically needs to come in and help us with. In most families, once you get married, most men think that the gaol is to be supporting their wife and making enough money for her to stay home with her children. I think we’ve shot too low. I think our ideal goal should be that children are raised by both mother and father.

And people say that’s unrealistic, but we ought to shoot for it, even if we never attain it. We should try to pursue and support policies, role models, art, companies that work towards this.

L: So do you feel that you and Dale have designed your home to work around this principle then?

J: Yeah, that’s been our goal. I don’t think we’ve been attaining it. I don’t think we’re there yet. There aren’t a lot of guidebooks unfortunately, so we’re making a lot of mistakes.  But we try to co-parent with our time. That doesn’t mean Dale’s just on-duty from eight in the morning until noon and then I take Finn noon to five so that we get work done. It’s like every task we do is incorporating the fact that our son lives with us and is part of us.

We keep reminding each other that our son is not a distraction. He’s part of the learning and the growth. He’s part of the writing, the speaking. One of our deepest fears of even having children for us was that children of itinerant speakers are often very unhappy because they were a distraction from the work that their parents were doing. They never knew one parent (usually their father) because they were always on the road speaking. But we want to change that in our family, to say I’m going to be speaking with my baby. It’s a bit risky, but welcome to life following a risky God.

L: Well I enjoyed getting to see Finn when you talked at LT, so that was a cool experience.

J: Thank you.

L: I don’t want to keep you too long, so I just have one more question for you. What kind of advice do you have for female writers, and maybe even Christian female writers, about how to maneuver the writing world and getting published?

J: I would say don’t limit yourself into thinking you have to get all your career and work done before you get married and have kids. I know many mothers who are writing while they mother and are doing a great job at both. There are agents out there who are freelance who can look at your work and help you grow as a writer.

Don’t underestimate the importance of humility in your work either, humility to take correction, humility to change things up, humility to talk about other ways to do things. For single women or unmarried women who are trying to make a career out of writing, don’t compromise what it means to be a woman. Find out what that means. What does it mean to be a female and to do this well? And if you’re one of those people who says, “Oh, I never think about my gender”, you need to ask yourself why you never think about it because God’s created us binary.

There’s no such thing as a generic human. We come in male or female. And that delighted God enough to create the first couple, so we need to spend time thinking why he did that. I would direct them if they’re confused by their femininity to Ruby Slippers to begin asking themselves some hard questions.

L: Thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it.

Analysis (taken from Lindsay’s final paper)

Jonalyn was a really interesting person to talk to about feminism in general.She isn’t a traditional journalist, so I didn’t feel like asking her about her career would give me as much information as asking her about the issues she writes about, although she was able to give me good information about both.

A lot of what Jonalyn talked about career-wise was managing a job and children. Her main argument is that women should be able to have a job and involve their children by having them be visible in the workplace. This was apparent to me as I saw her speak this summer while she held her child, and she argued that most women in important public careers could practice this.

I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about that idea. My hang-up is that no one is suggesting that men hold their children while they do their jobs. I wished I had asked her a few more follow-up questions there. I believe that Jonalyn does not suggest this because she doesn’t necessarily believe that men and woman are the same; she just believes that their roles are equally important. She says that women will fail if they try to act like men, and maybe this works in the reverse. Women were built to nurture their children and should therefore be allowed to do so on the job. Men were not necessarily built to nurture children in the same way as women, so we don’t necessarily have to hold them to those same standards. The main point Jonalyn expressed is that husbands and wives should partner together to work and raise their children dually. She says that we have shot too low in thinking that a man should have to provide all the support for a family and that children should be raised by both their mothers and fathers. I agree with this.

Jonalyn is also different from your stereotypical Christian because she does believe in equal roles for women and men in the church. She’s isn’t a far-left swinging feminist who believes that men and women are exactly the same, but she’s also not a far-right swinging feminist. I really liked that she brought up Backlash as an example of what the church seems to have done, which is say that radical leftist feminism is terrible, and that the only good things women can do is be wives in mothers. This seems to be a common belief in the church, and I appreciate Jonalyn’s willingness to challenge that with her opinion and with scriptural proof. It was really interesting to hear about her experiences of being dropped by publishers for this opinion, especially since the book she wanted to write was unrelated to gender roles in the church.

I also appreciate Jonalyn’s advice for female writers to figure out what it means to be a female writer. I think I definitely agree

Lindsay Cochrum

with her ideas that men and women aren’t the same, though it would be nice to be more equal. Women are going to cover a story or write about something differently than a man would, and we should embrace it and use it to our advantage. Our intuition, or empathy or other female traits should be used to enhance the story. The problem is getting other people to see these uniquely feminine traits as a lens and not as a weakness compared to the standards of men’s writing.

I caught up with Lindsay for a few questions from me. When it’s time to relax and have fun Lindsay loves buying stationery and writing letters. Her favorite movies are Little Women (the one with Winona Ryder) and She’s the Man (with Amanda Bynes).  Thank you to Lindsay for allowing me to publish her work.

November also brought another interview, this one complete with this comical cartoon in Biola’s (my alma mater for grad school) Connections Magazine.  It will keep me humble. My favorite part? the ruby slippers of course!

Click to read entire article

Dear reader – this post was set for publication the November 17th, the day of my father’s accident.  In an effort to remain present with him and my mom I couldn’t finish editing until now. Please forgive my delay in monthly posting. Stay tuned in a few weeks for a piece on family and crisis.