The Art of the ordinary (repost)

Over at What's Wrong With The World , there is a rousing discussion going on regarding the rule of women. Some of the usual suspects have appeared, including a feminist I have seen posting on MereComments in the past. After she pulls a tired old (dare I say it?) canard out of her back pocket, attempting to dismiss a woman who is rather more well educated and mannerly than she by telling this other woman to get herself back to the kitchen, my friend, Kevin J. Jones , had this to say:

Educated minds produce more than a series of cliches. Please stop bashing the kitchen. Cooking is perhaps the greatest art of the ordinary. Anti-kitchen feminism has impoverished our cuisine and our family table traditions. It is an adjunct of fast food colonialism, to borrow academic phraseology.

That is so right, it's simply brilliant. It also speaks to one of the abiding joys of my life in the last couple of years. Since I left the angry religious feminist-me behind, it's been an amazing and (mostly) joy-filled journey. A time of discovering simple pleasures and real delight in the every day. I am back to baking my own bread, I've finally discovered a successful red cabbage recipe, Baklava is back on the menu on occasion and I may even experiment with my once-legendary Beef Stroganoff recipe to see if I can substitute Greek Yogurt for the sour cream . . . but perhaps not. Why mess with a good thing?

I take Kevin to be using "art" in two senses. The first is the sense in which art refers to a field of human endeavour (painting, sculpting, pastry making, etc.). In this sense cooking is an art of the homemaker. The second sense encompasses the skills, techniques and methods required to ply the craft of cooking.

The homemaker, kitchen wife or everyday cook can be an artist of the ordinary if she learns the techniques and applies herself to the use of these techniques with loving care and a little flair of her own. Whether it be decorating, sewing or any of the other homely (meant in the old fashioned sense) arts, she is an artist with her own palette. A still life is a still life is a still life -- or it can be if it is painted by numbers from a kit. But if the painter is Picasso or the Dutch master of the still life, Willem Kalf . . . it isn't simply a still life, it is a work of art. A turkey is a turkey is a turkey if you simply cook by the book. However, if you discover your own secret to making the holiday turkey all your own, people will beg you for your recipe.

But Kevin is right to speak of "the art of the ordinary" in another way, specifically related to food and the family table. Instead of looking forward to mom's meatloaf (and when was the last time you had a sandwich made of meat loaf the next day for lunch?) or that special way she does potatoes for the Sunday roast, we are cruising through the fast food drive up window, wondering whether to try the "next new thing" or simply get our regular serving of salt, fat, and food-like chemicals. We eat in our cars, mostly alone, and we forget after the first bite what we are doing.

We lose, in this process, fleshly connections. And, it seems, these connections are important. The French, despite what food police tell us is a horribly unhealthy diet, don't seem to be suffering for their wine and cheese. Could this possibly be because the French meal consists of small portions, eaten slowly, around a table filled with family and friends? The "Slow Food" movement, which started in Italy, is spreading across America now because people are longing for those connections -- and the enjoyment of food that itself is something so much less (and, consequently, so very much more) than the industrially-produced, semi-edible substances which fill the shelves of the center of the grocery store. It reminds me of television chef, Lidia Bastianich, who frequently welcomes her mother, her daughter, or another family member to the set to assist in the day's cooking. It also reminds me of the line with which she closes every show, something we could profit from if we aim for this more often than we aim for a drive through:

Tuti a tavola a mangiare! (translation: Everyone to the table to eat!)

P.S. The Flavor Bible is my newest tool.

Addendum:

Since this old post has received some attention this weekend, I am adding the old bio of Carolyn Custis James from the Common Ground website (the bio is where the term "kitchen wife" originated):

Carolyn is her husband's favorite theologian. She is not a kitchen wife. She does not keep house, cook, clean or sew, but she reads an awful lot and often talks to women (and sometimes men) from all over the world about women's struggles within the evangelical church. Lately, she has been reading a lot on the plight of women in the Middle East. She helped establish Synergy Conferences for women seminarians and women in vocational ministries, which is sponsored by her ministry organization, Whitby Forum, in alliance with Campus Crusade for Christ International and RTS/Orlando.

I didn't ask for this

I readily admit I am remarkably undisciplined.  Sometimes, in a fruitless attempt to embarrass myself into being a little more disciplined I will publish a blog post in which I say I will do this, read that book, not engage so-and-so. And then I fail. Get the picture?


However weak and ineffectual my efforts may be, the one thing I do know is that I have a unique history.  I've asked folks who should know if there is anyone else out there who used to be an "Egalitarian" involved with CBE who has repented and embraced God's good design for men and women - and, apparently, I am it*.  Not any place I ever wanted to be and certainly not any place I believe myself equipped to be.

So, much as I would like to just fade away into oblivion and write a really bad mystery novel that sells approximately 7.3 copies, I don't think that's going to happen.  And, much as I would prefer to never again type the words "heresy", "blasphemy" or "religious feminism", I don't think that's going to be possible.

So, if you think questioning my veracity or my reality (this "Kamilla" person, as one commenter recently put it) will embarrass me or shame me into silence, you can stop now.  It won't work.

As for who is preventing me from commenting on Rachel Held Evans' blog, here is the only proof I have to offer:

*I know there are many other women out there who have forsaken feminism, religious and secular, I'm just talking about the specific experience with CBE.

Here's my Question

**If you are going to toddle on over to Rachel's blog, please don't neglect to read the comments. Once again, the religious feminists are letting their slip show.  The rank demotion of homemaking to "home caretaking" and the way homemaking and motherhood are openly despised should tell you, even if their revisionist exegetical arguments have not, that this movement is NOT a godly one.


Normally, I would tell folks to just ignore anything coming from someone claiming to be a Christian while publishing blasphemy about "God Herself", but this time Rachel Held Evans has piqued my personal interest by  adding Mimi Haddad of CBE to her "ask a ..." series.  Since I am prohibited from responding on her blog, I'll just have to ask my question here on my blog.


Someone has already had the courage to asked the "slippery slope" question - why does acceptance of "egalitarianism" seem to lead to the affirmation of homosexual relationships?  No doubt this will get a chorus of "boos", but allow me to follow that up with a bit of supporting background.


CBE does have a rather spotty record of maintaining Evangelical orthodoxy outside of the "woman question". They have featured the work of openly homosexual minister, Paul Smith and his book, "Is it OK to call God Mother?" as well as a similar work for children by Jann Aldredge Clanton.  Until recently, they featured Shawna Atteberry as a listed blogger on The Scroll.  In addition to being homosexual-affirming, Clanton and Atteberry both support something called the "Christian Godde Project" which promotes worship of "Christ-Sophia" and "divine wisdom" as "a key to understanding the Divine Feminine insofar as She reveals Godde."  The Smith and Clanton books were removed from CBE's bookstore listings after public attention was focused on them.  Of the three, only Atteberry's association was discontinued at her own request - but again, this only happened after Atteberry's rank paganism was brought to public light. 


With that as background, here is my question:

In the past, CBE has disassociated from pagan-progressive writers such as Clanton. But now you seem more willing to embrace such writers, speakers and leaders such as Shane Claiborne, the gnostic Vaun Swanson and Rachel Held Evans (who writes of "God Herself"). At the same time those on the more conservative end of your constituency, I think here particularly of Doug and Rebecca Groothuis, seem to be distancing themselves from their association with CBE.


Does it not worry you that the "slippery slope" charge appears to be bearing itself out in less than a generation


UPDATE: After a few more hours' sleep, I think it would be good to add a few more pieces to the argument that CBE is falling prey to that fabled slippery slope.

CBE has hosted Jenell Williams Paris as a speaker and published her in their journal.  I have reveiwed Paris' book here where I detail some of the problems with her approach to sexuality, including the claims that celibacy can be damaging and that sexual relationships outside of marriage can be good.

In addition, not just a slippery slope but a slide into plasticized, self-defined sexuality is evident in the description of a presentation at CBEs 2009 conference, given by Megan DeFranza:

Gender Construction in Society and Church: What We Can Learn from the Intersexed **
Because of the creation of Adam and Eve, most Christians assume there are only two sexes (male and female), and that these sexes work themselves out in two genders (masculine and feminine). Intersexed persons are those born neither clearly male nor female. Some intersexed persons and their advocates are calling for recognition of a third sex category and rejection of traditional understandings of male and female, an idea not yet adequately explored by theologians. Jesus’ teaching on the eunuch may provide a resource for the intersexed and open up new ways to think about sex and gender in society and church.

That enough evidence?

Flannery for today

Reprinting a post from last year with a word or two added:

The terror of untethered "tenderness"

One of the tendencies of our age is to use the suffering of children to discredit the goodness of God, and once you have discredited his goodness, you are done with him. . . Ivan Karamazov cannot believe, as long as one child is in torment; Camus' hero cannot accept the divinity of Christ, because of the massacre of the innocents. In this popular pity, we mark our gain in sensibility and our loss of vision. If other ages felt less, they saw more, even though they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced-labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber. -- Flannery O'ConnorMystery and Manners

Today, Miss O'Connor would be faced with a horde of trendy pomo emergent-progressive wannabe re-definers of what it means to be an Evangelical, even who the person of Christ is. A gaggle of honking geese who seem to think they know better just because they happen to be among the privileged few walking the earth today.

Funny thing is, I don't think she'd change a word.

The tragedy is, I don't think the trendies would realize she was criticizing them rather than agreeing with them.

With thanks to Rod Dreher

“Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.” -- Flannery O'Connor

Lord's Day Rest and Fast

**Yes, I do know that my inability to hold to this fast is a sure sign of my need for it. Shall we just admit I am a work in progress?* I'm still reading through the message highlighted in the previous post, but it's already spurred me on to make a commitment I've been too scared to make.  Not that I don't go whole days without electronic interaction - but that has depended upon my mood in the past, it's not been by deliberate design or intent.

Today, I'm starting a new practice of resting or fasting from electronic media - email, Twitter, Facebook, blog-reading, all of it - on Sundays.  Nothing but the quiet of good music and the restful joy of that strange old thing we called a book - ink printed on paper pages.

To whet your appetite, I am going to work on finishing two books so I can publish the long, long overdue book reviews later this week:

Girl Soldier is co-authored by my friend and hero, Faith McDonnell.  Grace Akallo is the girl soldier of the title and Faith's co-author.  You can purchase the book here

At The Heart of the Gospel is Christopher West's response to his time of reflection following the controversies surrounding his way of teaching the Theology of the Body.  You can purchase it here

I'll see you sometime later this week, right now I've got a couple of good books to curl up with.

Silence and Words

Silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist.
  - Benedict XVI

read the rest of the Pope's message for World Communications Day here.

Love is a Masquerade

I soak my dental guard in Hydrogen Peroxide to sterilize it a couple times a week (on the days I don't take a toothbrush to it).  Before I drop the bit of plastic in, covered with all my friendly little mouth germs, the cup could easily be mistaken for a cup filled with water.

What if I left it on the dining table by mistake and a guest in my home thought it was their glass of water?

Would it be loving to let them take a long drink from the cup, to drain it?  Say my guest is remarkably thirsty and doesn't like the taste of my filtered tap water?  Shall I let him drink because he sincerely believes it's water, a life giving fluid?  It looks like water, clear and remarkably wet.  Like water, it has no smell. But no matter how sincere my guest's mistake, the cup contains poison.

Letting my thirsty guest drink down a glass of poisonous liquid that merely looks like water is nor more loving than the supposedly loving approach to homosexual identity offered by Andrew Marin in, "Love is an Orientation" or than the approach to the end of sexual identity offered by Jenell Williams Paris in, "The End of Sexual Identity".

The two books have already been the subject of excellent reviews:

Truncated Love is Robert Gagnon's excellent and thorough treatment of Marin
Evangelical Author: Heterosexuality is an Abomination is Peter Jones' review of Paris

Because these and other responses are far more comprehensive and in-depth than anything I would write my purpose here is to add just a few notes.

The common flaw to both books is that they get the cart before the horse.  Both authors read Scripture and biblical theology through human experience, rather than the other way around.

Paris claims celibacy can be damaging (135) and that a sexual relationship outside of marriage can be a good thing (136).  Her approach has more to do with a Maslovian view of self-actualization than it does with  Christian morality, spiritual discipline and anything like taking up your cross daily or praying to God for the grace to deal with a thorn in the flesh as St. Paul did.  Paris also quotes queer theorist Judith Butler approvingly (33) and can't quite make up her mind whether or not homosexuality is, "a thing about which valid moral judgments can be made ..." (34).

Where Paris is an anthropologist and tends to take the findings of anthropology and sociologist as normative rather than descriptive, Marin takes a more openly narrative approach, saying we need to listen to stories to understand. Both authors, rather embarrassingly, quote "authorities" such as Kinsey (Paris) and Boswell (Marin), without being aware that both have been thoroughly and repeatedly discredited.

Because neither can quite manage to call sexual activity between persons of the same sex sin, both misunderstand holiness and utterly neglect to make any call to repentance.  In fact, Marin ups the ante and reduces God's moral law to an avuncular suggestion, designed for the individual:

"God meets them, speaks to them and hears them, personally and individually telling each of his beloved children what he feels is best for their life." (129) (emphasis mine)

That's not even avuncular - it's more like Joel Osteen on a saccharine high.

In the end, what is offered by both Paris and Marin is deadlier than that cup of Hydrogen Peroxide.  Because here, we are not simply talking about a poison that can kill the body.  We are talking about a life given over to soul-destroying sin.

I don't recommend you read either book.

Note:  As a result of an email exchange with an executive of IVP in which I was included, I asked for and received a review copy of Marin. Later, when I read about the book by Paris, I asked for and received a copy of it as well since it would make sense to review them together.

On Marriage "Equality" and, Sigh, the Hate Accusation

Sigh. Ho hum. Same song 869th verse.  Why do you focus on hate so much?

I sometimes think that if the Catholic Church ever makes the inimitable GKC a saint, I will have no choice but to succumb to the prayers of my Catholic friends and sign up for RCIA at the earliest opportunity.  Perhaps I shouldn't joke about it, but this side of the Tiber just doesn't have anyone who can compare.  Not even close.  So, whenever I hear that tired old accusation that I hate, I am an angry person, yadda, yadda, yadda, I hear the words of the wise Mr. Chesterton ringing in my ears:

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” 


There.  I feel better now. On to topic #2 for today - the so-called battle for "marriage equality":


 Here's the deal, folks.  We all have the right to marriage under the same conditions.  Any person above a certain age may marry any other consenting person above a certain age so long as the two people are not too closely related and of opposite sexes. Love may come into it, but it needn't and throughout most of our history, it really didn't.  

If this deeply felt emotion we call love were justification for marriage, then I daresay an awful lot of us would be marrying dogs or cats or even a cannoli from Mike's Pastry in Boston.  We'd have given presents to that British guy that "married" Cindy the Dolphin instead of laughing about it.  Yeah, I did say a cannoli.  Because if we are going to go about deconstructing and reconstructing marriage, why limit it to two human beings?  Two?  Why limit it to two?  Polyamory, anyone?  You do know that cases are wending their way through our court systems already arguing for polygamy.  Right?

It all boils down to something a little bit deeper than lurv.

It all comes down to what marriage is. And for that, we have to go to the God who created marriage.  Marriage is the union of man and woman, a sexually exclusive union to last throughout this life.  It is so because God made it that way, and made it that way to show us something about his relationship to us - His relationship to Israel and Christ's relationship to the Church, his Bride.  The meaning and purpose of marriage are woven throughout the Holy Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.  It cannot be unpicked without destroying the whole. I know it's trite, but God did create Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve or Eve and Jennifer -- much less Ken and Lassie or, you get the picture.

Two men can no more create a marriage than two women, that crazy Brit and Cindy the Dolphin, Meat Loaf and a meatloaf, or Sam and his Pet Rock.  Such things are a metaphysical impossibility - kinda like round squares and married bachelors.  That's just not what marriage is.

But if we're going to create something new and call it marriage -- can I start calling myself Mrs. Prince Andrew?  I mean, if we all get to make things up, why should consent come into it?

A timely reminder for the battle-weary