Dan J. Brennan

Why Vicki Scheib is Coming to Bold Boundaries

Vicki Scheib attended last year’s Sacred Friendship Gathering while finishing her doctoral work at George Fox Seminary in Portland Oregon. The sincere conversations that happened at the conference helped refine her thesis and enhanced her own understanding of friendships between men and women. Plus, she thought the people were just cool.

Currently, Vicki is the new director of the Master’s in Christian Leadership program at Evangelical Seminary in Myerstown, PA. She is surprised by the opportunity to train leaders and encourage “bold boundaries” between men and women as they learn to work together and lead together. She is hopeful for the future as leaders learn to lead well and love well.

 

 

Julie Clawson: White Men, Submission, and the Kingdom of God Pt 2

It is not giving up power to accuse those who leave a church of losing any authority or stepping outside of the kingdom of God. That is using power to manipulate and guilt people into submission. 

Julie Clawson

This is the second post reflecting on Julie Clawson's recent FB status. If you missed my first post it is here. Julie is reacting to white men who want us to follow their way of life in the kingdom of God. "Real" community for them is bound up in a tightly connected dynamic of death to self and submission to a local church. 

3. The challenge of not conflating God's authority exclusively with death to self, submission and the local church.

Julie Clawson: White Men, Submission, and the Kingdom of God

Julie Clawson wrote on her Facebook status this past week: 

"Why is it always white, middle-class, highly-educated males who argue that dying to the self for the sake of commitment and accountability to a local church despite disagreement, silencing, or abuse is the only way one can be a part of the kingdom of God? And who then say that experience and emotion are not valid ways of knowing so that they do not have to ever listen to such theological voices that challenged the theologies of privilege that support their places of power in the system while silencing others. I don't care if my view is 'Romantic' or birthed from identity politics, when men tell women and minorities that they just need to shut up and submit to abuse for the sake of Jesus I do not see the kingdom of God at work."

This is why there are going to be more women--including women who are pastors, theologians, and therapists at the Sacred Friendship Gathering this year than there will be white men (white men who are leaders). More evangelical women than men see friendship as a healthy path for healthy community and gender reconciliation. White men are vulnerable to continue to emphasize abstract systems designed with one-size-fits all solutions to authority, voice, and leadership. 

There are huge challenges when educated white men emphasize the death of self, accountability within a local church as the only way for "real" Christian and spiritual experience and authority. Educated women in the 21st century like Julie get it. 

Vulnerability, Friendship, and Leadership: Some Random Thoughts

“Vulnerability begets vulnerability; courage is contagious” writes Brené Brown in her newest book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. I am sure many of my readers already know this but Brown is known for her others books, The Gifts of Imperfection, and I Thought It Was Just Me.

Her new book arrived last week in the mail.

What is vulnerability? Is it weakness? Is it connected to our failures? Is it letting it all hang out with boundaryless connections from a place of unmet needs? 

Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism Pt. 1

 

Okay, here I go. Can I be honest with you? I've been reluctant to plunge into the subject of the GLBT community for several reasons:

1. The enormous heat present among Christians. It's an issue with intense emotion on both sides. The minefield of language, rhetoric, arguments, debates, makes it exceedingly difficult to simply carry on a conversation. 

2. I did not want to draw attention away from the issue in my current book, Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions. The gay issue clearly is drawing much more interest and energy in our culture than the complex issue of intimate male-female friendships. I think cross-gender friendships are an important issue though.

3. I have good friends on both sides. I don't want to lose any of them. I have conservative friends who support SUSP and "progressive" friends who support same-sex mariage who also support SUSP.

I've already stated in a previous post that I believe that I believe marriage between a man and woman is an expression of authentic sexuality. I believe that male-female bodies matter when it comes to authentic sexuality. Male-female married sex means something. I don't believe that same-sex marriage means the same thing as male-female marriage. But, before I lose my friends on the other side (if there is any from the other side reading this), I ask for your patience and read on. I don't fit into Dave Fitch's three categories.

Andrew Marin, Friendship, and the GLBT Community

There are some powerful conversion stories emerging out of the conversation in  Christian communities and GLBT communities.  Sara Miles' powerful story in Take This Bread does not fit into any neat traditional categories of sexuality and conversion. Well, it would have if she became straight. But she hasn't. On the other hand, there is, just as powerful, the journey of Melinda Selmys who leaves her lesbian lover of seven years to embrace the Roman Catholic faith (Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and the Catholic Church).

I am still mulling over Andrew Marin's book, Love is an Orientation. It is so challenging and refreshing in the midst of debates and heated rhetoric on both sides.  I believe sexuality and Christian friendship is going to be an ongoing conversation in the 21st century. Longtime readers of my blog will know my passion for close, intimate, flourishing male-female friendships. I also believe Christian friendship and the GLBT community will be an ongoing conversation.

Christians, Lust, & Authentic Sexuality

One of the best quotes from this chapter is towards the end of their chapter on "Lust & Avoidance: Dangerous Messages about Sexual Temptation."  Colon and Field write, "This idea that sexuality is just sexual intercourse is a common misperception that often leaves singles wondering how they can be sexual without having sex." 

This chapter is centered around three dangerous messages about sexual temptation running rampant among evangelicals:

Living Spirituality

Greg Laughery's book, Living Spirituality: Illuminating the Path is a book born out of his experience at the L'Abri Fellowship community in Switzerland. 

 

Attraction, Sexuality, Marriage, and Community

Dennis Hiebert writes, "Sexuality is not merely some physical impulse contained in a safe-box to be let out only on special, appropriate occasions.  Humans are not sexual when they participate in sexual acts, and asexual at all other times...cross-sex friendship cannot be asexual, but neither can cross-sex acquaintance, association, or spousal relations. All cross-sex interactions are inexorably sexual in some form or dimension, and subject to sexual attraction of complementarity, just as all same-sex interactions are sexual and subject to the sexual attraction of similarity.  Morally, there is no asexual plateau of safety; all human interaction occurs on the slippery slope of sexuality." (Journal of Psychology and Theology, "Toward Adult Cross-Sex Friendship").

Do you want to revisit the conversation on attraction?

I picture my conversations here on attraction to like Jesus Creed does evolution, you know?  I don't know how many times the evolution topic has come up on that blog (that's just one repetitive example).

Male-Female Friendship Intimacy: Medieval Priests and Women

I mentioned Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750 by Jodi Bilinkoff a couple of weeks ago.  This is a remarkable, rich book that surveys sexual/spiritual landscape between priests and women ranging from absolute fear to close, intimate friendships and everything in-between.  For me, this book is quite fascinating.  Bilinkoff not only reveals the sexual tension and ambivalence within the Catholic culture in this era, but she also argues the Catholic narrative of intimacy between men and women as an apologetic keeping the Catholic faith in light of the rise of Protestanism. 

Bilinkoff gives us the striking extremes coexisting in Catholic communities when it came to male-female friendship intimacy between priests and women.  Jean Gerson, an influential theologian wrote, "for even the most deeply religious men, no matter how great their sanctity, a common life and familiarity with women are not safe."  She notes, "To some monastic and diocesan authorities, all women, no matter how saintly, represented sexual temptation, and priests did well to limit their contacts with them."