…in which we flounder around trying to figure out how the Bible is authoritative in a postmodern world. There is a disclaimer about postmodern theology if you want to read it here.

Here’s another thing that makes me feel schizo right now. It has to do with this part of the verse from Mark 5:

If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.

In the world of postmodernism — which are the cats eye’s glasses most of the world now wears and which I’ve suddenly found myself wearing–one of the things that is valued is a multiplicity of expressions. Sometimes people define this as relativism, although I don’t think it has to be that extreme. I think it has more to do with story, and honoring each other’s stories and understanding how truth flows with the telling of a tale. At any rate I’m finding more and more lately that as a postmodern person I am veering away from debate, which I find mostly non-relational and contrary to story-hearing and story-telling. This means that when conflict arises, I ask one or two questions, and then if the heat just gets turned up, I often shrug my shoulders and be on my way. I say to myself, “Self, you have to do what you see the Father doing. God is vast. Maybe they are seeing something he’s doing that you’re just not privvy to. Your sibling is never your enemy. This is not a teachable moment for either of you.” Then I move on.

But then I get to things like this in Amos:

I want justice – oceans of it. Fairness—rivers of it.

How does this jive with, “Shrug your shoulders, walk away?”

For instance, recently I got an email in which a guy told me I sounded like a female chauvinist in my comments on The Ooze. Since I’d never commented on The Ooze, I tried to find out what the hell he was talking about. The website is huge, and I’m a technophobe but Jen helped me find out that an article I had written for Next Wave on women in ministry had been posted on The Ooze along with a discussion forum. One of the guys in the discussion is a deacon in his church. He said the article was “one big whine” and that ministry is not about “career advancement”, but “dying to self.” I wrote him back and asked him how obeying one’s call is suddenly “career advancement” (and therefore naughty) and not “ministry.” (At least, if you don’t have a penis. If you have penis and you follow your calling, even doing so aggressively, then hey, you’re a leader and everyone should follow you. But if you want to do what your heart is screaming at you to do and you don’t have a penis, people tend to accuse you of not being humble and wanting power and stuff. Am I ranting? I think that’s ranting. Okay, back to the topic at hand.) He said that in many churches the community determines the call, and that if you think you have a call and the community disagrees then you should just acquiesce. You should stop “whining” and go serve God elsewhere, otherwise you are just being self gratifying. (And did I mention how belitting it is to use the term “whinning” as though you were speaking to a child? Wait…ranting again..defintely schizo.)

Now, let’s just set aside for now the fact that when the “community” is dominate by an archaic patriarchal system only the men have any real voice, any real power and it’s not really the “community” making a call, it’s the well-hung members of the “community” that are making the call. What I am really asking myself here is, what do I do here? Do I shrug my shoulders and move on? Or do I seek justice – oceans of it. Fairness – rivers of it?

Clearly here, as a woman, I would lean towards the Amos end of this argument – because I have felt this as part of my story. I have known this un-kingdomlike behavior and I don’t want it to continue. Moreover I have children, two female children, and I’ve been reading women’s stories lately, about how damaged they were at like age eight when they heard crap about women being second best and made just to please man, and other similar junk–and I DON’T WANT THAT FOR MY GIRLS. (I become a real mother bear here when my cubs get threatened. I damage them quite enough all by my own parenting self, thank you very much. You don’t have to add to it!)

But what about other places, places in which my story doesn’t intersect quite as much. What about other areas where justice does not roll, where fairness does not live—but where that’s really no skin off my immediate nose? What about the way the church (and I) forget the marginalized? What about the way the church punishes people for not meeting some minimum level of sin-freeness instead of simply acknowledging that we are all sinners? Why, when it comes to the issues of women am I not willing to shrug my shoulders, but when it comes to the poor, or the queer, or the addicted I say, “Well, if your church needs to address it that way, that’s fine. I’m going over here to do my thing; you stay over there and do yours.”

See. Schizo.

Or maybe it has something to do with this other theology that’s emerging in me, this new “how we understand sin” theology (that’s got to have a specialized term too, but again, I don’t know what it is). ‘Cuz in this new beyond-the-accountability-group theology of dealing with sin, you realize that the whole pointing sin out to people thing, that hasn’t really been working that well lately. I mean, I didn’t really see those 1,500 gay people fall to their knees when the May Day for Marriage folks “told them the truth in love.” I’ve never really had a moment when someone has come into my pastoral office and told me they were having sex with their boy/girlfriend and I’ve said, “Well, the Bible says that’s a no no” have they gone, “Okay. Thanks. I’ll change my wicked wicked ways.” I just haven’t seen good fruit with that method, ya know. As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that workin’ for ya?” It’s not really working for me. So maybe that’s why I so often shrug my shoulders and walk away. Maybe it’s not totally antithetical to justice, oceans of it.

Then again, maybe I’m just full of shit.

These are things I think about. I want my faith to have feet. I want my theology to be able to look people in the eye. But sometimes it seems so big and convoluted that that seems totally impossible. And I don’t believe in systematic theology, I really don’t. I don’t even want to worship a God that can be systematized by a puny human brain. But I do want to live a real, consistent, vibrant, Muse-infused life that sprays DDT aura on people. Can you do that when you’re schizo?

Geez. I hope so.

There’s more than one answer to this question, pointing me in a crooked line
and the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.