"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." -- C.S. Lewis
What I am about to write about is the most important thing I have learned this year: what is keeping me, and every woman, down is this culture of fear, and the thing we are threatened with the most is becoming so fearful that we never actually change the world.
As Christians, we like to tell each other that "God has not given us a spirit of fear" or that "the most frequent command in the Bible is 'Do not be afraid'" (I have not run a statistical test on that, but it seems plausible to me.) We like to do that so that we don't have to deal with each other's anxieties, so that we can quote a scripture to our friend and then move on, not helping her to actually deal with whatever fear is threatening to cripple her. And because we ourselves are afraid and don't know what else to do but try to quote that scripture in order to make ourselves magically un-afraid.
As women, we are the primary victims and progenitors of the culture of fear in America. In some ways, it makes sense. We are usually the ones who are responsible for taking care of children, and keeping them safe is instinctually important -- it is a basic human desire that our children live to be adults. But as Christians, we are called to be different from the rest of the world, to surpass our natural "instincts" and to change the world, which means changing the culture.
Does this mean that we willfully and knowingly put our children in harm's way in order to change the world? It depends on what we consider to be "harm's way." Before I go any further, let me remind you of a scripture that rips my heart out every time I think of changing the world for God:
"If anyone comes to me, and does not hate father and mother, his wife and children -- yes, even their own life -- such a person cannot be my disciple." -- Jesus, Luke 14:26, TNIV
Really? Hate? Really? Well I will not claim that Jesus' words were completely literal, but I think that claiming they were hyperbolic is robbing them of their strength. Jesus would not have used strong words -- such as hate if he had not intended to make a strong statement.
I believe the above-mentioned scripture is telling us, that compared to our love for God and for being his disciple, our love for ourselves and our family should look like hate. That means that if we know that we know that we know that our life's calling is to serve as missionaries in a dangerous place, we cannot let the excuse of "but it's not safe for my family" get in the way. Do we take precautions? Yes. Do we run into warzones with our children in our arms and no plans to keep them safe? No. But do we stay in our comfortable suburbs even though we are called to be elsewhere? That would be disobedience. And having parents who are disobedient to God is not what's best for our children, even if they are safe in their rear-facing carseats and their low-crime neighborhoods.
Please do not misunderstand me. It is right to use your resources to protect your children when you are placing them in danger -- as you are every time you are driving a car. I am not saying that anyone who promotes safety issues is being overly fearful and should chill out. I'm not saying that at all.
But I'm saying this: Protecting our children is not noble. It's instinctual. What I mean is what Jesus meant when he said, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them." (Luke 6:32, NIV)
So when I am tempted to refrain from doing something, big or small, that I believe I should do to live out my values (such as ride a bicycle instead of drive a car, or work on the mission field) because of fear, for myself or my family, I take a step back and say to myself, "Is this something I know that I am being called to do, in order to actually change the world?" And if the answer is "yes," I do it, with as many safety precautions in place as I can have while still doing it. Because I am not called to "the wisdom of this world" (1 Cor. 3:19) but I am called to a higher standard -- to actually change the world, even at personal risk to myself and yes, sometimes, even to my family.
P.S. I know this topic makes people crazy, so the next few posts will address the ideas of fear, safety, courage, and changing the world. Stay tuned.
Re: "
ReplyDeleteA search at Bible Gateway shows 70 occurrences of "do not be afraid" in the NIV, and most are commands from God: http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22do+not+be+afraid%22&qs_version=NIV. In comparison, "follow me" has only 24 occurrences, many of which are just part of the narrative: http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22follow+me%22&x=0&y=0
I think you're absolutely correct in identifying the culture of fear as a primary factor in holding women, specifically Christian women, back from doing what they feel they are called to do.
ReplyDeleteHere's where I get lost. The Christian experience (for me) was largely based on fear. It was in part the result of those frequent exhortations to "be not afraid" of the 'enemy who is like a lion roaming the streets seeking whom he may devour' that I became fearful in the first place. It provided the motivation for evangelism because I knew that people who didn't know the truth of salvation that they would be condemned to an eternity of hell. Add to it the apocalyptic message and teachings glorifying persecution and you've got a whole lot of things to be afraid of. Things we have no control over, that divert our energy from doing things to 'actually change the world.' (if I may borrow your phrase)
My intent here is not to attack Christianity or bring people away from these teachings. I am saying that crippling fear is definitely present in more ways than we may realize.
Suzi,
ReplyDeleteThere are certainly things that are worth being afraid of, at least to a certain extent. Because some things are truly scary. And yes, Hell is a scary idea. I was consistently afraid of Hell (and of God) as a child. In my early childhood, the time at which I do NOT consider myself to have understood Christianity, I was DEATHLY afraid of demons, the devil, and even angels and God Himself. I thought that God would come back to earth while I was committing some sin and that he would rapture everyone but me. It was terrifying.
But, when I made the decision to be a believer for myself, at eleven years old, I stopped being so afraid of God. I was no longer afraid that He was going to "smite" me and/or all of my friends, and I started enjoying my religious experience. I found joy in worship, and in spending time with God, and of course, in missions. My experience totally changed, and with it, so did some of my theology. I had to learn to discard some of what the church taught me and start believing what the Bible taught me, and what I knew to be my own real experience with God.
It is interesting that you mention "the devil roaming the Earth seeking whom he can devour" verse. I agree that this verse is scary, but I think we're missing the point when we picture him as some sort of monster with scales and a pitchfork tail who is going to LITERALLY devour us, or drag us to Hell. What we should really be on the lookout for is the subtle ways he seeks to devour us -- not to belabor the point, but crippling fear is one of those ways.
The question is not whether we are afraid, but whether we allow the fear to cripple us. If you think that fear was a motivating factor in your efforts to evangelize, then whether or not that was a bad thing depends on whether your fears were based in reality or not. I don't mean that I support scare tactics -- I don't think they work to change people's hearts and minds. But I do think that sometimes good things come out of a healthy fear for things that are truly scary.
Take, for example, global warming. If you're not afraid of it at all, you may simply not be forward-looking, or you may be selfish, or misinformed about it. If you are so afraid of it that you become a hermit and hide away and store up all of your food in an underground bomb shelter, or panic every time the temperature fluctuates, then you are doing no one any good and you need to get over that crippling fear. But if you have a healthy fear of it, enough that it motivates you to change some of your actions and to investigate ways in which you can change the culture and help offset some of the effects of climate change, then you are NOT being crippled by fear but are doing something to actually change the world. So in that case, no fear would be bad, some fear good, but crippling fear would render you useless to society.
And that's what I'm trying to prevent. We do it to ourselves, too. It is not just the world that does it to us. Christians promote the culture of fear within church walls, there's no doubt about it. BUT this is a problem common to women, common to Americans, common to our generation, and perhaps even common to mankind.
So hang in there and we'll see what we can do, little by little, to change culture, both within and outside of the church walls, so that fear no longer cripples us.
There is zero concrete evidence that hell or satan exist. Yet we are taught to be scared of those things. Why?
ReplyDeleteThere is however evidence of a pattern of global warming/climate change. In my opinion fear is still an ineffective manner in dealing with this issue.
Fear is a means of setting limitations. It's used by people in authority to manipulate those under them. It's used by people against themselves to justify actions or inaction.
When we are taught to fear, we are setting ourselves and those around us up for failure. And we get so used to living in fear...even "healthy" fear, that we begin to limit the indivuality, creativity and bravery that is naturally present in ourselves. There is no positive aspect to fear.
Suzi,
ReplyDeleteDo you think we are always "taught" to fear? I do believe that we are living in a culture of fear, but I also think fear is a basic human instinct. When my four-month-old thinks she's going to fall, she cries. I think she's afraid.
I think it's basic instinct to want to protect our young from what we perceive as dangerous. But when we are striving for something more than basic instinct, be it based in religious belief or simply solid human reasoning, then we have to be willing to do things we are afraid to do, even if the motivation for the fear is "noble" -- or, at least, not bad.
As far as whether religion teaches us to be irrationally afraid, that is something that could be debated about forever. For now, I will concede to you this: People, and often especially religious people, DO like to use fear as a means to control other people, but to put it so harshly is missing the point of some people's hearts. It could be argued, for example, that CULTURE is a means of controlling other people's behavior. We seem to like to do that to each other. It's instinctual.
So yes, I'm calling us to rise above the culture, the naysayers, and the instinct of fear, however well-meaning. As far as whether Christianity adds to the culture of fear, I would LOVE to think about it more and devote an entire post to the issue. But notice that I do my best to use the ACTUAL words of Christ rather than what I've been taught by other Christians.