http://www.emergingwomen.blogspot.com

By the way, Christina is as excited as I am to hear from you. I highlighted for her your post about Nika’s revelation on Princess Belle’s occupation.

How’s that for a cross, uh?

On a more serious note, perhaps you could talk with domestic violence victims or Christian gays, or interview women who HAVE left the church to get a more personal, empathetic feelin for what it is like to be persecuted and repressed simply for who you are. Because if you are not being repressed, you are called to stand up for those who are! And maybe once you start standing up for those under repression, you’ll find your cross after all, as a tall, white affluent, straight male defending the rights of Christian women and gays is sure to be threatening enough to some to win you persecutuion.

I’m not sure I would put simple living and generous giving in the same category as suffering. It does perhaps mollify somebody’s suffering somewhere, but I don’t know that it is truly suffering for us wealthy American folk (I know that’s not what you were saying… I’m just thinking aloud here).

Osiek talks about a deep suffering under repression and I can’t really relate with that. I am a reasonably wealthy, privileged, educated, young tall white American man. My most minority-like attribute is my Brethren in Christ faith, but I could hardly say that Western pluralistic society and culture are persecuting my faith. My pacifist stance would probably be my most threatening attribute to our government (not to mention militaristic churches), but I’m not active and visible enough to draw negative attention about that.

I am persecution-less. What cross shall I carry?

I wonder about it in terms of sacrifices of lifestyle/ability to help the poor etc. There are so many problems it is overwhelming and how to know what God asks of me in particular, and of my family?

It’s all thoughts, actually. Books. Classes. So it really is seminary. It is of special interest to me since martyrdom plays such a central role in Anabaptist history. What does that mean for people like me in the US?

thanks for you enthusiastic comments, I could almost picture you doing a funky dance move, just for the new baby, who is going to osmose the blogosphere

what situations find you wondering whether it is necessary (for faithfulness) to suffer and when it is unnecessary (and dysfunctional, possibly maschistic?)

Let me see if I hear you right: You think that following Christ means being willing to suffer if necessary, but if it is avoidable (while still remaining faithful to Christ — and that’s the tricky part) then it should be avoided. I would certainly agree with you there. It’s just hard knowing when suffering actually is necessary.

I also agree about Karen. [For those who don't know, we're talking about the fundamentalist church we both used to attend.] Karen is a strong leader in that church and yet she shares the same theology of male-female hierarchical roles. I haven’t talked to Karen about this for awhile, but I imagine that part of the reason she does not feel the sting of oppression is because her gifts, as far as she’d like to express them, are welcomed at the church. She teaches the Sunday evening youth group sessions (God forbid a woman teach a Sunday morning lesson!) and she mentors the youth (mostly females, but she mentored me informally!). She even baptizes… as you know. Although, I believe that caused a stir! Her role at Faith and the way she handles it does seem to be an anomaly for a fundamentalist church.

Well, I’ll stop here for now. I will be addressing some more exegetical and theological issues in soon-to-come blog entries.