Ideas

‘Girls’ and the Conservatives

Alissa Wilkinson

Columnist; Contributor

Lena Dunham might be more self-aware than some assume.

Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, and Zosia Mamet in "Girls"

Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, and Zosia Mamet in "Girls"

Christianity Today October 9, 2014
HBO

The other morning, on the subway ride from my home in gentrifying Brooklyn to my office on Wall Street, I read, with interest, New York Times conservative (and Catholic) columnist Ross Douthat's thoughts on why (some) conservatives like Lena Dunham's work—and, particularly, her HBO show Girls, which begins its fourth season this year.

CT's managing editor Katelyn Beaty wrote about what the show says about 21st century womanhood for the magazine last year. In writing about what anyone who's heard of the show knows—it contains sex scenes of a sort we're not accustomed to seeing on TV—Beaty says:

. . . the sex scenes in Girls are uncomfortable, for both the female characters and the viewer—a disturbing look at relationships in a pornified culture, where many young men take their sexual cues from fantasy and have never learned how to date a real woman.

Douthat (who refers to the show's conservative fans as “reactionaries”) says as much, and explains:

The thing that makes Dunham’s show so interesting, the reason it inspired a certain unsettlement among some of its early fans, is that it often portrays young-liberal-urbanite life the way, well, many reactionaries see it: as a collision of narcissists educated mostly in self-love, a sexual landscape distinguished by serial humiliations—a realm at once manic and medicated, privileged and bereft of higher purpose.

I too watch the show, partly because I am also among its demographic, having shuttled around Brooklyn to chase the rapidly-decreasing places where an artist (or, in our case, an artist married to a writer) can afford to live for the past eight years. The show's coffeeshop is actually a pizza place my husband and I love and walk by on the way home from church every Sunday. Its myriad laundromats and bars and warehouses and streets are places we know. One episode (the one where Hannah stays at a stranger's swanky brownstone for a weekend) was shot three doors down from us, before that neighborhood got too expensive for us.

I'm glad Girls is far more realistic than the silliness of Sex and the City; at least its characters actually do struggle with normal New York things, like mental illness and paying the rent. And I mostly agree with Douthat: the show skewers what he calls the results of “expressive individualism,” following Robert Bellah: “the view that the key to the good life lies almost exclusively in self-discovery, self-actualization, the cultivation of the unique and holy You.” We 20- and 30-somethings can thank everyone from the Mad Men era on down for this inheritance.

In his book The Malaise of Modernity, Charles Taylor also talks about the almost moral weight of this expressive individualism (which he calls “the ethic of authenticity”)—that is, today there is almost no universally-held belief that a person must do one thing or another, no sense of duty, except one: that you must “find yourself” and be true to yourself.

Everything in pop culture and high culture—and, in a lot of cases, church culture—screams that you need to figure out who you are and how you can best express your individual humanity, and this sole duty carries almost a moral weight. You are cheating yourself (or God) if you don't. Taylor, who is certainly conservative, isn’t as down on this as many; he argues that this has its upsides and its pathologies, but in any case it is a feature of our time.

Girls certainly expresses what this looks like in a world where there's no other moral duties except those you set for yourself. Douthat argues that this is why “reactionaries” like the show—because it illustrates this imperative and its pitfalls. As many commentators have noted, the characters' overriding problem is a sense of anxiety: they are anxious about themselves, their relationships, and their jobs and money, certainly, but they are far more anxious to make sure they are finding out who they are, whatever the cost. Most of the show's plot conflicts derive from this anxiety.

That's all actually rather a relief to people my age and younger, who can watch other young people bowing under the weight of this obligation to self-actualize, without any of us really having a sense of what that means or where it came from.

But here is where I think Douthat gets it wrong, and it might explain why the show actually crosses political lines, at least among younger viewers. He says this:

I’m quite sure that Dunham does not intend the reading I’ve just offered. More likely she agrees with Elaine Blair, whose New York Review of Books article chided the show’s “nervous” liberal critics, and praised “Girls” for depicting the ways in which, thanks to the sexual revolution, “all of us can know more people in more ways than was ever previously allowed,” with “the ultimate prize to be wrung from all of these baffling sexual predicaments” being “a deeper understanding of oneself.”

I’m not so sure. Or rather, I’m not sure that Dunham agreeing with this necessarily means she doesn’t also agree with Douthat’s sense that the show is about “a collision of narcissists educated mostly in self-love, a sexual landscape distinguished by serial humiliations—a realm at once manic and medicated, privileged and bereft of higher purpose.” (It’s an interesting gap in reading, not necessarily attributable to generational causes, since Douthat and I are close in age.)

I don’t have the space or time to do a deep contextual read on the show, but here’s why this struck me as slightly off.

I am also a big fan of Portlandia, a show that takes to a comic extreme a similar sort of ethic of authenticity or expressive individualism—this time, the hipster-ism that thrives in the cities of the Pacific Northwest, but also here at home in Brooklyn, where the idea of having an artisanal lightbulb shop or putting a bird on everything is not eyebrow-raising. (And just two blocks down from that pizza/coffee shop is a pickle shop where they do, indeed, pickle everything—I bought a gallon on the way home from church on Sunday.)

Portlandia is itself a product of a culture in which one can skewer something without suggesting it is actually bad, as long as it is an “authentic” way of being. We portray something and laugh at it, but we don't see it as an indictment of that lifestyle; viewers of Portlandia I know have routinely chuckled about whether or not they ought to ask for their free-range chicken's name while eating the chicken. (And it turns out the restaurant featured in that pilot, The Gilt Club, has seen an uptick in business.)

I know Lena Dunham is no conservative in any sense of the word, nor is she Christian at all. But I do think there is an element of self-awareness to Girls that suggests she knows her portrayal is both a skewering of a culture and a love letter to it.

It's possible that it acts as a working out of anxieties about that conflict and its absurdities. If we all feel it, and we all see someone feeling it on screen, at least we can feel less alone.

I don’t know that the fans of the show necessarily see it this way, but Dunham has proven herself to be a smart, self-aware writer in this show as well as her other work, including the pre-Girls film Tiny Furniture. What she writes lives in a tension that most “millennials” don’t see as a conflict.

The show is both satire and a sort of comfort to those it is satirizing; there's no explicit call (as of yet) to put aside any particular behaviors. To use Taylor's term, there aren't any "moral horizons" beyond being an authentic person.

But then again, seeing your own follies on screen can be enough to make a person shift in her seat uncomfortably, feeling exposed. For instance: Dunham's character Hannah famously announces in the pilot to her parents, who are cutting her off financially now that she's been out of college for two years, that “I think I might be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice of a generation.”

In a world where any of us can be “Internet famous” pretty easily, Christian or not, this sort of statement makes you (me) laugh—and then wince a little. Hannah is no hero. The statement is both ridiculous, coming from Hannah, and also at least mostly true, coming from Dunham. A double-layered truth. And though I have no way of knowing this for sure, I suspect Lena Dunham is smart enough to know that, and also young enough to feel no conflict about it.

Watch This Way: How we watch matters at least as much as what we watch. TV and movies are more than entertainment: they teach us how to live and how to love one another, for better or worse. And they both mirror and shape our culture. This column by Alissa Wilkinson ran from 2013 to 2016.

Church Life

The Many Models of the Asian American Church

Helen Lee

Once largely monocultural, Asian Americans’ churches are now as diverse as the country they call home.

Christianity Today October 9, 2014
Courtesy Vox Veniae, Austin, Texas

In just a few decades, churches created by Asian Americans have evolved. Once primarily monocultural, they now represent a broad spectrum of models of how to relate to—and reach out to—surrounding cultures.

The Asian Immigrant Church

These churches were created primarily by and for first-generation immigrants, but they also offer programs for their English-speaking children of all ages. Larger churches in this category have global ministries that supplement their original, Asian-specific focus, but they still retain a strong ethnic identity.

Seattle Chinese Alliance Church, Seattle, Washington

Seattle Chinese Alliance Church has built a thriving dual-language ministry in its 40-plus year history. Two-thirds of its 600 attendees speak Cantonese. The rest attend the English service, which ministers to junior high students all the way up to 90-year-olds. Roy Chang is the lead pastor for the English-speaking ministry. One day on a prayer walk he noticed cars lined up in the church parking lot, full of parents waiting to pick up their children from the elementary school across the street. He discovered that 90 percent of the children in the school received free or reduced lunch, the highest percentage in the district. “My youth pastor and I just started connecting with the parents, learning their stories, and praying for them when needed. We became their pastors.” Chang says that both he and the church have been permanently changed as a result. “Three to four years ago I didn’t even know terms ‘academic inequity’ or ‘achievement gap.’ But to understand that the gospel has something to say about those issues, that we can help do something about those issues—that has been priceless to learn. The tension is, are we really ready to embrace people different from us, ethnically speaking? I am praying that we are.”

The English-Ministry Offshoot

As the English-speaking second- and third-generation became adults, many found the Asian immigrant church context restrictive. New church models began to emerge in which the English-speaking younger generations took ownership of their own ministries and formed either fully- or semi-independent churches, while still retaining a strong connection to their Asian immigrant parent churches.

Jefferson: A Campus of YNCC, Los Angeles, California

Young Nak Presbyterian Church (YNPC), sits on nearly five acres near Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and serves thousands of first-generation Korean Americans every Sunday. Its 25-year-old English-ministry offshoot Young Nak Celebration Church (YNCC) shares a campus with YNPC and ministers to 800 second- and later generations of largely Korean Americans whose parents attend the main Korean congregation. But two years ago, the pastors of YNCC decided to experiment with a multisite model, resulting in the creation of a sister location with nary a Korean syllable in its name: Jefferson. Five miles from their sibling churches, the leaders at Jefferson clearly do not feel bound to a Korean American mission field. Campus pastor David Park says, “Jefferson is here because we believe God wants us to cast a different net and reach different people. We saw the inherent limitations of being two churches on one campus, with both a Korean ministry and an English ministry. It was hard for the English ministry to thrive in such a strong Korean cultural context.” Jefferson seeks to serve the nearby campus of the University of Southern California and its largely Latino neighbors. “We’re looking forward to making an impact and drawing unchurched people, both those who were part of the ‘silent exodus’ of Asian Americans away from the church, but also beyond,” Park says.

The Historic Church

These churches began as Asian immigrant churches planted by Japanese or Chinese immigrants and have operated for more than a century. Some morph into pan-Asian or multiethnic churches; other strive to retain their cultural history and heritage; still others do both.

Japanese Baptist Church, Seattle, Washington

At Japanese Baptist Church, 115 years old, reconciliation is a far more concrete reality than in many churches. “On any given Sunday I have someone who went through the internment here in the U.S. and someone who survived Hiroshima sitting in the sanctuary. I have Japanese Americans whose family members served the U.S. in the 442nd Infantry worshiping alongside those who had family members fighting for Japan,” says senior pastor Jennifer Ikoma-Motzko. “But here we are in the same church, and our shared testimony that Jesus is real and reconciles is the gift that we can give to the American church as we equip the next generation to share our story.” For many in the congregation and the local Japanese American community, Japanese Baptist is sacred space: the church provided its gymnasium for families to store their belongings in 1942 before they were sent to internment camps, whether they were part of the church or not. Although these families were unable to move back into the neighborhood after their release, they continued attending the church once it re-opened. “When you lose so much of who you are and what your family is, the church becomes all the more important,” Ikoma-Motzko says. Today the church continues to serve both a Japanese-speaking congregation as well as a larger English speaking congregation, which includes both those who have some Japanese heritage or are married to someone of Japanese descent, as well as a quickly growing population of those with no ties to Japanese heritage.

The Pan-Asian American Church

A number of Asian American churches have either transitioned over time from being a historic Asian congregation or launched with a primary focus on reaching second- and later generations of Asian Americans. They serve a primarily Asian-American congregation from a wide range of Asian cultural backgrounds.

First International Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee

Every pan-Asian church is also a multiethnic church, but some are more multiethnic than others. Take First International Baptist Church in Memphis: Half of its congregants are first-generation Nepalese immigrants; another third are a mix of different second-generation Asian Americans (Lao, Cambodian, Chinese, and Vietnamese); the remainder of the church is African American or white. With such a wide range of cultural backgrounds present, pastor Thi Mitsamphanh makes intentional efforts to affirm the diversity in the church while finding common ground to worship and grow together spiritually. “Our Sunday service is in English, but we try to feature different languages in our worship songs: Lao, Thai, and Nepalese in addition to English,” says Mitsamphanh. “We celebrate four different New Year’s holidays as well—American, Chinese/Vietnamese, Lao/Cambodian, and Nepalese.” Mitsamphanh is a Laotian refugee, and his church has specifically reached out to other refugees who live within walking distance to the church. “Our mission statement is to make disciples in Memphis, but we are able to reach out to people from all over the world,” he says. “Growing up, I opted to remain in a Lao church instead of joining a white church because I still wanted to hold on to my cultural background. Hopefully our church will help others who feel the same way. We emphasize both our cultural background as well as our identity in Christ.”

The Multiethnic Church

Many Asian American pastors have launched churches with the intention of being diverse or lead churches that have become so over time. These typically feature a mix of pan-Asian American and non-Asian American congregants, as well as diverse worship styles and leadership teams. In some cases they also reflect wide socioeconomic diversity.

Vox Veniae, Austin, Texas

It would be easy to pass right by the low-slung, one-story building in East Austin that looks nothing like a church. But this nondescript location serves as a resource for the community during the week and as a destination for Sunday worship. Gideon Tsang planted Vox Veniae (Latin for “voice of forgiveness”) in this unlikely setting, at first with fellow Chinese Americans sent by a Chinese immigrant church. But over time, the congregation came to include a mix of Caucasian, Asian, and other races and ethnicities. "We just wanted to be good missionaries, to eat the food of Austin, to sing the songs, to speak its language," Tsang says. "I’m the son of a missionary, and perhaps because of my missionary-kid background, and because I am Canadian, I knew I didn’t want to impose any kind of culture. We were going into a city and what God was already doing there was primary. In the end, we were united by the culture of Austin.” Tsang and his family relocated into an Austin neighborhood in which there were no other Asian Americans around—“my son was the first Asian American in the 50-year history of his school, which was 70 percent Hispanic and 30 percent black”—but his heritage actually proved to be an advantage. “My face doesn’t represent decades of oppression and hardship for African Americans, and so I have more potential to build bridges with these communities.”

The House Church

A growing number of Asian American pastors embrace the call to plant missional communities, resulting in innovative expressions of church in smaller gatherings.

Missio Dei Oakland, Oakland, California

When Alex Schweng turned 40 years old in 2014, he decided he wanted to give his midlife years fully to loving and learning from and serving the poor, day in and day out. Along with his wife, Amy, and their friends Betsy Wang and Jenny Lau, Schweng decided to move to his childhood hometown of Oakland and see how God would lead. “We just prayed a lot and started sharing the gospel with anyone who God put in front of us,” Schweng says. What emerged was Missio Dei Oakland, an urban house church network in the eastern part of the city. “We essentially serve two groups: unbelievers and the poor. Virtually everyone in our house churches are unchurched and come from Buddhist, animistic, or atheist backgrounds,” Schweng says. Currently, the network has three house churches serving 30 to 40 people in total. “Oakland is so diverse we felt like this was the best way to reach all kinds of people instead of one demographic alone doing a traditional Sunday church.” Along with Schweng, who is Korean American, others involved are from Vietnamese, Cambodian, Filipino/Japanese, Mexican, African American, Guatemalan, Chinese, and Caucasian heritages. “We have a lot of people with heartbreaking stories and lives, but it's beautiful what God has been doing in them. In our best moments, I'm amazed by the gospel and that God lets us be a part of this.”

Church Life

Missional Living Doesn’t Wait for Marriage

Lore Ferguson, guest writer

As for me and my house, we’ll serve in our single years.

Her.meneutics October 9, 2014
wickenden / Flickr

Where I live in Texas, there are two dominant decorating motifs: every house either has a wall covered with ornamental crosses or a wall with large words spelling out some sort of creed for their home. Perhaps you’ve seen some of these, ranging from heartwarming to cheesy, on display as a celebration of marriage, kids, or family.

I’ve yet to see a large script decal with an uplifting mantra for singleness or a vision statement for roommates. And that’s not really a surprise, we often assume that a home of mission and purpose comes after you start a family, not before. These years tend to get categorized or sidelined as preparation for a next step.

A few years ago, single and in my late 20s, I became convicted of the potential and value of my current living situation— the year-to-year leases, the assemblage of housemates, our mismatch of dishes and furniture. God wanted me, and wants all of us, to live with purpose and mission now.

Afraid that I might let this time pass by in either purposeless and vanity or in begrudging selfishness, I created a creed for my single years. It’s three-fold: my housemates are my primary binding relationships; my home is my primary place of ministry; my house is a place of peace.

My housemates are my primary binding relationships

Culture would have us believe the single years are meant to be a time of freedom and unattachment, for living alone or dating around. The Bible prescribes for believers a better way though. All through the New Testament, Jesus and the Apostles are teaching the early Christians how to close the gaps that exist between one another, and between God and them. Our aim should be to bind ourselves to one another for the good of one another.

In this season of life, outside of the covenantal bonds of marriage, singles can be intentional about choosing to live with others and making those people a priority. In regard to my finances, time, talents, and wisdom—the girls I live with are my primary partakers, they get my first-fruits. I seek to defer to them in all things for their good and my sanctification.

In sharing a home, they also have an inside view to my life and habits. My weaknesses are on display to them every day in every way. The besetting ways I fail do not go unnoticed or unchecked by these girls and my door is always open to them for rebuke or correction. We’re imperfect at this, but we’re are constantly exercising the beauty of the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18).

My home is my primary place of ministry

Many young Christians may be able to relate to my situation. I am self-employed; I lead a small group; I write for many publications and am working on a book; I have lived in five states and still have close friends to keep up with in all of them; I have a huge family all over the U.S. who I see rarely; I go to a large church with many opportunities to serve: the list goes on.

Outside of our homes there are opportunities to minister all over, and especially as singles, we’re encouraged to use our time to serve our churches and communities. But here’s the problem: If our homes aren’t in order, we’re not going to serve well outside of it.

Therefore, I have established my home as my primary place of ministry. Whether that means I invite people into my home, or whether I give the best of my ministry (prayer, counsel, love, etc.) to my housemates, or whether home is simply the place where I sit deepest under the ministry of the Holy Spirit—whatever it is for that moment, home is where it’s happening for me. Ministry doesn’t just happen at the local church or non-profit, it starts at home. If it’s not in order here, it will not be in order when I leave and go do other ministry

I want to keep our home now, not only in preparation for how I may someday keep a home as a wife, but because today, this is my home and it is the place God has called me to cultivate (Gen. 1:28).

My house is a place of peace

Peace is not just a pretty painting on the wall, hanging there passively waiting to be disrupted. No. Peace is an active agent. There is a world of difference between being a peace-maker and peace-keeper. In our home we are peacemakers. We are makers of peace. Peace with one another. Peace with situations. Peace with the onslaught of the world that assaults each of us throughout our day.

My aim, at the end of the day, when I say, “Goodnight family, I love you,” is to settle it before bed: you are loved, you are known, and in this home, behind these doors, there is no onslaught toward you. There will never be animosity or intentional wounding coming from me to any of them. It is voiced often and expressed often too: we are on the same team.

It is hard to get five people with a 12 year age span on the same team, but we do our best to break into the difficulties, to face the challenges, and to engage in teamwork because peace in our home is our primary endeavor. Nothing brings me more joy than when I see my girls engaging one another in peaceful ways, and when others enter our home and are overwhelmed by the peace present there (Rom. 12:18).

Protection, Not Perfection

Whatever I choose to do gets filtered through those creeds. I do not hold to these perfectly (ask my housemates), but they have been ingrained in my spirit deeply enough that they are nearly second nature at this point. These are desires stemming from a heart joyful in my singleness, not demands requiring me to endure these years.

This creed has tightened up over time and displayed itself in a myriad of ways depending on the home in which I lived, the people with whom I lived, and our season of life. I have had over 30 housemates this decade; I have lived with crazy, kind, manipulative, wise, gentle, funny, and angry people, and I have been all of those things in return. No home is perfect, and I’m not seeking perfection in my home.

I’d encourage single Christians to write out a creed for their lives, their homes, and their ministries— especially those who feel like their best years are being thwarted by having to live with roommates instead of the person of their dreams. (The enemy wants to steal, kill, and destroy, and he’s going to start with the place you spend most of your life and the people with whom you spent it. Don’t let him. Be proactive.)

The pervasive presence of the gospel in your home is going to be your best weapon against the enemy. Preach the gospel to yourself, infuse it into your conversations with your housemates, speak it to whoever comes into your door. Be intentional. Your lease isn’t the only covenant you’re living in right now. Don’t let the opportunity for lasting, meaningful relationship pass you by.

This article was originally published as part of Her.Meneutics, Christianity Today's blog for women.

Ideas

What Not to Say to a Dad With Four Kids

Peter W. Chin

Columnist

Generalize not, lest ye be generalized

Christianity Today October 8, 2014

I have been unemployed for nearly a third of the past three years, which means that I have been a part of more than a few pastoral searches, and know what’s involved. And I’m fairly certain they weren’t supposed to involve two people slinging subtle insults at one another.

This particular one happened over Skype. The church was in California, and for that reason alone was high on my list of preferences. If you are wondering why that was the case, it’s not the weather – it’s the food, specifically, the fish tacos. The man who was conducting the interview was in his mid-fifties, wearing the harried expression of a man who has conducted entirely too many pastoral interviews. Perhaps this in itself should have been a sign that things were not going to go well, the fact that this church had gone through so many candidates and had not managed to find anyone perfect enough for their forty-person congregation.

After our initial exchange, he looked down at my resume, and then looked back up. “Four children?” he said with emphasis. “Am I reading that correctly? FOUR?”

This was back when I had four children.

I smiled and nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I have an eight year old, all the way to a one year old.”

I expected him to smile back and remark how children were such a blessing, or something to that effect. His response was rather different. With a chilly voice he replied, “Wow. Got yourself quite a quiverfull, don’t you.”

“Wow. Got yourself quite a quiverfull, don’t you.” Wow. First time I had heard that joke…that day.

Wow. First time I had heard that joke…that day. But as this was an interview for a job that I was quite keen on getting, I simply smiled and shrugged off his snide comment. “Yup, yup, that I do. Quiverfull.” Let’s move on, shall we. But no, he hadn’t even hit his stride yet.

“You should just change your last name to Duggar at this point.”

Hm. I had to give him points for that. I had never fielded that comment yet. Actually, I only had the vaguest familiarity with the name "Duggar", but knew that it had to do with having a lot of children. My lips tightened, but again, it was an interview. So I politely replied, “Ha. That’s good.”

But he still wasn’t done. Wrongly sensing that he had my permission to continue, he followed his last comment up with this gem:

“Are they all vaccinated or are you against that too?”

Vaccinated? Of course they’re vaccinated. My wife has a masters in public health and epidemiology, why in the world would my children not be inoculated?

It was then that I got it: to this guy, I wasn’t just a pastor with four kids. No, a pastor with four kids automatically meant that I was also a card carrying representative of the Quiverfull movement, a wannabe Korean Duggar family, and that I probably didn’t even support child vaccinations either. There could be NO other reason I had four children. And all it took for him to come to these comprehensive conclusions was to read a single line on my resume – what brilliance in deduction! Now I don’t really have anything against the Quiverfull movement, but I still resented the assumption, which I tried to communicate by radiating waves of disapproval. He totally missed this, and so with a cunning smirk, he let go with one last salvo:

“I mean, do you even know why that keeps happening – your wife having kids?”

A pastor with four kids automatically meant that I was also a card carrying representative of the Quiverfull movement, a wannabe Korean Duggar family, and that I probably didn’t even support child vaccinations either.

Okay, that’s enough. I wasn’t going to let him get away with this, even if it did cost me the job. He was going to find out there are many reasons why a guy might have four kids. So with a clipped voice, I tersely replied, “Actually, I don’t know exactly where babies come from anymore. Do you?”

Not expecting that response, he looked at me quizzically.

“We only had two children for a while, and my wife miscarried our third. We thought she wasn’t going to be able to have any more children, that is, until we found out that she was pregnant again. But do you know where we found out about that pregnancy?”

He shook his head dumbly.

“When my wife was on the operating table for her mastectomy, getting a cancerous tumor removed from her chest and her arm.”

He stared silently, so still that I might have thought our Skype call had been disconnected, except for his deliberate blinking.

“We talked to oncologists about this, and they told us to terminate the baby right away because he wouldn’t survive the chemotherapy treatments, that it was too powerful for him. But you know what happened?”

He shook his head again.

“We chose to keep the baby, and he survived. Actually, he was born without a single complication. In fact, we also learned that women who are pregnant while having cancer have much better recovery rates than those who aren’t. Crazy, right?”

I could see that he realized that he had gone too far with his previous comments, and regretted his forwardness. Too late for that now, bud.

“And then! The doctors told my wife that she wouldn’t have any more kids because the chemotherapy caused early menopause. But can you guess what happened?”

He looked at me sheepishly and replied, “She got pregnant again?”

“YES!” I exclaimed with exuberance. “YES. She got pregnant again. So to answer your previous question, whether I know where babies come from? The answer is no, I don’t. But I suspect it has something to do with GOD.”

That ought to put him straight. There was far more to me and my family's story than he could possibly assess with a cursory glance. My righteous anger satisfied, I lifted a hand to shut my laptop screen, but hesitated. The interviewer wore a thoughtful expression on his face, a far softer one that he had been wearing at the beginning of our call. He finally spoke.

“My first wife died of breast cancer. Barbara. It will be ten years ago this year.”

The expression he wore was far away and almost dreamy, as if he was remembering something distant. But I had seen that expression before. It was the expression of someone who had been through hell, and who had learned to distance themselves emotionally and mentally from that experience. It was a look that I myself wore often during the worst moments of my wife’s fight against breast cancer.

I took a look at his face and my heart broke, both for this man’s grief, but even more so for my own juvenile and rude behavior. Sure, this guy had typecast me and my family, and he was wrong for doing so. But I had proceeded to treat him much in the same way, assuming that he too was an abstraction, nothing more than a vindictive old white guy who had no idea what it was to experience suffering and tragedy. The truth was that he had been through so much of what I had also endured, and worse.

This is one of our our greatest failings in the modern internet age, that we rightly believe that our own lives are complex things that defy easy comprehension, but fail to extend that same grace to others. When it comes to their lives, especially those with whom we disagree, we suddenly possess the ability to derive a doctorate thesis’ worth of conclusions about their story and motivations, from only the smallest fragments of data. "You follow Mark Driscoll (or Rob Bell) and John Piper (or Brian McLaren) on Twitter? – Then I know what you're ALL about." *disapproving grimace*

We suddenly possess the ability to derive a doctorate thesis’ worth of conclusions about their lives and motivations, from only the smallest fragments of data.

The truth? No human life is so easily circumscribed, neither our own nor others. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made, and our stories more like tortured works of art than simplistic mathematical equations that can be cracked through deduction, then summarized in 140 characters. The image of God that we all carry within us cannot be discerned through such shoddy means, any more than Zacchaeus could see Jesus clearly by peering through the leaves of a sycamore fig. No, in Luke 19, Jesus demonstrates that the only way that we can get to truly know someone is to get down out of our respective trees and spend time with them, and hear their story face to face. Only then can we see them clearly and realize that there is much more to this person than we first thought.

I had done this man wrong. I didn’t want the job any longer, but I did want to make things right. And so I tried my best:

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Really. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. It may have been a while ago…but I’m sorry for your loss.”

He acknowledged my apology with a small nod, and said, "I'm sorry too. I was trying to be funny, but after a long day at work, that doesn't always work so well." He smiled sheepishly.

We could have ended our conversation there, but I felt the need to lighten the mood.

“But in answer to your question, I know where babies come from. For some reason they always come after snowstorms, when my wife and I are stuck in the house together for a long time.”

His laugh caught me off guard, a free-spirited and joyous sound that I did not think it possible for such a harried-looking man to make. But it was at that moment that I could see him clearly, and he could see me. Neither of us saw each other as an abstraction any longer, but a real person, a child of God, both of us trying to do our best in a thoroughly muddled up world.

Third Culture: This column by Peter Chin looks at matters of faith from the multicultural and minority perspective.

Books

New & Noteworthy Books

Matt Reynolds

Compiled by Matt Reynolds

Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church

Scot McKnight (Brazos Press)

Today the word kingdom is on the lips of many Christians. But we’re hardly agreed on what it means to engage in “kingdom” work. Is it about using activism to build a just society? Witnessing for Jesus? Raising a family, starting a business, tending a garden, or performing simple acts of kindness? McKnight addresses our confusion here, critiquing both the “skinny jeans” perspective (which emphasizes social justice and the common good) and the “pleated pants” alternative (which emphasizes God’s redemptive work through both personal salvation and cultural transformation).

The Devil: A New Biography

Philip C. Almond (Cornell University Press)

“Whether we believe in the Devil or not is now a matter of choice,” writes Almond, an Australian scholar who has also written books on Adam and Eve and heaven and hell. “It was not always so. For the better part of the last two thousand years in the West, it was as impossible not to believe in the Devil as it was impossible not to believe in God. . . . The history of God in the West is also the history of the Devil, and the history of theology also the history of demonology.” Almond’s “biography” tracks the shifting understandings of the Devil that have prevailed in various societies and stages of history—even up to our postmodern age.

The Stories We Tell: How TV and Movies Long for and Echo the Truth

Mike Cosper (Crossway)

With dramatic series like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Mad Men leaving outsized cultural footprints and reaching new heights of storytelling sophistication, it’s now safe to say we are smack-dab in the middle of a golden age of television. Cosper, a worship and arts pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, says the most compelling shows don’t “aim at our rational mind, where cultural Christian convictions like ‘we shouldn’t watch Sex and the City’ exist,” but instead “at the imagination, a much more sneaky part of us, ruled by love, desire, and hope.” This volume explores how plots that captivate us on screen testify to our deepest longings—and ultimately to the Story that underlies all others.

This article appeared in the November, 2014 issue of Christianity Today as "New & Noteworthy Books".

News

CCCU Settles Lawsuit with Fired Former President

Morgan Lee

‘Philosophical differences over leadership approach’ cited as why Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and Edward O. Blews Jr. ‘parted ways.’

Christianity Today October 8, 2014

Today the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and Edward O. Blews Jr. announced the settlement of the former president's lawsuit over how he was fired. The terms of the agreement, which comes roughly one year after Blews was unanimously removed 10 months into the job, will remain private, according to a joint statement.

“I remain deeply grateful for the honor of being selected and serving as CCCU’s sixth president, though naturally I am disappointed to have had such a short time to serve in that role,” Blews said in the statement. “I remain a strong supporter and firm believer in Christian higher education and in independent higher education generally. I prayerfully extend my best wishes to the Christian Colleges and Universities and to the CCCU.”

According to the statement, Blews and the CCCU “parted ways because of philosophical differences over leadership approach vis-à-vis the culture of the Council and because of fundamental differences in management style and priorities.”

The CCCU, which recently picked its first female president, noted that its “use of the term ‘investigation’ in the original announcement of Blews’ transition from the Presidency of the CCCU may have caused incorrect assumptions,” and stated, “There was no legal or financial wrongdoing nor any moral turpitude on Dr. Blews’ part.”

In a February lawsuit, Blews claimed the CCCU breached his contract and tarnished his reputation after a CCCU press release referenced an "investigation." He asked for more than $2 million in compensation.

CT previously noted that the CCCU’s contract with Blews could be terminated for three reasons:

Action by President that is grossly immoral and felonious;

An explicit and intentional denial by President of his Christian faith;

Intentional failure by President to give best efforts to perform his responsibilities as President and Chief Executive Officer of CCCU.

In his lawsuit, Blews denied all three possible charges, but noted that the “most striking” part of the CCCU's internal investigation report was its repeated reference to his “intentional failure.”

After a biblical dispute resolution process failed to bring reconciliation, Blews filed his lawsuit the day a major CCCU conference opened. He accused the CCCU of terminating him with cause as a means of “simply trying to avoid paying Dr. Blews the payments he is contractually entitled to upon a unilateral termination without cause.”

In response to the lawsuit, the CCCU said it was "surprised and disappointed" that Blews decided to sue, and "[stood] ready to defend its decision." Three former CCCU employees described to World a “nightmarish” work culture under Blews’ presidency, where the former president would allegedly berate staff publicly and micromanage.

Blews’ lawsuit claimed the World article further damaged his reputation. He said the article was "filled with such outrageous allegations that apparently those [anonymous] sources were not willing to take responsibility for them."

After firing Blews, the CCCU named William Robinson, president emeritus of Whitworth University, as its interim leader. In July, Shirley Hoogstra, a former dean at Calvin College, was named as the next president.

CT noted when Blews was selected as CCCU president, when the CCCU fired him 10 months into the job, and when Blews sued the CCCU for $2 million in damages. CT has also reported extensively on the CCCU, higher education, and biblical mediation.

Reply All

Readers respond to the September issue via letters, tweets, and blogs.

Reply All

’Til Death Do Us Part

What a beautiful idea in Wesley Hill’s cover story: vowed siblinghood. As a lifelong celibate single, I, too, find the thought of such friendships, perhaps even including adelphopoiesis ceremonies, enormously appealing. Perhaps that would answer the persistent loneliness so many people in the church, both single and married, seem to know.

Alice Morgan Charlottesville, Virginia

In my mid 20s, I sensed a call to celibacy and to living solely for God. I finally agreed to it if God would provide intimate friends of both genders. But Christians often don’t know what to do with people like me. I’d like to have more friendships with married people. And as Kate Shellnutt commented, many people try to get all their emotional needs met by their spouse. I could never understand the idea of cutting off friends after marriage.

But I suspect that many of us lack deep friendships because we are unwilling to be open and transparent with others. We want to be strong and independent. Both result from sin. Happily, in heaven, we won’t have these issues. We won’t be thought of as being gay or weird, but can enjoy intimate friendship forever with those we couldn’t get to know here on earth.

Dan LaRue Lebanon, Pennsylvania

I Didn’t Marry My Best Friend

I appreciated Kate Shellnutt’s article on marriage and friendship. Perhaps best friend is one of those word combinations that has lost some of its power and meaning with time and overuse. To me, best has always implied one thing: that because of its quality, it stands alone. Many years ago, I asked God to give me a “best friend.” Instead the Lord, in his wisdom, gave me many wonderful friends, as well as a husband. To call any one of my friends “the best” didn’t seem quite right. As I look back, my husband wasn’t really my best friend when we married, but over time he has become the friend I count on and value above all others.

Carol Josefson Decatur, Illinois

The Midlife Church Crisis

In the Her.meneutics column, writer Michelle Van Loon fairly assesses that churches cannot neglect any age groups. But what about maturity in the life of a Christian? What about church as consumer culture—“if they don’t have what’s feeding me, I’m going to stay home”? There’s a difference between empty nesters as a mission field and Christians pulling back from church rather than leading ministry to reach the people to whom they relate and understand.

Amanda Kahle Richards Facebook

We had a similar experience to Van Loon’s when we attended a new church that had a contemporary and a traditional service. Since we attend a contemporary service at home, we decided to go to that one. On the way in, a woman in her 30s with her children and husband stopped us to say, “I think you’re in the wrong service. This is for younger people.”

I tried to explain that we attend a similar service at home. I love most contemporary Christian music. I don’t think she got what I was trying to say.

Will we return to that church? Maybe she should have said, “I think you’re in the wrong church.”

David Vohar Fredericksburg, Virginia

It’s All Gift

“The Midlife Church Crisis” irritated me. But just when my temper was ready to explode, I turned the page to “It’s All Gift.” Columnist Andrew Wilson gets it. Our work is all about the spiritual gifts that God has given us to steward. I get frustrated when I feel forced into a ministry I am not suited for, just because of the age of my family. I am equally frustrated when I know people who are gifted in certain areas of ministry, but feel that their duty is now done. It’s as if being a disciple is not a lifelong commitment. Thank you for balancing these viewpoints.

Bekki Holzkamm Hettinger, North Dakota

Open Question

In answering, “Should Christians resist greater government surveillance?” Rachael Jackson errs by writing, “Jesus, after all, was executed as a threat to the Roman government of Palestine.”

Although the Romans carried out the act, it was the Pharisees and Sadducees who consistently sent spies to follow Jesus to find reasons to persecute him. It was the chief priests and elders who urged the crowd to call for Jesus to be crucified when Pilate wanted to release him (Matt. 27:11–26). Jesus was not a threat to the Romans, but rather to the Jewish hierarchy.

Walter S. Hamerslough Professor Emeritus, La Sierra University Lafayette, Colorado

Capitalism and the Common Good

Kevin Brown’s article is in many ways admirable. However, some could easily come away with the impression that Institute for Faith, Work & Economics (IFWE) has a very simplistic (and unbiblical) view of the market.

At IFWE, we aim to analyze these issues first and foremost through the lens of Scripture. Our goal is to provide a biblical perspective on work and economics that not only shows our place in creation but acknowledges the fact that the Fall permeates reality to the deepest level.

We agree with Brown that externalities can occur, and that human interaction is subject to unintended consequences. We also say that everyone who participates in the market is fallen and capable of horrible evil. As Christians, what do we want for people who live in the poorest and most oppressed places on the planet? We want them to thrive, to wake up each morning and be able to provide for themselves and their families, and to unleash their God-given gifts on the world.

IFWE’s book For the Least of These looks on the role of markets in alleviating poverty. In addition, our book due out in 2015 will bring together essays by theologians and economists on capitalism and free trade.

Hugh Whelchel Executive Director Institute for Faith, Work & Economics McLean, Virginia

Market Matters

“Capitalism and the Common Good” and “The New Puritans” were encouraging but did not tackle the scale of change that is needed. Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the key theses on why capitalism thrived more in countries that embraced the Protestant Reformation, particularly Calvin’s version. However, toward the end of the book, he recognized that if capitalism became detached from the Christian ethos, the managers of capitalism would become “specialists without spirit” or mere ciphers of their companies without a moral compass to guide them. Growth and profit are held above the common good.

Thankfully, economists and business leaders—as well as Anglican bishops with business backgrounds—are beginning to explore a new expression of capitalism that seeks to reduce the pay differentials to more reasonable ratios between the lowest and highest paid employees. I would also like to see large businesses, as part of their corporate social responsibility, commit to giving 1 percent of profits to nonprofits working with the poor.

If every reader of CT wrote to those companies in which they or their ministry hold shares, we would begin to see change. At present, company law in both the UK and the United States only focuses on returns to shareholders and ignores responsibility to the wider community in which those companies flourish.

Communism and modern market capitalism are both dinosaurs. It’s just that one died before the other.

David Parish Work Place Associate, London Institute of Contemporary Christianity London

Net Gain

Responses from the Web.

“The cover stories on friendship in this month’s @CTmagazine are stellar. Challenging my assumptions in more ways than one.” Trevin Wax @TrevinWax

“I became a believer in 1981 at an InterVarsity meeting on a small campus. Would I have met God somewhere else if the group did not exist? Sure. However, that was a God-ordained moment.” Dennis Preston, CT online comment. The Exchange: “InterVarsity ‘Derecognized’ at California State University’s 23 Campuses,” by Ed Stetzer.

“Communists tried to wipe out Chinese Christianity and only managed to make it stronger. What you are experiencing is certainly discrimination, and I’m very sorry for that. But as you so eloquently point out, the gospel will prevail, it always does.” Bill Holston, Tishharrisonwarren.com. “The Wrong Kind of Christian,” by Tish Harrison Warren.

“Thanks @MargotStarbuck for advocating finding the right reasons for self-acceptance in this body-conscious world.” Julie Jung-Kim @JulieJungKim Her.meneutics: “Bringing Booty Back,” by Margot Starbuck.

“If you were to look at what’s been available specifically for women at the average Christian bookstore, you’d think all women are supposed to get married and start having babies as soon as they leave their teens.” Amy Beth, Facebook. “Put Down That Pink Bible,” by Sharon Hodde Miller.

Pastors

WLL: Senior VBS, “Christian” Movies, and Spared Martyrs.

Paul Wilkinson

Crawling back to links…

Leadership Journal October 8, 2014

Here are the news and opinion pieces from the past week that stood out from the rest:

Because this is Blogger Appreciation Month, you can catch Paul Wilkinson at Thinking Out Loud, Christianity 201, or @PaulW1lk1nson on Twitter.

Cover Story

InterVarsity’s Plan for a Culturally Diverse Staff

Helen Lee

The campus ministry has pioneered intentional, personalized training for Asian American leaders.

Courtesy of Kathy Khang

Kathy Khang still remembers the moment she was invited to join The Daniel Project (TDP), InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s (IVCF) first leadership development program for Asian American staff. “I was floored that IVCF wanted to invest in me as a leader—an Asian American, a woman, a mother of three young kids, a wife. Then I cried because I thought, I cannot make this happen—the travel, the logistics of childcare. It didn’t seem possible.”

Khang discussed her concerns with her then-supervisor Greg Jao. He asked Khang’s teammates, “How can we help support Kathy to accept this opportunity?” Her colleagues volunteered to cover every logistical challenge, from childcare to providing meals to transportation for Khang’s three kids to school and activities. “For the organization and my staff team to . . . invest in the longevity and development of an Asian American colleague—I realized, This is my place. These are my people,” Khang says. More than a decade later, Khang is still on staff, serving as IVCF’s regional multiethnic ministries director.

It’s this kind of intentional, personalized effort that IVCF has used to encourage Asian American employees, most notably with its TDP program. In the early 2000s, IVCF’s then-national director of Asian American Ministries, Paul Tokunaga, had been reading Jim Collins’s best-selling Good to Great, which describes the “Level 5 Leader” as an ideal archetype in “great” companies. “Those same qualities are often found in Asian American leaders—that blend of personal humility and professional will. But our Asian American staff weren’t getting the choice assignments,” Tokunaga says. “Our leadership style is different, and we don’t often promote ourselves.”

To combat the discrepancy between the rising numbers of Asian American students involved in IVCF and the limited number of Asian Americans in midlevel and senior leadership, in 2003 Tokunaga and a team of long-standing Asian American staff developed TDP. The 18-month program for a select group of 14 individuals included training, mentorship, and interactions with high-level leaders in IVCF. Tokunaga hoped both the participants and the organization would see dividends from the investment. No one could have predicted the results. “I thought that would be the only one we could do,” he says. “We never dreamed the program would take off from there. It had a life of its own.”

Of the initial cohort, 12 (including Khang) were promoted within two years of completing TDP. As participants benefited from the focused training, so InterVarsity gained new perspective on what effective leadership could look like. Nikki Toyama-Szeto is the senior director of the International Justice Mission Institute and previously directed IVCF’s Urbana missions conferences. “Leadership in a Western context is thought of as raising your hand and contributing, or volunteering for high-profile tasks. Asian Americans don’t always naturally lead in these ways,” says Toyama-Szeto, who was part of the first TDP cohort and directed its third iteration in 2011. “Many supervisors were surprised that their own staff were selected for this premier program. The project had a huge impact on changing the perception of what leadership qualities look like.”

In 2003, IVCF had only a handful of Asian Americans in mid- and senior-level leadership. Today, it has two Asian American vice presidents (including Tokunaga), three national directors (including Jao), and three regional directors. IVCF also has built up the channel of midlevel Asian American area directors. InterVarsity president Alec Hill says TDP has helped the organization recast how to develop its leadership pipeline. “Leadership development has to be intentional; it doesn’t happen well accidentally. If you want to be more inclusive of a particular group, you have to be specific.”

Daniel Projects are funded through IVCF’s capital campaign, and a percentage of the total overhead helps to support all ethnic-minority staff throughout the organization. Further, Tokunaga has helped launch Daniel Projects for black, Hispanic, and female employees, to name a few, for a total of ten projects since its inception. And as some TDP graduates are called away from campus ministry, their influence has broader implications in the church. Jennifer Ikoma-Motzko, from TDP’s first cohort, now leads as the senior pastor of Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle.

“Today, I serve as the first female senior minister of a 115-year-old Japanese and Baptist church—words that people do not normally associate with someone who looks like me in the pulpit,” says Ikoma-Motzko. “TDP gave me access to dynamic female and male senior ministry leaders, especially Asian American leaders, who encouraged me to lead.”

Joe Ho, another member of the first TDP cohort, now directs Asian American Ministries in IVCF. He says, “The Daniel Project was a watershed experience in my InterVarsity career. It has also been critical to my ability to lead effectively in church contexts. I draw on the skills and confidence I gained virtually every day.”

This article appeared in the October, 2014 issue of Christianity Today as "The Secret to IVCF's Diverse Leadership".

Culture

Working Moms, On Screen and Behind the Camera

Interview by Christine A. Scheller

Documentarian Laura Waters Hinson creates films to reflect the ultimate narrative.

Her.meneutics October 8, 2014
Laura Waters Hinson

Laura Waters Hinson is a documentary filmmaker, pastor's wife, mother, and worship leader. Her award-winning films span subjects from street vendors in Washington DC to female entrepreneurship in Rwanda.

At a summer screening of her latest film Dog Days (hosted in Fairfax, Virginia, by the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture), Hinson discussed her work and the challenges of juggling her many roles. CT followed up with Hinson to talk more about her process, her inspiration, and her faith.

https://vimeo.com/59735235

How did you get interested in filmmaking?

I got interested in film as a child. I made a lot of home movies with my best friends in the cul de sac – murder mysteries and things like that, but I never thought it would lead to anything professional. After college and a broken engagement, I made a list for myself of things I really loved doing and when I added them up, they equaled documentary film, which was weird because I'd never worked on a documentary.

What I love most is the process of storytelling. On the technical side, I love that making films is this wonderful convergence of journalism, photography, musical composition, animation, rhythmic intuitive editing, etc. On a macro-level, the stories themselves that result from the confluence of all these art forms are a way of bringing order to an often seemingly disordered world. In this way, I hope the stories I tell in film point people, in some small way, to the ultimate narrative of God's promise to re-make the whole world.

How do you go about deciding what stories you're going to tell? Do you have a sense that you're going to be making a long investment of time?

I do. I learned that with my first film, As We Forgive. I was in Rwanda in 2005, meeting people who had survived the genocide, and I began hearing stories about people who were forgiving the killers of their families as they were being released from prison. That was a moment where I felt almost like lightening was striking in my heart. I was absolutely called to that story. It was good that I felt that because it then took me about four more years until I saw it completed.

I've never had lightning strike quite like that again, but the other films that I've produced have also been projects I was not necessarily seeking out. I just happened across a story and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be worth pursuing. Dog Days was one that just happened. The main character came over for dinner. Also, I had just gotten pregnant with my first child and I needed a story that was close to home, so motherhood was a factor as well.

The film I'm directing now is about Lilias Trotter, who was Victoria-age artist turned missionary. It's been an incredible experience, but it's totally different from Dog Days, and totally different from As We Forgive. It's a historical film.

I don't have a big master plan. I just see what's next and that's really fun for me.

The only theme I can find through the films I have made … It's like I'm always wanting to tell stories that in some way promote facets of the gospel in all its beauty, but do so in a way that is winsome for a mainstream audience. Dog Days did this subtly. As We Forgive was much more overt.

You became pregnant with your first child while working on Dog Days, in which one of the main characters is a single mother doing very grueling work. How did you process that experience as you anticipated motherhood?

Women in my circles have a lot of our conversation about calling and discovering what we're gifted to do. So it was really humbling and startling to be next to these other women for whom the idea of calling and aptitudes and personality tests and all this other stuff wasn't even on their radar. They were just surviving, and they were getting up every single day and doing the most mundane hard work, alone, in the heat and in the cold, and really not complaining about it. It brought into perspective how privileged our lives are.

This is not to say we shouldn't have those conversations, but for these women who are refugees and immigrants, they were just doing whatever it took to keep their families alive.

You said you assumed you would focus primarily on childrearing once you became a mother, but that you felt compelled or called to do this creative work. Your husband is also the pastor of a thriving church. How do you juggle the responsibilities of motherhood, church ministry, and filmmaking?

How many hours do you have? It was a major crisis for me after my first son was born, because I did have these high expectations of myself to be a stay-at-home mother. I found that the first year of my son's life was a huge struggle. I was depressed. I felt like I'd lost my identity. I had studied for all these years and spent all this money on school, and now it was like, "Am I never, ever going to do any of the things I had studied and I loved?" It took me a couple years to realize that I needed to let go of that perfect image of the stay-at-home mother. I realized I was living in fear, instead of living into this person God had made me to be.

It's been a long process, but I started realizing that my profession is something I will give as a gift to my children one day and my ability to do it allows me to be a better wife, because the creative energy and passion that I have in my work, I bring to my husband, and one day I'll bring to my children. I realized that I had to give myself a break. I work weird hours — 20 hours during the day and then at night.

I'm also part of the worship team at church and now I'm on the building committee for a church plant. We're hosting people in our home. So I do feel like I balance three separate jobs. Once I realized that I could release myself from the guilt because this is something God had put in me, and had put in my heart for a reason to do, and he would make a way for me to do those things. It's a learning process all the time, but I'm much happier now in motherhood than I was in that first year.

Was it a process too with your husband?

The balance of work/motherhood/church is the perennial topic in our home, and I do have feelings of guilt over not being able to "do it all" in all three realms. But, I'm trying to let go of some of the self-judgment in it all and trust that God is in charge ultimately of my children and the people in our church, and that I don't have to meet every single need out there.

Also, my husband loves what I do and is actually a really great cinematographer. He's gone on several of my major film shoots and is always part of my editing process. In a lot of ways, if he wasn't a pastor, I think he could also be a filmmaker. It was harder in the beginning because we didn't know what the heck we were doing, after we had our first kid. We've come to a place where I feel really supported by him.

Thankfully I also have an incredible church. There are a lot of young professionals who are also having children and going back to work. And so the women of our church in particular have been supportive.

How can women be freed from the kind of parenting guilt that men don't seem to share?

My friend Carolyn McCulley has recently written a book about women and work called The Measure of Success and in it she shares a history of women working. I was really impacted by the historic reality that women have always worked and been industrious throughout the ages, and that this idea of the stay-at-home mother who spends all day focused on her children is much more modern notion.

For centuries, women have been running home economies, like the Proverbs 31 woman who purchased real estate, sold products, planted vineyards and is described as physically strong. These two perspectives, the historical and the Biblical, helped me to move past my guilt and some of the dogmatic ideas I held about being a stay-at-home mom. I realized that I was holding myself to a standard that neither my family nor God was telling me I had to do! And in fact, it was clear that God has given me a calling to make films, even while having a family. I want to be clear, though, how much respect I have for women who choose to stay at home and have a deep sense of satisfaction in that. I often wished that I was content to be at home – it would certainly make the logistics of our family's life easier!

What are you working on next?

I'm working on a film called Mama Rwanda with Kasey Kirby who co-produced Dog Days. It's a half-hour documentary about the impact women entrepreneurs are having in developing countries like Rwanda, and how women are able to reinvest in communities at a higher rate than men. It also reflects my personal interest in the concept of the working mother. We're profiling two "working mothers" who are Rwandan and really trying to make it two stories that can connect to women here. We rarely think of African women as "working mothers," but they're all working.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Christine A. Scheller is a widely published journalist and essayist, and a long-time contributor to Christianity Today. She lives with her husband at the Jersey Shore and in Washington DC, where she helps facilitate dialogue between scientific and religious communities.

This article was originally published as part of Her.Meneutics, Christianity Today's blog for women.

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