Author: Rebecca Trotter

A mom, writer, thinker, talker, teacher, Christian and odd duck . . . www.theupsidedownworld.com
religion

A Christian Feminism

When I first started looking at the issue of women in the bible, I wasn’t attached to any particular set of ideas about women and men. As a child of our times a more egalitarian ideal made a lot of sense to me. But I also knew that we get a lot further by conforming ourselves to God’s ways than to our own ideas. I wasn’t closed off to the idea that a subordinate role for women was something I would need to make peace with.

In fact, it was trying to make peace with a subordinate role was what motivated me to study women in scriptures. I figured that if I could learn more about what God had to say and why, the idea of being under men would not be a source of pain, but would be a source of life, as all things which come from God are. Like many, many women I’ve heard from over the years, I wanted to have peace about this subject, but something deep in me kept rebelling at the idea that God had given me the role of less-than all my life.

If you read what I have written previously, you’ll see that the more I studied the matter, the more it became clear to me that using scriptures to demand that women take their place under men was an abuse of God’s word. At a bare minimum, it was blazingly clear that there is nothing in scriptures which would bar full equality between men and women. So, you can make an argument for a subordinate position for women from scripture. And you can make many, many arguments for the equality of men and women which rely not just on a few verses, but stories and themes found all through scripture. Both arguments can be made, so the real issue isn’t which on is biblical – they both are, if you just look at it a certain way. Either way is faithful to scriptures. As always, all that is left now is our own choices.

All of which still begs an important question. Why did God allow scriptures to be written in such a way that they were so easily manipulated to put women at a disadvantage? Surely God knew that this would happen and could have made things clearer – not left half His creation so vulnerable to abuse by those claiming to act in His name. Over the years I have heard from more than one young woman – usually a teen – who has just read some verse about how a woman was ritually unclean for longer with a girl child than if she had a boy child or some such. “Why does God hate me?” was the theme of those girl’s questions. Why would God allow verses that made young women think that God hates them? Continue reading “A Christian Feminism”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter11 Comments
education

The Platypus and Evolution

For people who are interested in these things, there is a fascinating article in the Washington Post about the genetic code of the platypus.  Scientists just finished mapping the odd animal’s DNA and not too surprisingly, it’s odd.  What is particularly useful about this is that scientists have been able to map segments of the platypus’ genetic code which are similar to those found in … Continue reading The Platypus and Evolution

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religion

Chapter 1: Job gets screwed

I am studying the book of Job for a bit, so I figured I would share what I am seeing as I go through it here. Please know that this is not going to be a comprehensive study of Job, and that my ideas are just my ideas. I do have some odd ideas about things but they work for me. Perhaps there will be something of use which you can take away as well.

We start with what I think is one of the most confounding parts of this book. In Chapter 1 we have Job who is an upstanding man, successful, and God fearing. And God hands him over to Satan for no discernible reason. I believe that we have so sanitized our reading of scriptures that we frequently pass over the most awful, problematic things with nary a glance. It’s like acknowledging how bad and just WRONG some parts of the stories in scriptures are poses a threat to our faith. However, if part of our faith includes a trust in a good and loving God, than part of our faith must include taking what is plainly wrong to God for an explanation. And I’m so sorry, but on its face, God handing Job over to Satan to be crushed and ruined for no reason other than to prove his faithfulness is just wrong. WRONG.

So, we dig a bit deeper and take it to God and a slightly different picture emerges. Continue reading “Chapter 1: Job gets screwed”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter6 Comments
politics

Can I just say . . .

that of all the crap which has come out of people’s mouths regarding the Wright-Obama connection, there is one which takes the cake for stupid dishonesty.  That is the claim that Obama’s relationship with Wright is particularly relevant to the conversation because we just don’t know much about Obama and we need to look for information where we can get it.  I’m surprised the people … Continue reading Can I just say . . .

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being mom, kids

Our House is a Very, Very, Very Fine House

This was the sort of week I had last week: I was helping my 3 year old do puzzles downstairs while my 22 month old, Sophia was upstairs in my room watching TV. I went to check on her and found that she had pulled open the (thankfully empty) bottom drawer on the entertainment center and pooped in it. She won’t keep her diaper on, … Continue reading Our House is a Very, Very, Very Fine House

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being mom

The reason that I blog

True story: a few nights back as I was getting ready for bed, my husband asked me, “what are you thinking about over there?” “The influence of early Christian views of women on the later status of women in the western world.” Because aren’t these the things everyone thinks about while they brush their teeth at night?  Other people’s master thesis are my night time … Continue reading The reason that I blog

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race matters

Conservative Delusions About Race, Part II

Last week I wrote a post titled “Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives” outlining several ways that mainstream conservative thinking about race is wrong. (And I am coming at this as a conservative myself, mind you.) Today, in the Washington Post, Gary MacDougal wrote a column titled “Jeremiah Wright’s Wider Toll” which is one of the worst examples another conservative misconception about race that I have seen: the “if they would just get over it, they would be successful” meme. The premise of the column is that Jeremiah Wright’s worst offense is preaching a message of racial grievance which leads to a lack of personal responsibility and effort by those stuck in inner city communities.

Now, there is a grain of truth behind the idea that an emphasis on racial barriers can create the perception that it is not worth trying because failure is inevitable. It can also contribute to an inability to overcome normal setbacks and obstacles, since their presence may well be seen as evidence of the futility of trying to attain success as an African American. However, in the hands of many conservatives this relatively small factor in the disparity of outcomes between whites and blacks becomes the entire explanation for problems in black America. The thinking is that if African Americans would just let go of their anger and resentment, stop seeing themselves as victims and take responsibility for their own actions, African Americans would experience as much success as any other group in America.

There are many problems, fallacies and illogical assumptions with this line of thinking. I’ll start with the most obvious one as demonstrated by Mr. MacDougal’s column:

Imagine getting up each morning to go to work in a society that doesn’t want you, doesn’t respect you and seeks to hold you back. Your spiritual leader has told you this, after all. . . If this is the message you got from your mentor, would you expect that you could succeed? Would you try very hard, if at all?” [emphasis mine] Continue reading “Conservative Delusions About Race, Part II”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
being mom, religion

Happy Birthday, Noah!

In a few minutes my oldest son Noah turns 13. Right now, he and his brother are in our basement with a half-dozen other boys watching a movie and playing gameboy. They were playing sword tag down there earlier and now it smells like a high school boy’s locker room. They’re at that age where they still care about Pokemon more than girls or clothes, but they’re starting to smell like men. A couple of his friend’s voices have changed and I’ve been startled more than once tonight by the sound of men talking coming up from the basement.

Tonight as I thought about my son’s entry into the teenage years, I realized that more than anything I feel amazed at where we are. At how well things have turned out. You see, 13 years ago, I was unmarried, essentially homeless, directionless and poor as all get out. I had really planned on placing him for adoption. After all, I knew the statistics. I knew that the odds of us living comfortably were lousy, of me ever getting married were worse, that the odds of him growing to manhood without falling into the traps which catch so many boys raised by single mother were not good. Everyone I knew told me this was the right thing to do. I thought it was the right thing to do.

Except one thing; I asked God and He said no. Specifically, He said, “I am giving this child to you to care for.” I remember exactly where I was: in my junk-packed little red Ford Escort on Roosevelt Road, turning left onto Lorraine on my way to meet with people who might give me a place to live. It was about 7 o’clock at night in November, dark and rainy. I had just said, “God, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” And He did. Continue reading “Happy Birthday, Noah!”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter7 Comments
religion

Is it time to reclaim liturgy?

Over at Christianity Today, there is an article by Mark Galli, the author of Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of the Christian Liturgy about the appeal of liturgy to evangelical Christians. The article is called “A Deeper Relevance”. I found his words on the church’s attempts to be “relevant” to be particularly interesting:

something more profound and paradoxical is going on in liturgy than the search for contemporary relevance. “The liturgy begins … as a real separation from the world,” writes Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann. . . It is precisely the point of the liturgy to take people out of their worlds and usher them into a strange, new world—to show them that, despite appearances, the last thing in the world they need is more of the world out of which they’ve come. The world the liturgy reveals does not seem relevant at first glance, but it turns out that the world it reveals is more real than the one we inhabit day by day.”

One of my frustrations with the church is that while there seems to be a never ending quest for relevance, we are not called to be relevant. We are called to be set apart, to live in ways which are wholly different from the world around us, to care about things which the world cares nothing for and to care very little for that which the world sees as important. Much of our quest to be relevant seems to me to be in stark contrast with the biblical instruction: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2

In practice, it can be hard to figure out what this means. Does Christian music which sounds like it could be playing on the adult contemporary station count as being conformed to this world? Continue reading “Is it time to reclaim liturgy?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
current events, politics

God Bless Peggy Noonan

I mean that really. I hope that God has and continues to bless Peggy Noonan greatly. Because she has stood in the face of the ridiculous demagoguery which has surrounded the whole Obama-Wright debacle and spoken sense where sense has not been welcomed. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan talks about her indifference to Pastor Wright’s ranting and puts it into some perspective:

I also think that if Hillary Clinton wins because of the Wright scandal, it will leave a sad taste in the mouths of many. Mr. Obama reveals many things in his books, speeches and interviews but polarity and a tropism toward the extreme are not among them. What happened with Mr. Wright should not determine the race. Mr. Obama’s stands, his ability to convince us he can make good change, his ability to be “one of us,” that great challenge for a national politician in a varied nation, should determine the race. . .

I do not feel a sense of honest anger or violation at his [Jeremiah Wrights’s] remarks, in part because I don’t think his views carry deep implications for our country. I have been watching America up close for many years – if you count a bright childhood, for half a century. I have seen, heard and respected the pain of a people who were forced to come here when they did not want to and made to live in a way that no one would want to. Who could deny them their grief or anger? I have seen radicalism and extremism, too. I have seen Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panthers, the Black National Anthem, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan. I came to see their radicalism as, putting the morality of policy based on rage aside, essentially unhelpful and impractical. It wouldn’t work as an American movement, not long-term. Hatred plays itself out, has power in the short-term but is nonsustaining in the long. America, and this is one of its glories, has a conscience to which an appeal can be made. It may take a long time, it may take centuries, but in the end we try hard to do the right thing, and everyone knows it. Hatred is a form of energy that does not fuel this machine and cannot make it run.” Continue reading “God Bless Peggy Noonan”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments