Sarah Osborn’s Dangerous Theology of Suffering

On September 15, 1744, Sarah Osborn received the worst news any parent could hear. Her eleven year old son, Samuel, was dying from tuberculosis. Sarah decided to write about her son’s death in order to discover where God was in the midst of her suffering.

Sarah Osborn was a white, evangelical, woman living in New England during the eighteenth century. Samuel was her only biological child. Sarah always regarded Samuel’s father, Samuel Wheaton, as her one true love. Samuel’s father died at sea when Samuel was a young boy. Even though Sarah remarried and became a stepmother, she clearly favored Samuel above her stepchildren.  In narrating her son’s death, she came up with two theological models to explain her suffering: suffering as the penalty for sin, and suffering as a means of grace.

Suffering as the penalty for sin understands human sin as the cause of human suffering. This theological model suggests that God is in control of suffering because God predestines the evil and suffering in the world (82). An example of this theological model from Sarah’s memoir would be the time when eight year old Sarah burned her hand in a fire because she decided to play with her doll on the Sabbath (88). Sarah believed that she suffered burns because God wanted to punish her for her sin of playing on the Sabbath.

But Samuel’s death caused her to reject suffering as the penalty for her sins, and replace it with suffering as a means of grace. This theological model sees suffering as a tangible sign of God’s love (88). When Samuel died, instead of expressing her anger, despair, and hopelessness, she calmly accepted God’s will, renewing her trust despite her suffering (152). Sarah wrote that when she felt the most alone, that was when she felt closest to God (152-153). Samuel’s death, became for her, a way to experience God’s love more deeply.

But what might we learn from Sarah Osborn’s understanding of suffering? Our biggest take away should be how not to think about suffering! It makes total sense that Sarah understood suffering as a penalty for sin, then later as a means of grace. Her views are completely orthodox in eighteenth century evangelical theology. The danger with thinking about suffering as a penalty for sin, or as a means of grace is that not all suffering is redemptive.  We are wading in theologically murky waters if we tell a grieving mother that her son died so that God could reveal God’s love to her more clearly.

So what is a better theological model to think about suffering? Let us turn to a minute to the Suffering Servant Song in Isaiah. In Isaiah 53:3, the servant was:

Despised and rejected by others;

a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;

and as one from whom others hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him of no account.

A theologically problematic reading of this passage would be to say that suffering is redemptive because it brings us closer to God, because we do not want to say that a good God has to use suffering to bring about good. A better way to read this passage is to say that God can use the suffering that already exists in the world to bring about good. This allows us to say that the redemptive nature of suffering is in the act of solidarity with those who suffer, not in the act itself.

What implications does the suffering as an act of solidarity theological model have for the church today? One helpful implication of this model is that it proposes that the best suffering is done in community. Despite the best advances in nutrition, medicine, and disease prevention, sometimes our children will die unexpectedly, the way that Samuel did. When we acknowledge that suffering is a reality of the fallen world we live in, and we as a church choose to say that in order for us to stand in solidarity with those who suffer, we need to create environments whereby people can process their suffering before God and before one another.

Church becomes, in this theological model, a place where suffers can find support for their suffering. Our job as the church is to proclaim again and again that suffering is not what God intended for his creation, and until Christ comes again, we want to stand in solidarity with those who suffer. The best way to stand in solidarity with those who suffer is to allow our church communities to become places where suffering is acknowledged and hope is proclaimed. Instead of telling women like Sarah that her son died as punishment for her sins, or as a way for her to draw closer to God, the church needs to stand with her in her grief and suffering. Standing in solidarity with those who suffer is one important way that the church can fulfill its mission to participate in the kingdom of God.

 

* This blog post is based on Catherine Brekus's Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Northern America. It was originally written for #ch49pts at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

The Church Needs a More Complicated Atticus Finch

 

Everything I learned in childhood was a lie.

That is how Jean Louise (Scout) Finch, and I feel about a hundred pages into Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee's sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird.

When we first meet Scout, she is the six year old narrator of To Kill A Mockingbird. Her father, Atticus Finch is a well respected lawyer in Maycomb, Alabama. Atticus agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Atticus gets Robinson acquitted. Even though race relations in Maycomb remain relatively the same, Scout grows up with a father she has elevated to God-like status.

Fast-forward twenty years. Scout is now twenty-six, and goes by her full name Jean Louise. Atticus is still a respectable figure at seventy-two, but he relies on the help of Hank (Jean Louise's poor childhood friend) to help him run his practice, and his sister Alexandra to look after him. Jean Louise returns to Maycomb from New York City for a two week holiday. Instead of having a pleasant time wading deep in nostalgia, Jean Louise discovers that Atticus is a member of the Maycomb citizen's council- an organization determined to maintain Negro segregation. Jean Louise becomes violently ill. Everything she learned in childhood was a lie.

I sympathize with Jean Louise. I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time when I was sixteen. Like Scout, I too thought Atticus was God. He was smart, kind, compassionate, loyal, and deeply concerned for justice. I wanted to name my future son Atticus, but since I was sixteen, I had to settle for naming my first cell phone (a silver flip phone) Atticus because it was helpful, reliable, and unassuming.

When I read that Atticus is a member of the Maycomb citizen's council, I too wanted to throw up. How could Atticus Finch be a racist?! Everything I learned in childhood was a lie. It was not until I read Jean Louise's conversation with her Uncle Jack that I realized my mistake:

... now you, Miss, born with your own conscience, somewhere along the line fastened it like a barnacle onto your father's. As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man's heart, and with a man's failings-I'll grant you it may have been hard to see, he makes so few mistakes, but he makes 'em like all of us. You were an emotional cripple, leaning on him, getting the answers from him, assuming that your answers would always be his answers (265).

Now that I have finished reading Go Set A Watchman, I believe that it is a more timely novel today then when it was written in 1957, especially in how it helps me think about the church.

Growing up, the church was my Atticus Finch. It was the place where good people went to worship a good God. It was a place untouched by racism, sexism, or violence. But as I grew up I realized that just because people go to church does not mean that they are always good. I have seen many "perfect" church families implode because of affairs, drug addiction, and unemployment. This summer, I read how nine good church- going people were gunned down in Charleston, and I read about black churches burning in the south. The church was my Atticus Finch, and Atticus was a racist. Everything I leaned in childhood was a lie.

But was it? Or had I, like Scout, created an unrealistically perfect church in my head, then tried to bolt the second the church stopped living up to my inflated expectations?

Go Set A Watchman is a timely novel in 2015 because Lee is forcing us to confront the unrealistically perfect images we had of life as children. Atticus Finch is not God and that's a good thing. We do not need Atticus to be God because we already have a savior in Jesus Christ. The church needs a more complicated Atticus Finch because it needs to be able to see itself for what it really is, not what it was fifty years ago when the Sunday School classes were packed, and the offering plate was always full. We need to stop seeing the church as a failure unable to live up to our unrealistic expectations, and ask ourselves how the Holy Spirit is moving in the midst of our complicated, imperfect congregations. For it is in these complicated, imperfect congregation that we can best hear the words of the prophet Isaiah:

For thus hath the Lord said unto me,

Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

Discerning My Call to Ministry by Living with a Family

When people first learn that I've chosen to live with a family while I attend seminary instead of living in seminary housing, most people think I'm crazy. Why would I choose to share my space with a toddler, a newborn, and two adults I'm not related to? It's a fair question, and I'd like to use this post as an opportunity to explain how God has used my living situation to help prepare me for ministry. 

But first let me give you a rundown of what a typical day is like in the McKinley-DePoe house.

It's 8am and I am running late. I gather my Hebrew textbooks, pencils, water bottle, phone, keys and toss them in my bag. As I stumble down the stairs trying to remember anything I forgot I hear, "RE-BE-KH!" Landon, my 20 month old housemate, is awake and excited that I will be joining him for breakfast. 

As I head in to the kitchen I see that Josh, his dad already made the coffee. PTL. Sustenance. I pour myself a cup, and assemble the rest of my breakfast. While I try to remember how to make cereal, Landon starts singing to me, using a whisk as a microphone. Josh, who attended seminary awhile back, asks me how my Hebrew studying is coming along. He reminds me that I'm going to do fine on my test. I finish my breakfast, giving pieces of toast to Landon, because seriously who can refuse a happy kid at 8:15 in the morning? By 8:30 I'm out the door, but not before Landon waves goodbye to me from the top of the steps. 

I then go to Hebrew, eat lunch, study, then go to work. I finish up around 5:15 and head home. 

Since today is Tuesday, Megan's (Landon's mom) parents are spending the day with us. Her parents remind me of my own grandparents and it's always a treat to have them over. We, (Me, Landon, Josh, Megan, Grandma, Grandpa, and Baby Brooke) have dinner together. Grandma tells me about her adventures with Landon playing tennis, and seeing the fire truck. Megan fills me in on Brooke's day (at almost 3 weeks old, it's mostly filled with eating, sleeping, and pooping.) I tell everyone about the new Hebrew paradigm I'm studying. 

From 6-7:30 I finish up preparing my Hebrew lessons for the next day. At 7:30 I put my books away because it's time for my favorite part of the day, holding Brooke. I like to call her my little Hebrew study break because holding her is the best stress relief. Until she realizes that I'm not mom, and therefore can't feed her. At which point I hand her back to Mom, and go finish studying before bed. 

I hope you can see from the above illustration that living with a family gives me stability and normalcy in an otherwise unstable (my schedule changes every 12 weeks) and abnormal (I spend my days reading Barth) life. As a single young woman, I have a whole new respect for marriage and family life. Watching Megan and Josh sacrifice for their children everyday calls me on to be more selfless in my work and relationships. If Megan can endure 20 hours of labor and delivery, I can get up 10 minutes earlier to unload the dishwasher. 

But, perhaps most importantly, living with a family during seminary has given me the space to discern my call to ministry. Let me explain what I mean by that. Seminary can be an incredibly lonely  place. As you start to live your life in a fishbowl, you are away from your family, your church, and your support systems. Loneliness, mixed with few safe places to be yourself, causes many people to either put off asking God what he wants to do with your call to ministry, or not asking God what he wants to do with your  ministry because you just want to finish. In living with this family, God has given me the support I need to ask him the tough questions about my vocation and future family life. While I don't have the answers to the big questions, I do know who I'm having breakfast with tomorrow morning, and that, right now, is more than enough. 

Is Christian Slavery an Oxymoron?

At the beginning of Term 2, my church history professor asked us what our fears for the course were. I said that I was scared to learn something that would challenge my assumptions, and shake my faith.

Every term God has used church history to teach me something that keeps me up at night. In Term 2, I learned that Luther was not a Marxist. This challenged me to re-think Protestantism as a biblically sanctioned way to create a new social order. I've concluded that being a Protestant does not make me a theological badass; God desires unity more than he does "right" denominations.

In Term 3, the issue that's keeping me up at night is slavery, particularly Christian slavery. As a white, Northern, middle class woman, I could not wrap my brain around Christian slavery. Until I read "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View" by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese. This article taught me how slavery fits into a Southern Christian worldview, as well as the holes in the Northern abolitionist intellectial tradition I've inherited.

What follows are the tenants of a Southern Christian worldview as told by Fox-Genovese and Genovese. Hopefully you will see that Christian slavery is more complicated than Northerners were right, and Southerners were idiots.

1. Slavery was part of a social order that allowed morally frail human beings to live together safely in a manor pleasing to God. (Genovese 218). Southern Christian slaveowners really believed that being a slaveowner was a way for them to live out their faith, because they really believed that their slaves were morally frail. They did not see slavery as a way of denying their slaves personhood, but as an act of Christian charity- a way for the strong to lead the meek for the good of society.

2. The Southern social order took on three forms: the family, the household, and the polity (community). All of these social orders were governed by relationships of superordination and subordination (Genovese 219-220). In other words, the white male served as the head of household (superordination) over his family, his estate, and in the community. This created a social hierarchy with white men at the top, followed by their subordinates: wives, children, white hired help, and slaves. As the head of the social hierarchy, white men had a responsibility to discipline, impose order and provide for the physical needs of everyone under him (Genovese 221). Genovese argues that white male heads of household did this effectively only when they did so in accordance with the entire body of laws and commandments in the Old and New Testaments (Genovese 221). And many slaveowners believed that they treated their slaves better than capitalists did free workers (Genovese 224).

3. All human institutions lay open to abuses and injustices (Genovese 222). Southern Christian Slaveowners believed that slavery is not inherently sinful, but human beings are; just because those who run the system are sinful, this does not make the entire system sinful.

4. The Bible sanctions slavery. (Genovese 223). Southerners were a people who read their Bibles, even if many of them read little else (Genovese 225), and the Bible clearly sanctions slavery. The question becomes what type of slavery does the Bible sanction? Abolitionists pointed out that the Bible says little about slavery in relation to race, so isn't the enslavement of Africans more a question of social stratificaiton and class power? (Genovese 224).

5. The South did not undergo the "feminization" of religion that the North did. (Genovese 226). This is a facinating arguement. I think Genovese means that women often spearhead social movements, a. la the abolitionist movement, prohibition, civil rights, and women's lib. But with Southern men participating in Christianity in equal measure to Southern women (Genovese 225), Christianity empasized less sentimentality (i.e treat others the way you want to be treated), and more a way to keep social order intact (Genovese 227).

While I don't agree with most of the Southerners justifications for slavery, I am fascinated by the way life and religion interact in producing worldviews. Part of the reason I cannot write slavery off as a problem for previous generations is because the ministry I inherit will always struggle with questions of how does our faith in Jesus Christ compell us to respond to the pressing social issues of the day? Slavery in America has taught me to appreciate the historical tension that shape the world I live in.

So, How's Seminary?: A Lenten Reflection

Having been on spring break for the past two weeks, I spent a lot of time catching up with my friends and family. It felt good to sleep, and have a social life again. Inevitably, once the small talk died down, they all asked the same question: So, how's seminary going? The best answer I can come up with is that seminary has given me a whole new appreciation for Lent.

Let me explain. In Matthew 4: 1-11, we get the story of Jesus' temptation before he begins his ministry. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, 'if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.' But he answered, 'It is written, "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." 

It is significant that Jesus began his ministry with a time of prayer and fasting, just as it is significant when a person responds to their call to ministry by attending seminary. People pray and fast not just to become closer to God, but to remove all the distractions that they use to to disguise everything they hate about ourselves.

When Jesus says that man does not live by bread alone, what I think he means is that bread becomes an idol not when it satisfyies our hunger, but when it makes us forget what it's like to be hungry. That is why this Lent I decided to give up Netflix. Now I don't think watching TV is a bad thing, but this fast is teaching me that I was using Netflix to numb the lonliness that creeps in an hour before bedtime. Lonliness sucks, but I can think of no better way to learn how to completely depend on God.

Like Jesus' wilderness wanderings, seminary is a time of prayer, fasting, discernment, and temptation. Unlike other graduate programs that are physically and mentally exhausting, seminary is physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting. Everyday you're forced to confront painful questions such as how can I continue to believe God is just if he allowed millions of Catholics and Protestants to die during the French Revolution? Or, if I translate this Greek preposition "eis" as "in" instead of "before" how does that change my understanding of justification by faith? These questions keep us all us at night, and explain why every seminarian I respect has a caffeine addiction.

Seminary is also a time of temptation. I had a professor once tell me that the kind of seminarian I choose to be will determine the type of pastor I will become. It's not as if the temptations to lie, cheat, flirt, or take the easy way out, doesn't exist everywhere, but it didn't feel like they held the same eternal consequences. Just as the season of Lent is uncomfortable because it forces you to see the real you, the greatest temptation in seminary is to try to fix the real you instead of letting God use the real you to bring about his kingdom.

But as I celebrate Lent, and prepare to head back to campus tomorrow, I was struck by a new reading of this timeless passage, i.e what a privilege it is to take this time to prepare myself for ministry. In a small way, seminary gives me the opportunity to participate in Jesus' wilderness wanderings for three whole years. I get to spend my days reading theology, translating Scripture, and trying to figure out how to make sense of the messy church history I will inherit. Yes I'm tempted, and yes it's uncomfortable to be poor and a little bit lonely, but I am confident that I will come out on the other end with a better sense of how the gifts and talents God gave me will serve his kingdom.

9th Annual Homestead Community Fair

[This is a re-posting of a blog post I wrote for KEYS Service Corps] 

When I learned about my service project requirement as a KEYS member, I initially set my expectations pretty low. As a part-time member serving at the Carnegie Library of Homestead, I figured I’d do a few youth lead story-times and call it a day. All this changed at the end of May when my site supervisor put in her two week’s notice. For the previous eight summers, she had organized a Community Fair in August to celebrate youth achievements during the library’s summer reading program. With her gone, there would be no celebration unless I stepped up and planned it.

As I sifted through my site supervisor’s old notes, an idea hit me. Why not provide an opportunity for the youth at my site to get involved with the planning of the fair? I decided to create a Teen Summer Reading Program for local teens interested in community service called Teen Advisory Board (TAB). During TAB meetings, I spoke with the teens about different aspects of community organizing: from identifying community assets and partnerships, to learning about budgeting, soliciting donations, and PR coverage, to brainstorming and creating the games, crafts, and table signs we used during the fair. On the day of the fair, several of the teens served with the adult volunteers to run game and craft tables.

Teen Advisory Board Meeting

Teens serving alongside Adults during Fair

While the teens were incredibly helpful, most of fair organizing fell to me. Even though organizing the fair was a lot of work, I learned so much. Where else, but as an AmeriCorps member, can a 24 year old gain such valuable professional development? Because of my service project, I now know how to write budgets, solicit donations, secure entertainment and community organizations, attract media attention, and coordinate volunteers. I’m more confident in myself both as a person, and as a leader.

The Fair itself ran smoothly. The weather was perfect. I had an amazing group of adult and youth volunteers, who surpassed my expectations. One of my volunteers had the food station set-up and ready to go before I even thought to pull the meat out of the freezer. We only had one kid accidentally swallow some bubbles. We gave the kid an extra bag of chips, and that bubbles were soon forgotten.

Bubble Snakes!

Community Organizations

Gabby Barrett, local teen musician, who performed for us for FREE!

Of everything I've done during my time with KEYS, I’m most proud of my service project. I don’t know if the Teen Advisory Board, or even the Fair, made a difference in the life of the youth I serve. But I do know that the Fair made a big difference for me personally and professionally. I’m grateful to KEYS, and to my site for trusting me with the responsibility of organizing and implementing this fair. I don’t know what the future hold, but I feel empowered to…

            Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

Henry David Thoreau 

Dealing with Disappointment: Young Adulthood for the Millennial Generation

A few weeks ago, the leadership team for the Young Adult and Graduate Student Ministry at Shadyside Presbyterian Church met to discuss what talks we wanted to give in the Fall 2013 semester. Our leadership team is a pretty typical representation of the Millennial Generation, even though most millenials hate being called typical. Millenials, or Generation Y, is the sociological term for men and women born between approximately 1982 and the early 2000s.

What are millenials? Let me describe our leadership team. We're a group of men and women ranging in age from 23-35ish. We all have undergraduate degrees in something that didn't lead to full-time employment. We're making it work with a combination of part-time jobs, graduate school courses, parents if we're lucky, and massive debt if we're not. Most of us are single. If we're married we're too broke to even think about having kids. Most of us have moved in the last year. Everyone's moved in the last three years.

Despite our issues, we're an incredibly educated and articulate bunch. Ours is the generation that spent middle school teaching ourselves how to use the internet while our parents rallied around the TV waiting for another bomb to drop. Speaking of our parents, we think they're pretty rad. We knew from infancy that we mattered, because our parents spent our entire childhoods catering to our every need. When our softball team came in sixth place in a tournament, they displayed our "thank you for participating" ribbons on the mantle with pride. 

Every moment of our childhood and adolescence was supposed to lead us to the new American Dream: a college education.We learned to internalize the lie that character no longer matters, so long as you earn a degree from a "good" school. Parents, teachers, and coaches looked the other way as AP students, and later undergraduates, exhausted from three extra-curricular activities, a part-time job, and a happening social life, slept through class, so long as they maintained their 4.5 QPA.

These cultural forces lead us back to our YA/Grad leadership team discussion of the other night. What do we believe young adults need the church to remind them of? This lead to a fascinating discussion of how to deal with the disappointment of being a 20-something in the church today.

Why are the 20s becoming such a time of disappointment in the lives of young adults? For many of us, we're experiencing the "real world" for the first time. Our employers don't care that we were president of our university's campus ministry; as the newest hire, we're going to be the ones photocopying fliers, and doing community outreach on Saturdays. We're working harder in our early 20s than we ever did in college, and we no longer have grades to quarterly reinforce the grunt work. 

We're also disappointed relationally. It's harder to make friends when you're not living withing walking distance of thousands of people like you. It's also difficult to invest in romantic relationships when you don't know where you, or your partner, will be living next year. Maintaining good relationships is an important part of identity formation, and the lack thereof is a gaping hole in the lives of most young adults. 

So how do we, as a church, support people in this new and strange state of life? Here are the three things we came up with:

1. Admit that young adulthood is a challenging state of life.
2. Work to build community as a group, and integrate that group into the life of the church.
3. Remind young adults that Jesus, and the church, loves them, even if they've screwed up.

If you're a millenial reading this, I'd be curious to hear if any of this resonates with you. What issues of our generation do you find the most compelling, or frustrating? What would you like the church to remind you of? 

-R