Last November, I presented a paper at the annual National Communication Association convention analyzing Bob Jones University’s recent statement on race based on my theory of romantic separation. I argued that rather than a standard apologia, theirs was more a code duello. My paper begins to round-out the dramatistic theory of romance. In fact, all the papers in that panel were a rounding-out of my theory of Burkean romance.

BJU’s rhetoric is more Lost Cause than we (especially Northern) 21st-century listeners might readily perceive. In their drama, God is not an active participant. He’s not even a goal that we might wish to reach someday. No, He’s he’s simply our pit bull — our vicious, Old-Testament force which will scare people back into shape for the sake of preserving that old patrician hierarchy. In sum, God god is not an actor, not an ultimate idealistic purpose, but simply the frightening and preservationist means for the socially successful.

And just this week, a new text plops into my inbox proving the same drama.

The BJU buzz this week swirled around two stories. One, Jim Berg is making a lateral move from the admin building to the seminary come July with Eric Newton taking his place as Dean of Students. Secondly, Bob Jones University finally sanctions its students to use Facebook — even on campus. The new liberty, however, comes with a set of regulations which I’ve cited below. Do you see the romantic drama that I see? Who’s the Actor in the text? What’s the Act? Where or under what conditions is s/he acting? And why? And how?

Another way of asking that is — where’s God in this? Notice that the reason for all the rules is to benefit Bob Jones University, not Christ or the Church. It all centers around BJU’s reputation and preserving that hierarchy.

Social Media Guidelines

Guidelines for Participating in Social Media

A Christian’s use of social media, like any other form of communication, can reflect positively or negatively on his Christian testimony. The guidelines below are common sense principles that will help a Christian maintain a consistent testimony when communicating with others.

• Social media are public forums; there are no private social media sites. Post only information that you are comfortable having many people, including potential future employers, read about you.
• Avoid posting personal information such as your address, phone number, etc., that could make you a target for identity theft.
• Post worthwhile information that adds value; avoid self-promotion and information of limited interest.
• Assume personal responsibility for what you post. Make sure it is accurate. Secure permission before citing another person. Respect copyright laws. Do not post proprietary information, including course syllabi, lecture notes or material on course pages. Cite references, and when you do so, acknowledge the source. Keep in mind that you are legally liable for what you post.
• Identify yourself by your real name and write in the first person. If you identify yourself as a student or faculty/staff member of BJU, be clear that you speak for yourself, not BJU. Keep in mind that what you post will reflect on BJU. As appropriate, add a disclaimer that indicates the content of your site represents your views and does not represent the opinions or positions of BJU.
• Respect your audience. Avoid abusive, slanderous, complaining, profane, irreligious, blasphemous or tale-bearing speech.
• Follow biblical principles when posting on your personal site: communications should be edifying.
• Do not post photos of children or students under 18 without prior parental permission in writing.
• Take the high ground and avoid picking fights. Do not respond to posts critical of you or the University if posting will prolong discussion. If you post information in error, be the first to correct your mistakes.
• Delay posting if you are angry or upset about an issue as this is the time when you are most likely to post information you later regret.
• If you alter a previous post, indicate that you made a modification.

Guidelines for Establishing/Maintaining a BJU Social Media Site

• BJU departments and pre-college schools wanting a social media site are to provide Internet Marketing with the goal(s) for the site, a brief three to six-month plan for how the site will be used and who will post and monitor information. Internet Marketing will launch the site, secure the handle and turn over the site to the existing department. This procedure will ensure there is a record of all “official” sites and that site names are appropriate and consistent. BJU Press departments should direct requests to Interactive Marketing.
• Official sites require time and people resources. In conjunction with setting goals, establish metrics for your site to continually measure its effectiveness. Keep in mind that effectiveness is not always measured by number of followers.
• Student groups such as the Collegian, UBA, etc., are free to establish sites as long as the faculty advisor monitors the site.
• Understand that a department site will bring negative and positive feedback; value the negative feedback and use it to improve as appropriate.
• Provide timely responses.
• In speaking on behalf of the University, be familiar with FERPA regulations and avoid disclosing personal information about a student.
• Avoid articulating positions contrary to the public position of BJU.
• Avoid using an official BJU site to endorse a cause, product or political candidate.
• Keep in mind that you may see student posts that reveal questionable activity or activity contrary to BJU student policies. Use this as an opportunity for dirtyhanded discipleship.
• Faculty and staff should limit access to personal sites during work hours to interactions with students.
• When posting photos, ensure people in the photos meet the dress code for the activity involved. Do not post photos of children or students under 18 without prior parental approval in writing.
• If a question arises you cannot answer, do not try to answer it. Find the appropriate person who can answer.
• Follow the University’s general guidelines for participating in social media.

If you’re wondering how this Greenville Syndrome works, here’s proof from a recent article, “Discipline for Discipleship,” by Greenville pastor Tony Miller from the Bob Jones University’s publication Today’s Christian Preacher, Winter 2010.

When the word discipline enters your mind, do you also think of the word disciple? These two English words come from the same Latin word: discipulus. Discipline is the process and a disciple is the intended product. Years ago in a church history class, Dr. Edward Panosian explained the threefold purpose of local church discipline. He told the seminarians that the purpose was first to remove leaven from the lump (I Corinthians 5:6-8); second, to restore the sinning brother to fellowship with God first and then to fellowship with the local church (2 Corinthians 2:5-11); and third, to teach other to fear or reverence scriptural standards (I Timothy 5:19-20). The goal of church discipline should be to bring about these three biblical objectives and produce disciples.

Our motives normally determine the manner and method in which we deal with people. In the book of Ephesians, Paul said to keep “speaking the truth in love.” Speaking truth should be done out of a motive of love and in a loving manner. Discipline requires speaking the truth. As a parent may have to discipline his or her child out of love, so the church may have to discipline a member out of love with the goal of helping that member put God first.

Undisciplined individuals are self-indulgent. The list of the fruit of the Spirit ends with ‘temperance’ or self-control. For the believer, the purpose of self-denial (by putting God first) is to become a proper disciple (Matthew 16:24).

Too many Bible-preaching churches are unwilling to obey the Lord in the steps of church discipline. However, church discipline has been ordered by the Lord for our benefit. What are these steps?

1. Private confrontation of person sin–go alone and, if necessary, repeatedly (Matthew 18:15).
2. Public confrontation of established sins, especially of church leaders (I Timothy 5:19-20). The sin, if not admitted, must be established by two or three eyewitnesses.
3. Plural collaboration–two or three witnesses (Matthew 18:16; I Timothy 5:19; 2 Corinthians 13:1).
4. Public disclosure (within the church) of personal sin if not repented. “Tell it to the church” (Matthew 18:17a).
5. Public correction (by the church) of personal or public sin if not repented. “Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican” (Matthew 18:17).
6. Treatment of the unrepentant former church member as unsaved (Matthew 18:17b).
7. Private association forbidden with unrepentant former church members (I Corinthians 5:9-12).
8. Personal reconciliation with the disciplined brother if he repents at any stage of the process (Luke 17:1-3; Matthew 18:15; 2 Corinthians 2:5-11).
9. Public restoration of a publicly repentant former member (2 Corinthians 2).
10. Progressive restoration of the repentant church member to certain biblical ministries.

The ten steps listed above need some clarification. If the sinner repents at any stage, he should be forgiven. The church should distinguish between fellowship, membership and leadership in restoring one who is forgiven. Forgiveness should be given instantaneously because God restores fellowship with the individual who asks forgiveness. He forgives for Christ’s sake, not because the sinning brother deserves it (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13).

When a church has removed an unrepentant brother from membership, it usually is better to withhold membership until he cures his wrongdoing (making restitution, telling the truth to those to whom he has lied, reconciling his marriage, gaining victory over drugs, etc.). Leadership positions might never be restored. For example, a Sunday school teacher might return to teaching God’s Word after a sufficient time has lapsed for a credible testimony to be reestablished; but a pastor who becomes sexually involved with a woman other than his wife would always be doubted in biblical preaching and counseling on the family. The majority of a pastor’s counseling time deals with family needs. Therefore, the life of a pastor or a deacon must be blameless in moral issues (“the husband of one wife”) so that family counseling and preaching can be authoritative.

If the sin is private, keep it private if the person is repentant. If the sin is public, then public confession and restoration is necessary. The sin of the incestuous man of I Corinthians 5 was public and not repented; therefore, Paul publicly rebuked and asked for removal of the leaven of this unrepentant brother (v. 7).

When a Christian sins privately against another Christian, the one sinned against is told to “go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.” The Greek for go implies continuing confrontation if necessary. Ken Sande in his book The Peacemaker says go several times alone to repent. If private confrontation does not work, two or three other church members should go with the offended brother as witnesses.

Public correction is the next step for an unrepentant church member. After repeated confrontations, unrepentant members should be removed from membership. In I Corinthians 6:1-5, Paul points out the importance of having Christians urge matters among themselves.

If the unrepentant member withdraws his membership before the church votes, a church cannot legally proceed with an official vote. However, if a second church requests from the first church a letter of release from membership for the unrepentant one, the leadership of the first church can tell the second church that the individual is not in good standing.

Paul makes it clear that we should not “keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner” (I Corinthians 5:11). Jesus said to treat an unrepentant brother who has trespassed against another Christian as a heathen man and a publican (Matthew 18:17). Obviously, though, a mate or a blood relative should relate naturally to the one who has been disciplined.

Early in one of my church pastorates, a teenage church member who admitted to immorality refused to listen to appeals calling for repentance. With brokenness we voted to remove this one from membership.

It is essential that a church have a clear constitution and that it publish clear information regarding what is required of members. Often, pastors are concerned that they will scare people away if they spell out on the front end what is expected of church members. In fact, the opposite may be true. One Sunday our church leadership asked a person in public sin to ask for forgiveness. That person stood before the church and asked for forgiveness and asserted repentance A visiting Bible student who witnessed the event came and said, “I want to become a member of this church. I have never seen this done where I come from.”

Scriptural church discipline has been ordered by the Lord for our benefit. We cannot please Him by ignoring His instruction. The steps should be followed in order and carried out in love. The desire and prayer of the church must be that the offending brother will respond positively and be restored. “If he shall hear thee, thou has gained they brother” (Matthew 18:15).

Anybody care to discern where the Bible ends and Greenville Syndrome begins? My favorite is paragraph #6.

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.”

Malachi 3:1-4

I’m told I’m wrong about this. But no matter. I’m going to make my case anyway. Even if it is wrong because I can’t stop thinking about it.

I made a phone satchel this week for my new iPhone. I have trouble keeping the phone on me, so as usual I’d solve that problem with one of my two favorite coping methods: knitting.

Knitting as a process itself is pure bliss. But to be practical about it, my favorite construction method is really felting or, rather, fulling. Felting is what you do when you make a whole piece of cloth. Fulling is what you do when you make the garment and then shrink it to size. You knit something in wool about double in every dimension and through alternate hot and cold baths, friction, and soapy water the whole thing shrinks to a completely different looking item.

Felt is one of the oldest known ways to make cloth. They discovered it by some poor schlep sticking raw wool fibers into his shoes to keep his feet warm. By the end of the day, the heat, sweat, and friction had created something more sturdy and resilient than before.

Like with these Stetson hats.

I knit the thing with just a hunch about its future purpose. More instinctive art than exact science, I imagine the approximate proportions and the general design. And just run with it, changing as I go and incorporating mistakes as . . . well, challenges.

I wish I had taken a picture of the purse, post-knitting but pre-fulling. It was pretty ugly. It looked homemade. You could see each stitch and every tucked-in yarn tail. Every flaw was as plain as day. Yet you could see a vision of its final purpose too.

Then into the wash it goes. About 6 times. Friction, soapy water, and heat turns a floppy, gargantuan purse into a tidy little wallet. The stitches disappear. The curling that inevitably happens with a knitted garment is no longer a problem. It’s resilient now — strong and durable. And, in my not-so-humble opinion, it’s much prettier.

You need the soap. The oily soap makes the wool’s fibers slippery enough to “stand up” and the friction makes them connect. When cool and dry, the fibers lock and form the felt.

The NIV translates Malachi’s words as “launderer’s soap.” But the KJV and ESV choose “fullers’ soap.” The latter image is very different than the former. From my vantage point, that Soap is not just cleaning, but strengthening. It’s not only purifying, but also perfecting. The Knitter of our bones and sinews has a end purpose in mind for His creation. We start out floppy and misshapen — a kind of Burkean burlesque. But life’s friction and heat under the Fuller’s watchful eye and, of course, with His Soap make something entirely new.

It’s redemptive.

Disclaimer: It’s not about you. Or me. I wrote this and published it in advance a week ago. So any resonance you might see is simply providential, and I’m leaving it as it stands.

This is a representative anecdote demonstrating the larger problem I’m still dancing around.

I’ve got Asperger’s Syndrome. There. I said it.

And before you proceed to pat me on the head and tell me how wrong and deluded and silly I am, just stop. I’ve heard it all even if it’s not directed at me exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I seem too “normal” to you. You know people who really have it, and they are really, really weird (like that makes me feel better!). No Aspie goes into the Humanities anyway; they are all in the hard sciences. Mm-kay. As long as you’ve got it all figured out.

The fact is that you’re not in my head. The fact is that it looks different for women than men, different for adults than children. The fact is that a lot of women don’t figure this out until their forties. The fact is that we all learn to cope in time.

What is it anyway? Well, it’s a kind of high-functioning Autism. Yeah, I know. The big-A is rather scary. But while Auties have a lot of language difficulties, Aspies do pretty well with verbal communication. It’s nonverbal communication — social cues — that Aspies completely miss. With early intervention and good teachers, an Autistic child will “grow” to be classified as Asperger’s in adulthood. Some define Aspergers as an extreme male brain, so when a woman has it, it seems like she’s just more masculine in her read on social conventions.

It’s a spectrum, you see. Part of the neurological diversity that has always existed in the human condition. You might even be “on the spectrum.” Most creative people are.

Glenn Gould was an Aspie. Some think Thomas Jefferson was. Frasier Crane. Bill Gates. Dan Akyroyd. Nearly every character on The Big Bang Theory has some variation on Aspergers. Some even call it the “Mr. Spock” syndrome. Some think that all cats have Aspergers.

What does it all mean?

It means that if I’m having a conversation with you, I can look at you intently while you’re talking but once the conversation ball is in my court, I can’t make eye contact if my life depended on it. I really can’t think when I’m looking at you — too much data.

It means that at a party, I’ll probably be playing with some stim toy while everyone’s talking. I used to have a set of stim toys on my desk to play with during long conversations.

It means that if I have to host a party and you ask me what you can bring, I will blink and stare and really have no idea what to tell you.

It means I bite my lip a lot when I’m tense.

It means that while you’re talking, I will stare at your sweater (especially a Fair Isle or an Aran) and think about those stitches. I’m listening. Really. But knitting is so fascinating. It’s like something has to occupy that part of my brain while my ears are working too.

It means that while we’re talking on the phone, I’m playing cyber-solitaire.

It means I really, really hate the phone. Hate it. I’ll answer it if I have to, but I’d rather talk face-to-face or write you a note. And the poor back-and-forth-response-time of the cell phone drives me insane because I have trouble with the nonverbal cues anyway that tell me when it’s my turn to talk. Mess with that and I practically have to take a nap after a cell phone call.

It means I’m not good with apologies. Not that I don’t want to apologize. I just don’t pick up on the cues that I’m supposed to apologize. So I either over-apologize or never apologize.

It means that I feel what you’re feeling very deeply — to an almost uncomfortable and cloying level. Conventional wisdom says that Aspies don’t feel empathy. That’s actually being proven untrue. It’s that we feel such intense empathy that we get sensory overload and we shut down.

It means that if you ask me where the pot holders are in my kitchen, it would be easier for me to show you than tell you. It’s like the task skips the verbal part of brain. It goes right from my fingers to my brain and never hits my mouth. So it’s not that I don’t want to tell you. It’s not that I’m being proprietary or selfish. I just have a really hard time spitting it out.

It means I have a hard time asking for help.

It means that if I have to buy toothpaste for Grant, I’ll never buy the right brand even though he just told me the exact description 30 minutes earlier. I don’t get verbal instructions well at all.

It means that I don’t really do well with handling the finances. I have poor executive function.

It means that I think certain colors have a smell. To the point that I plan what soap I use based on what color I’m wearing.

It means I learned to swim from a book.

It means that I really don’t like fiction. I don’t know why either. But . . . I just don’t.

It means that I am intensely interested in a few things. Really. Obsessed even. Deeply. And I’ll voraciously read everything on that topic. Nothing can stop that interest until it just dies down. It will dissipate eventually. But if you happen to ask me a question about that interest, I’ll only tentatively begin to answer because . . . well, I scare people with the obsession. I sound more like Cliff Clavin than I want to admit.

It means that I learned to read at age two.

It means that my “playing” in childhood looked more like sorting.

It means I have an inordinate attachment to things. My Barbies. My Fisher Price toys.

It means I intellectualize everything.

It means that I’m regularly exhausted from intellectualizing every interaction. That’s a lot of study! And it wears me out.

It means that I could easily live in-between my own ears.

It means I over-react or under-react. I talk too loudly or too quietly. I gesture too little or too much. I don’t read the appropriate quantity and quality of nonverbals well.

It means that I’m sensitive. Over-sensitive even. But I have a hard time expressing it, so I work very, very hard at it until I can spit it out.

It means I have really awful handwriting. My signature has degenerated into a mess. My last name looks like “Iwug.”

It means that this is exactly why I chose “public speaking” to study because learning the social cues on an intellectual level might help me cope on a personal level. That’s actually pretty typical since Aspies over-intellectualize everything. That’s also that part of the living-between-my-own-ears problem.

It means that I am bent toward solitude.

It means I like you. A lot. But sometimes you might think my nonverbals are communicating the opposite.

It means that God has neurologically wired me to be a whistle-blower. Yes, it’s true. The great-Aspie-guru Tony Attwood has surmised that all whistle-blowers are on the spectrum. We aspire to adhere to a set of values, and when those values are missed, we are genuinely disturbed. Most “neuro-typicals” are more concerned with social ties than values, and so they will ignore value-infraction in order to “be with” others. Aspies don’t. The values are more important. So we speak out. And uh . . . well, you know the rest of the story.

It means I write paragraphs like that one above to over-explain everything. I talk about myself like a textbook. That’s weird! It’s a coping mechanism. I might talk about you like that, too, and get you really annoyed.

It means I can be pretty clueless. It means that Grant has to say, “Honey! No!!” Or “Hey — stop flailing.” or “Yo! I don’t want to hear any more about that.” Oh! Okay. Didn’t realize that.

Steve Brown challenges us to ask God to show us ourselves — kiss that demon on the lips! When I picked up Tony Attwood’s “bible” on Asperger’s syndrome this summer, I was reading about that “demon.” It was all written right there. In clinical language.

And writing this all out here like this is kissing that “demon.”

I’m not alone at least. My grandmother was probably an Aspie. Others in the family too. To the point that watching an extended family dinner is kind of . . . well, comical. We Aspies sit there while the neuro-typicals carry the conversation. There’s a lot of quiet staring and stimming. Until an interest is mentioned — religion, politics, knitting, dog breeds, or (heaven forbid you unwittingly mention this) rhetoric — and BOOM! We talk! With all the passion and intensity you’d see in the House of Commons. We argue. We gesture. We speak too loudly. We scare the typicals. And then we relax. It’s like touch football for us. Aaaaaahhhhh . . . so nice. What fun.

It means also that I’ve already jabbered on too long, and I’ve bored you to tears. Aspies don’t read the social cues to quit either. So I’ll save my larger point for another post.

But for now, I’ll say this — it all means that I need you. I do. Even though solitude is natural to me, even though I may seem to be saying “I want to be alone!” I still need you.

But it also means that you need me. Even if you don’t like me very much. I’m like the heel spur on the right heel (wing) of the Body. I’m there. I’m bone of your bone. And I’m the reminder that you have been neglecting your shoes, that you need to buy a custom orthotic, and you need to put your feet up at the end of the day. And surgery to remove me will only hurt your entire foot worse. . . . No, you have to learn to live with me because ignoring me makes your cortisol level rise to uncomfortable levels. Change your habits ’cause they are killing you — stop the power walking and take up swimming.

Aren’t you glad?

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

I Corinthians 12: 21-26

I want to talk about DeWitt Jones. My teacher. My M.A. advisor. My boss for forever.

Now, I don’t know if Dr. Jones reads blogs. And I don’t want to embarrass him if he does. But I do need to gush a little. Not much. Just enough.

DeWitt Jones taught me how fun it is to read speeches by powerful dead white guys. And women. And live ones. And black ones too. He just liked civic discourse. He liked to watch how it changed stuff.

He taught me that Wade Hampton wasn’t just the name of a boulevard in Greenville.

He literally had a spring in his step the entire Reagan administration. Not because he voted for him (although he did). But because Reagan made it cool to teach speech again. Teaching Carter was such a drag with the sweaters and the fireplaces. ::yawn:: And the Malaise.

He told me that it would be good for me to study the early feminists even when some people violently scowled at the choice.

Now, DeWitt is no raving leftist in the politics department. Yes, he likes his NPR as much as the next academic. But Dr. Jones went to Louisiana to study American Public Address. He is Old School. Neo-Aristotelian. He got it hard core when studying dead white guys’ words wasn’t about the words at all. When context was king. Before all that new-fangled New Criticism messed us up (I say that good-naturedly since my academic path veered a different and “newer” direction after my M.A. with Dr. Jones).

And he distrusts political engagement. When our academic association (NCA) supported the ERA, he disengaged. He revoked his membership and never returned. His decision wouldn’t have been mine, but I understand it and respect it. He was consistent in his protests.

He showed me the Checkers speech for the first time. And explained why it was funny. . . . because of FDR’s Fala speech, of course.

And he loves FDR! But hates his policies.

Did you catch that? DeWitt Jones — that most Platonist of thinkers and most Aristotelian of critics and most sectarian of Christians and most conservative of ideologues — has enough generosity of spirit and mind to love a good speech when he hears it and still shudder at the ideology behind it.

That’s what you call a good egg.

I used to do an exercise in Freshman Speech when we’d talk about audience adaptation. I’d have a list of 5 speakers and 5 situations, and we’d imagine what would happen if . . . say, Oprah Winfrey spoke to a Kindergarten class. How would she adapt? What might she talk about? How would she speak differently than if she were talking to this college class?

The discussion was always profitable at BJU . . . until Bill Clinton became president. When I’d ask them what Bill Clinton would say if he came to talk to “this class,” they were stymied. They couldn’t fathom what this politician they detested could ever say to them.

I’m no Clinton fan, but I still find that odd. Are the boundaries between us that impermeable? Is there nothing that our political opponent could say to us as Americans that is of any value? Is being President that irrelevant?

And it doesn’t matter what the Democrats did or would do when G.W. Bush was president. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Every good fundamentalist knows that.

So it’s in the spirit of DeWitt Jones’ loving-the-speech-but hating-the-ideology that I’m going to offer some of my own discussion questions for Obama’s speech this Tuesday. The ed.gov’s suggested discussion questions are lame, and others I’ve seen . . . well, they simply miss the mark. If I were conducting a college discussion, before viewing the speech I’d ask my students:

• What have you heard about this speech?
• Why do you think people find this controversial?
• What are the consequences of that controversy? Where would that leave political discourse and the civic sphere if we followed the trajectory of that controversy?

After the speech, I’d ask:

• What are your initial thoughts?
• What are his arguments? How does he support those arguments?
• How does he make those arguments “stick”?
• What cultural archetypes, assumptions, and themes does he build on?
• How does his character, knowledge, and judgment command (or not) respect?
• What is the President’s “second persona“? That is, what kind of person or student does he assume you — the implied auditor — to be? How do you judge that person? How do his words encourage you to be (or not) that person?
• Was he convincing? Why or why not?
• Who’s the actor in the President’s speech? And the act? The scene?  The purpose of the action? The agency? Which of those did the President emphasize and was does that say about his overall view of the world?
• What grade would you give the President? Why? If you were his speech teacher, what advice would you give him for next time?
• How did your expectations match or conflict with your actual impressions of the speech? What does that say about media coverage and its influence on civic discourse?

We’ll be watching the speech at home whether or not Isaac’s teacher decides to show it in school. It’s fine if she doesn’t; I really do understand. And my questions for Isaac, to be honest, will be taken from those above. Why shouldn’t they be?

It’s not about politics per se. It’s about judgment. And there’s a long history in rhetorical scholarship about how to judge. Ancient rhetoric, after all, was simply the study of wisdom. And it’s when we’re exposed to those with whom we might disagree — those who are not-us (which includes everyone) — that we learn how to be wise.

I’m such a dork. No, really. I am. If you haven’t figured that out already. It’s okay because my parents — as lovely and as lovable as they are — are dorks too. So I come by it honestly. And they love me.

Maybe everybody’s a dork and only a few of us admit it and embrace it. . . . Yeah, that’s the one I’m going with.

I found some more proof of my dorkitude today although, to be honest, it was Junior High and everybody’s a dork in Junior High.

I found the signatures on the inside fly-leaf of my Bible.

Now, in 1980, this was the thing to do if you were a fundamentalist child (a.k.a. dork). A famous preacher/speaker came to your church (probably also a dork) and you race up afterward (very dorkily) to get his signature in your Bible.

I loved this little Bible. It was my 12th birthday present from my parents. It was red and had a snap cover. Cambridge. KJV, of course. I didn’t have a Scofield (new or old), but my parents did. Frankly, my parents had every translation known to the English and French and Polish world, but that’s why I love them too!

So look.

Stop laughing at my dorky stickers. Stickers were soooooooo I.T. in 1980. They had whole sticker stores in the mall. And that pizza one was scratch-n-sniff!

And the second page:

First, isn’t my mother’s handwriting lovely? Dad’s is too. Steve and I must be a throw-back to some primitive inscrutable scrawl.

Notice all the women I got too! Yeah for me. My silent-but-rebel mom probably encouraged that. Or my loud-and-rebel dad. Or both. My parents are gems.

But look at the first signature I got up there at the top — Beneth Peters Jones. I remember when I got that signature. She was promoting her (then) new book Beauty and the Best at a neighboring church, and, of course, I bought a copy! I remember the sweater I was wearing. I loved that sweater. It was pink fair isle that I got at American Eagle which was really cool back then (read: dorky) and not slutty like it is now (read: cool). Also let me say that while that particular sweater is long-gone, I now know exactly how they are knitted (in the round from the top down) and where you can find the math to make your own (Elizabeth Zimmerman) and that kids in British Isles learn to knit such things as they are walking around (because they have this belt that they can shove one needle in). But I’ve never actually knitted one (DORK!).

I was elated that I got her autograph that day! Really elated. She said something very polite — and she is an extremely gracious and hospitable lady — about it being new and how she liked the snap covers and all that. Bless her. Bless her for being so much a gentlewoman to a dorky 12-year-old.

Weird. All that she and I would share in the years to come but could never predict at that precise moment of my fawning dorkitude and her polite conversation. That my husband and I would travel with her husband and her to Mexico for 10 days (we were the singing side-kicks). That she would barely pass my grad project because she was uncomfortable with the topic (feminism!). That I, like her, would have a first born who was born still. And the rest, of course. . . . All the rest.

Look at those names. If those were the celebrities in my Junior High life, is it any wonder I became who I was? Several names are my pastors. Most of the others are evangelists or just guest speakers.

I got out my High School Bible too. We wear out our Bibles quickly in fundamentalism! It was smaller and not as fine but still KJV (my college Bible was so small that I had to hold it up right next to my nose to read it and it was NASV). It does have my Wordless Book bookmarks still in it because I was a CEF missionary for two summers, and I was prepared (kinda dorky). It has no signatures. I s’pose I had figured out it was a dorky thing to do.

Except for one thing is exactly the same and in the exactly same place — across from Genesis 1. From my Junior High Bible:

and in my High School Bible:

I remember why I wrote it the first time. I was told to! And I can probably take you right back there on 11-mile and Schoenherr and show you exactly where I was sitting in the front row (DORK!). Why did I think it was so important that I transferred that alone from one Bible to the next? I really don’t remember.

I’m glad that my High School self caught my Junior High mistake of “conversation” instead of “conservation” in that First Law. Whew!

Now, I know why these where there in that place — because I was a reared a Creationist through and through. Heck — I still have my Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter upstairs, the text that is most often referenced for its fallacies. I remember Science class in 7th grade. Most of our time was spent being told how wrong Carl Sagan got it on Nova the night before. It was our assignment to watch him and to deconstruct him the next day. None of us in that class will ever forget when Andrea Cloud unwittingly said the exact. wrong. thing. in response to Miss Westray’s question: “Miss Cloud. Do you agree with Mr. Sagan when he said that the Earth is billions and billions of years old?” To which Andrea shrugged, “Well, yeah. He’s on TV. So he must be right.” Oooooooh! We all felt her pain.

But I got this in Sunday School, not in Christian Day School. And uh . . . it’s curious.

The first law of thermodynamics is actually:

Energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but it can neither be created nor destroyed.

Seriously, why did my teacher leave out the first part? She got it from her pastor/husband, I’m sure. Why drop that?

And the second law of thermodynamics has to do with entropy and is best summarized as:

It is impossible for there to exist any process whose only effect is to transfer energy from a system at a low temperature to one at a higher temperature. In other words, heat flows downhill.

Creationists reason from that that everything tends toward disorder and randomness, and, thus, evolution defies that law. I’ll let the believing scientists deconstruct the fallacies in that Creationist criticism. I don’t really much care about the Science per se.

I care more about how that idea of the inevitability of disorder affects and infects the conservative Evangelical ideology. Everything and anything — if left alone — will deconstruct into chaos. At least that’s what I was taught. Work hard — very hard — and you can resist the inevitable decay. Effort can trump entropy. And if it doesn’t, if you fail, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough or right enough.

And if we get it wrong in our hoist-them-on-their-own-petard mudball we lob at Science, how could it possibly be correct in our misunderstood application of this 2nd law to the Christian life? We are so infected with this same effort-can-trump-entropy trope. We actually believe past generations’ goofs are a result of their not working hard enough or smart enough or biblical enough.

We think we’re better. But we’re just as big a dorks as we always were. Just with more and more appeals to misunderstood laws, more and more effort, more and more rigidity, more and more illusions that our way is “biblical.” So the Law of Thermodorknamics could be:

The amount of effort is directly proportional to the dorky destructiveness of that effort.

In other words, what’s your justification for this project?

Conservative Evangelicalism was a political movement with religious muscle (not a religious movement with political consequences). Of course, we can’t know for another few years or so, but it seems that when one of our (supposed) own occupied the White House and bankrupted our moral resources, the movement died.

Now there is a vacuum. Some of us have absconded for a still-ersatz Evangelical Left. Some still straddle the line as libertarians. Those who have stayed in the Religious Right continue to beat the same war drum of fear and pain. Not only is it not working, it’s hurting those that are least able to speak for themselves.

I believe that we’re at a crossroads. We’re either going to circle the wagons and continue to brandish our tomahawks at imaginary monsters while our children quietly leave us and/or the Faith (since we’ve so adeptly quilted our beliefs with our politics, rejecting the one clearly means they will have to leave the other). Or we’ll stop and try a new way. Still the Gospel way, of course, but one that isn’t stuck in the grooves we’ve worn into the prairie mud.

I don’t know what that new way looks like. I want to imagine several alternatives. But not until I understand how we got here. How I got here as a daughter of conservative Evangelicalism.

So many of my Gen-X peers have left fundamentalism. Many of the Boomers still remain (changing their name to “biblicist” or some other essentialized term) or still defend the movement from the outside. The Gen-Yers are about to leave in droves. Those of us who have left too often believe the myth that we learned in fundamentalism that the real difference between them and us is music (“worship style”) or dress or even theology, only to embrace a nearly identical ethic within neo-evangelicalism that is as fearful, as striving, as sectarian, and as contradictory.

If we really want to leave behind the excesses of fundamentalism, we have to more clearly identify what those excesses are. We can’t believe the characterization we grew up hearing. We need to look at this from a different angle, and we need to start at the beginning.

Now I don’t plan on continuing this in any orderly fashion. I have to write it out, and as an “independent scholar,” in a motley fashion. With little snips of information here. Puking up thoughts I’ve digested there. It won’t be pretty, so consider yourself warned.

I’ve gathered my texts and I’m beginning to see some themes rising to the surface. The general research areas will be:

• While the term “fundamentalist” and the movement fundamentalism has fallen into disrepute and disrepair, the rhetorical form of fundamentalism is alive and well. In other words, romantic sectarianism continues. Nothing’s changed. Oh sure, some may drink alcohol or have hip music, but the rhetoric of the Christian life is identical to the BJU expression of romantic separation.
• Essentializing terms such as “biblicist,” “biblical,” “Bible-based,” “Christ-centered,” “Gospel-centered,” “Sacred,” even “Reformed” still identify and divide and perpetuate the same drama of romantic tragedy as did the essentializing term of “fundamentalism.”
• Even while criticizing Keswick/Dispensational/Pentecostal versions of soteriology, conservative Evangelicals reserve this identical containment drama for their prescriptive discourses  for women and children. While they make fun of “decisionism” or “easy-believe-ism,” they perpetuate it in a “hard believe-ism.”
• In discourses for women, complementarianism — a theological reaction to the political threat of feminism — articulates a “second blessing” for believing women urging them to simply fulfill their “role” (a relatively recent and hardening term) as women. The exact same theologians that have rejected Keswick theology for themselves endorse it for their women. The complementarian Danvers Statement has risen to the level of a Confession.
• In discourses for parenting, punitive parenting — another theological reaction to some political threat but I’m not sure what exactly yet — has elevated spanking to a “conduit” or “means of grace” for children raised in the Faith. In other words, spanking has become not simply one tool among many, but a biblical command or, worse yet, a sacrament.
• I plan on researching the last 50 years of marriage and parenting advice in conservative Evangelicalism. On the face of it, it seems everything changed in 1970 when James Dobson published Dare to Discipline and Jay Adams published Competent to Counsel. The former was a psychologist talking in theological terms, and the latter was a rhetorician (!!) talking against psychological terms. Both were clear separatists — each shunning worldliness and pagan ways. Dobson is a Nazarene and Adams a Presbyterian (ARP), so a theological contrast appears more stark than it really is. Dobson gets so much attention due to his political aspirations, and Adams gets virtually no attention outside of a particular sliver of conservative Reformed Protestantism. But when it all comes out in the wash, they are virtually identical in their expressions (and their “descendants’ expressions) of Christian living.

I welcome any observations, contributions, criticisms, hunches, or disagreements. Save your ad hominem attacks for your own blog, forum, or dinner table, however. I’ve heard it all before anyway. It’s all old news.

Humans are human because they are conscious of living within a community. When the sense of fellowship is lost humanity is lost.

Giambattista Vico

Symmetry works for me. Not a Jeffersonian kind of decorating symmetry where the left side of your house matches the right. But a symmetry of feeling. It’s almost a smell. A color.

I felt that this week. I haven’t felt that symmetry in awhile — after all the upheaval we’ve endured. I found Monkey Joes — that white-noise-and-air-filled indoor playground over on the Motor Mile. Wednesdays are half-price. The food looks lousy. The clerks seem numb. The TV is always on the Food network which only makes the food look lousier. They have massage chairs you have pay to be nice to you. Wi-fi is free though.

The boys play hard there. Happily jumping and sliding and pretending. If you’re ever there, my children are the ones with the pool-noodle swords. They are always the children with the swords. How can a warrior — even a wee warrior — leave home without his sword?

And I read. I read so much the last two visits that I actually feel like a scholar again. I have about 50 pages of notes on that reading and an outline floating around my head for another book. It’s been bliss.

I know that I am a bit of misfit. I am the Square Peg who never fits in the round hole. And I’ve decided that despite what my previous world told me (that such oddity is probably the result of sin), this is how God made me. I’m supposed to be this way. I’m supposed to not fit. I have the gift not of making people comfortable (hospitality) but of making people uncomfortable. I’m a gadfly.

I sat at the Monkey Joes’ desk right near the action. I scattered my books across the top, got out my colored pens, and my legal pad. I had overstuffed my purse with random thoughts scrawled on post-its. And even though I was periodically interrupted by a runny nose or a lost Pooh hat, I read the whole time!

It felt just like my early months at Indiana University. I was not accepted into their Ph.D. program because my recommendation letters were “a little strange” (they were!) and because I was from an unaccredited school. While Grant was actually in a program, I was just a “continuing non-degree student” — neither fish nor fowl. Another Square Peg.

I didn’t have a study space on campus to call my own back then, so I’d sit in the Union in that beautiful limestone alcove that overlooked the Rhetorical Studies building. I had my articles and stacks of books in my overstuffed leather bag, my colored pens, and my legal pad. And I was occasionally interrupted by a friendly prof or classmate. It was bliss. Because I was doing what I knew I was plumbed to do. Nobody else knew it just yet though.

Now that I’m an “independent scholar” — another liminal fishy-fowl — it feels pretty much like it did then. Stealing moments to read and compare. Finding myself in my own head while my dearest examples of humanity spin and leap around me. This feels familiar. And very, very good.

So my idea is this: Even while Gen-X and Gen-Y fundamentalists reject the term “fundamentalism” qua fundamentalism, the separatist rhetorical forms persist in conservative Evangelicalism. Having reified the American ideal of individualism into a doctrine, these sectarians have shattered any sense of community in conservative Evangelicalism. They attempt to rebuild a notion of the community with their discourses of “biblical” living in order to woo and contain, but these attempts simply mask the egocentric and splintering rhetorical forms. They have become too individualistic to be fully human.

Or something like that. Does that irritate you? . . . Good.

If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

Socrates, The Gadfly

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason (which the pagans followed in trying to be most clever), takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, “Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labour at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves? What, should I make such a prisoner of myself? O you poor, wretched fellow, have you taken a wife? Fie, fie upon such wretchedness and bitterness! It is better to remain free and lead a peaceful. carefree life; I will become a priest or a nun and compel my children to do likewise.”

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, “O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers. or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labour, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight.”

Martin Luther

A Lite-Brite Cube sits on the counter with a half-way-finished car outline on one of the four sides. Home-made glow-in-the-dark Valentine’s window clings are in view. I’ve become very good at gluing Yoshi shoes and twisting Blendy pens. I cleaned up a big pile of Chic-Fil-A puke yesterday without anyone even noticing since I brought my trusty anti-bacterial wipes with me in my carpetbag of a purse

My purse now looks like my mother’s. Right now, it has:

• My wallet (of course!).
• Spearmint gum (my fav).
• A checkbook.
• 3 sets of keys. Three? How’d I get three? What are they for?
• About-to-expire Wendy’s Frosty coupons from Halloween. I have about 12 of them left.
• A dried-up wipe.
• 11 restaurant crayons.
• Burt’s Bees lip gloss and hand salve
• A Mario, Fire Mario, Fire Luigi, Fire Flower, Kirby, and some turtle.
• A Santa Pez dispenser and 4 packages of Pez.
• 3 Hot wheels.
• A small bottle of Equate-brand Ibuprofen.
• A Real Simple brand magnetic to-do-and-to-buy list.
• 2 Magnetic Storybooks — Disney World and Spiderman.
• A pair of chopsticks.
• A half-eaten orange Pixy Stix.
• Bubble yum wrapper. An Extra gum wrapper.
• 3 Christmas Almond M&Ms.
• 3 pennies.
• A toothpick.
• An expired Mutts coupon.
• A handmade tissue holder from my dear friend with pads in it (perfect size!).
• 2 Bath and Body Works bottles of Anti-Bacterial Hand Gel.
• Zicam.
• Grant’s antihistamine.
• 7 lipsticks.
• A Burger King happy meal toy Wii remote.
• A Bionicle elbow joint.
• A Chic-Fil-A “20 Questions” game.
• A twist tie.
• 4 pens.
• A knitted iPhone.
• A Christian Mommy inspirational/encouragement book that I started yesterday after cleaning up the puke.

Motherhood is like an Extreme Makeover. Oh sure, sure — sometimes it seems like the opposite of an Extreme Makeover — the Extreme Letting-Go that allows you to step to the front of the line for Extreme Makeovers. You know, the antidote for cool. You’ve got more Goldfish crackers on the floor of your van than you ever imagined existed. You can sing all the words to Veggie Tales songs. You’ve cultivated a deep affection for Chowder. You dream in Legos.

But your insides are made-over. You just aren’t your old self anymore. And that’s jarring. Because you thought you liked your old self. She was always on-time everywhere and always read a book all the way through in one sitting and could host smart dinner parties and she dusted every week and she had a place for everything and everything was in that place. Or so you think you remember. You haven’t slept in awhile.

It makes you come face-to-face with that tidier and slimmer (in purse and in person) previous self and ask her, “Who are you? What is wrong with you? Why are you so . . . egocentric? How do you think that you can’t get by without that much sleep? And you only have a wallet and a lipstick in your purse? Who are you?”

And then you wonder if maybe the you you are now is the lame one. Sigh. . . .

I understand that the culture told my mother’s generation a big set of lies. “You have to X-ray your child’s feet to make sure they have the right shoes.” “They must be potty-trained by 12 months!” “Feed ‘em formula. Breastmilk is unsanitary.” “If you work or get too much schooling, your womb will wither.”

Our culture tells us lies too. Big ones. I’m somewhat impervious to the mainstream culture’s lies for whatever reason. Being a separatist for 39 years has its advantages. But instead of giving the truth about mothering, I’m finding that conservative Evangelicalism at large has its own Lie it sells to mothers.

And I’m sick of it. I wanna talk it out. This is ridiculous. It seems that while the Keswidispiecostal soteriology is being dismissed by the cool and heavily marketed charismatic Calvinist sorts, that identical rhetorical form is alive and well in their literature for women. Women are told to empty themselves of themselves in order to truly be saved, in order to show others that they are saved, and in order to get their kids saved. They’ve saved the lousiest theology for the ghetto of the women’s advice books just like the drug companies saved the mercury-laden vaccines for the Third World. This junk’s gotta sell somewhere. . . .

We’ve forgotten what Luther said. We don’t parent to demonstrate the Gospel — to show those around us how beautifully we can do it all. No, we parent because it is the Gospel — because God takes us in as foundlings, lifts us up as His own, loves us even when we stink, puke, and screach, and He dresses us, carries us, and loves us.

It’s not about showing. It’s about loving. It’s not about beauty. It’s about serving the smallest and the littlest in the darkest part of the night when there’s no one is up except us and that wee one and God.

But I need to go bring in the groceries. They are out in the car. The old-me used to love to grocery-shop. The new-me hates it now. It’s so boring and overstimulating and tiring. Besides . . .  the giant generic grape jelly tried to escape and splathered its guts on the driveway. And the pickled beets gave into the peer pressure and followed. Shame. . . . they were both so, so purple.