A Time to Laugh

If you caught my Ebenezer series (which ended with this final post), you’d be interested to know that the final chapter, removed from my book under threat of termination, is now published in this month’s Kenneth Burke Journal under the title, “Publish and Perish?: My Fundamentalist Education from the Inside Out.” It includes an explanation of those events leading up to that chapter’s expunging.

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

Gavin’s been having a rough time lately. I think he’s teething all this incisors and molars at once. He’s crabby. He wakes up at 5:00 am every morning. He whines a LOT. His nose runs. He’s kinda klutzy. He eats two breakfasts every morning.

And well, he reminds me of me. This is a hard time for him. He feels lousy and he’s learning and growing so much. It’s exhausting. And sometimes Daddy has to just take over (because he’s stronger) and hold him tight and say, “Gavin. Stop. Rest.”

God did that with us over the last year. He held us through our developmental disequilibrium. We might have bellowed, “NO!!!” but He just picked us up and firmly carried us through. No power of hell, no scheme of man — not even my own short-sightedness, foolishness, and total inability — can ever pluck me from His hand.

And now that it’s all over, we can assure you that there is life after fundamentalism. That sphere of influence is really very, very small, and we continue to chuckle that Christ is way bigger than a single city block!

At each step, God was there. Each monument reminds me that “the Lord has helped us thus far.” Our daughter’s death stripped away cultural clichés and showed me my Christian colleagues at their very best and God at His most loving. Praying for my oldest proved that God listens and answers prayer. His birth and babymoon taught me how much God loves me. Finding our parenting “sea legs” (despite what I had foolishly concluded as a grad student) further reminded me to listen close to the Holy Spirit and to see through my sons my own total inability and dependence on Christ. Our reading showed us a more robust and more biblical Christianity than we knew in our microculture. Publishing my dissertation was also a thrilling and unexpected (though scary) answer to prayer. Gavin’s birth reminded us that God is faithful so that we can be happy and bold in His love as we approach His throne saying “Abba Father!”

Then there are the monuments built with sharp, heavy stones. The outings, little and big. The meetings. The chapter. The document. The ultimatum. And the resignation. Each incident revealed brokenness of corporate policy, an occluded climate of communication, and a culture steeped in graceless punishment that seems as likely to continue as it ever has. As frightening as these boulder-like Ebenezers were, each was a firm hug that pulled us closer to God and pushed us further along in His plan.

But it’s not really about Grant and me or even a small segment of fundamentalism. It’s about the Church at large and a brewing Awakening, I believe. I’ve heard from so many fellow alumni and friends whom God has gently but dramatically led out of the movement. Jerry Bridges‘ recent theological transformation mirrors ours. And Michael Horton, too, urges a move from the Christless religion of distracting rules to a Christ-centered discipleship that lives out the Gospel. It’s happening.

Writing these Ebenezers have been a therapeutic Lenten exercise for me. I feel unburdened and relieved. The message that has been stuck in my gullet for years is out. It’s done. No need to save it to a CD-ROM either. I’m not moving it.

If I were to describe this argument within the theory I built in my book — the notion of a romantic separatist rhetoric — I’d probably say that I was the friend that dared to talk about the debutante’s beauty treatments. The henna rinses, the tummy tucks, the tattooed eyeliner — things that were not natural but were desperate attempts to prop up a fading beauty.

Take the cover art, for instance. It’s Edwin Long‘s Vashti. I know that after Campaign 2000, Bob Jones University felt very much like Vashti did when the King wanted her to traipse before his drunken guests. While her ladies-in-waiting are pleading with her to just buck up and go out there and do her duty, she pulls her shawl tight to her chest and trembles. But she won’t budge.

Vashti was stuck. It was either strip or hide, she thought, and she chose hide. We know that neither was the best option. The best option came from a plucky but God-fearing gate guard and his cousin, an unlikely Jewess princess who saw God in every interaction. With boldness, Esther defied convention and propriety and spoke plainly. She stood up to injustice. When the courtly customs threatened her life if she didn’t hush, she dared to speak.

Although I was stopped at every turn, what I wanted to say to fundamentalists in my book is that their beauty isn’t in them at all or in their products or productions. Their spiritual success isn’t stuck between their own purity and the world’s debauchery. As believers, our beauty is wholly in Christ. And that’s not just a cliché; I’m trying to describe it in the most unclichéd way I know how. It seems to me that everything the Lord has brought my family through — from our time at Indiana University to the birth of our children to our forced resignations from Bob Jones University — has pushed us to saying that very thing. Our whole story proves that God (not us!) can take the ugliest and saddest things and make them beautiful and joyful.

You talk to anyone who has left fundamentalism — and many of you have written me and called me to share your similar experiences — and the transition is very much the same. It’s tough. You lose most of your friends from your previous life. You know that people are concluding the worst about you (and a few are brazen enough to tell you how thoroughly terrible you are). People pass unproven supposition around as fact. You hear about how everything you touched is treated like evidence in a “crime scene.” You get paranoid. You get official letters describing the ongoing punishment that your once-friends are now documenting in their files. And your precious family gets the brunt of the stress those letters cause. You feel the icy chill from those you used to laugh with and cry with and pray with.

And then, after all that, you’re told to keep your mouth shut about it. If you do talk, all sorts of spiritual calamity will fall upon you, they say. You can only bring problems up privately, you’re told, even though you did — to no effect. No examples exist in Scripture of speaking out against injustice, you’re told. . . . what Bible are they reading?

I realize now that those demands for us to “shut up!” are really no different than those who say “Aren’t you over that by now?” to moms of babies in Heaven. There’s a fear of big, sad feelings. There’s a fatigue in hearing the same old thing. And there’s the dread of being jinxed if you hear it too much. But those of us in the middle of hardship need to work through these big feelings. It’s a mourning process, and shutting up guarantees you’d get stuck in crippling denial or embittering anger. No, I needed this expression of sadness to move me to the Acceptance stage.

And I believe the Body needs it too. These sort of injustices hurt the Body of Christ both extrinsically and intrinsically. We enable the abusers by refusing to name their sin for what it is. And refusing to plainly unmask our pain before the Body, we victimize those around us who are hurting too. Is the problem that we shouldn’t talk about it or that we don’t know how?

I’ve since learned that the sort of ultimatum we were given is par for the course at BJU. A seminary faculty member received a similar ultimatum just before ours for speaking positively about the English Standard Version in class. I sat near some other former colleagues in church and remembered that in recent years they, too, had been told to shut up or get out. I wanted to cry. That’s a horrible way to run any business, especially with Christian brothers and sisters. And it’s pure tragedy — desperate attempts to purge unruly elements and reach perfection.

I think about my friends who did these tragic things to me personally, and I must repeat to myself that they are stuck like I was and sometimes still am. They don’t know anything but tragedy, and even their reading of Scripture reifies that Gospel-less view. The reason they insisted I hush is because, whether consciously or not, they believe their veneer is a righteousness that must be preserved at all cost. I know that no matter how they much they insist, strive, lash out, primp, clam up, white-wash, and tantrum, that’s not where their Hope lies. I know who they are because I know Whose they are. The system is bad, but in Christ God’s people are good. I tried in this telling to peel off that veneer in a way that still leaves them and me safe and together in Christ alone.

Although it may look very different than it does in tragedy, comedy still allows for critique. Grant always stops me here and says, “Speak that plain.” In tragedy, we kill off our evil enemies or ourselves in order to purge our own sins and reach an ordered perfection. We silence, punish, expunge — all variations on “killing” — so that we can feel secure in our propped-up purity. Of course that fails (both Kenneth Burke and Romans tell us it will!), and we start it all over again. Comedy is different. It’s not a postmodern, warm-and-fuzzy, “can’t-we-all-just-get-along,” mindless tolerance. Neither is it a “smile-at-all-costs” feigned ignorance. No, in comedy, our enemies are not evil, but mistaken. They need to be taught rather than punished. Their faults reveal our own shortcomings.

I wrote that book trying to expand and document Kenneth Burke’s notion of comedy. I always sensed that only Christ could bring a lost and dying world to a comic mindset, but I didn’t know how to say it all. That’s the chief argument in the unpublished chapter. Every one of these Ebenezers accentuated that point. Every one has tested, expanded, and nuanced that expression of comedy. When Elise died, I heard other parents of stillborns talk about how their children were “too good for this world, so God took them.” And I knew that was wrong. That was Burkean tragedy. Unwittingly, of course, those parents were describing their children’s deaths as a vicarious and purgative sacrifice for our messed-up selves and our miserable world. I kept wrestling in prayer: “God, how do I make this into a comedy. . . . giving birth to a child I’ll never see smile in this lifetime?”

When we studied how to parent our sons, I was struck again with how many of these conservative Evangelical gurus were actually arguing that spanking purges sin from our children! Pearl says it, Ezzo says it, and even Tedd Tripp (who really should know better) says it. I knew that couldn’t be. That was enacting tragedy in the home. That was a Gospel-less, works-based, man-centered focus. Christ was the ultimate sacrifice and the end of sacrifices. Christ is the Hero, the Ultimate Comedian! And while Burke imagines the shadows of the idea, his agnosticism prevents him from really running with it.

And you’ve seen many blog posts about that very thing. My daughter didn’t die to cleanse me of my guilt. Christ’s grace transforms tragedy into victory. Just like God took dirt and made it a living soul. . . . just like He takes a sinner dead in trespasses and sins and makes her a joint-heir with Christ. . . . just like Christ conquered death and sin in the resurrection, God took Elise’s death and transformed it into something beautiful. That’s what I prayed for way back when. That’s what this whole story is — the beautiful thing that God made in the midst of some very difficult times.

Throughout this last year, however, I would actually laugh out loud at these Ebenezers and pray, “Okay, God. You’re really making me run with this, aren’t you? Okay. . . . how do you act like a comedian when you’re the counter-agent (a.k.a. scapegoat or villain) in someone else’s tragedy?” In other words, when you’re being abused, where’s the Gospel then? It’s most certainly not in rolling over and sacrificing yourself because that’s another kind of tragedy! I’ve talked about it a little bit, and there’ll be more to come. More that couldn’t have been said without saying all this first.

That is why I had to say it all. Because I know that the living out the Gospel changes every interaction — even when someone is scapegoating you.

These posts are not passive or cynical. I’m working very hard to be a comic critic in these Ebenezers. I’ve discussed only those interactions that reveal official policy and formal organizational communication. The interpersonal, private stuff is not here. I’ve tried to be true to the Holy Spirit, to myself, and to those fellow Christians who, even though they hurt me, are deeply wounded too. They don’t see it. I didn’t either when I was where they are. And I know what the reaction will be from those in my previous life. I’ve already been called “petty,” “silly,” and clearly “unsaved.” Interestingly enough, the comments to my “The Ezz and I” post reflect the response on a small scale: misreading the texts involved, misunderstanding my point, denial, blaming, and top-down put-downs. Neither group can see themselves as separate from the system, and that’s tragic.

These posts, too, should put to rest those accusations that we didn’t go to the people involved. We did. At every turn. Often. And it didn’t change a thing. The message from the system was still the same — “Shut up!” Where do you go to confront a bad system? So many people are hurt and even driven from God by the abuse that passes for spirituality. And those who stay are driven to silence. No more. It’s not that we should stop talking about the problem; it’s that we should talk in order to stop the problem. And we must talk in a way that foregrounds the Gospel — in truth, in love, and with a clear understanding that we are dependent on Christ’s completed redemptive work.

I’m still wrestling with how to describe the Gospel as Comedy within a rhetorical idiom. I’m not saying that I always did it right, and I am sorry for the tragedy I participated in. I was wrong . . . often. But by telling this story completely and publicly, by reflecting the feelings that tragedy induces, by remembering that even the agent of tragedy is himself mired and mistaken, by seeing myself in other’s tragic actions, by critiquing with hope for change, I believe that imagining a rhetorical theory of the Gospel is possible.

So Purim — that celebration that remembers God’s working through Esther to save her people caught in a corrupt, abusive system — has just begun here on March 20, 2008 at 7:41 pm. Esther is a favorite among rhetoricians (believing and otherwise), and our best reminder that God acts in often unobtrusive ways — but He does always act! We’ll be making Hamantaschen to celebrate today and maybe you’ll join us. And while we’re folding those pastries to look like Haman’s hat, I’ll be telling my sons (and myself) about Esther’s brave and outspoken confidence in God. What would happen if we all acted like Esther — resisting tragedy and living out the Gospel? How would God use our words that were true, full-of-grace, bold, and comic? I’m eager to see how God can transform our aching, forced, stuck, trembling, Spirit-ignoring silences into something that robustly and truthfully praises Him. Stay tuned. . . .

Glory to God, whose sovereign grace
Hath animated senseless stones;
Called us to stand before His face,
And raised us into Abraham’s sons!

The people that in darkness lay,
In sin and error’s deadly shade,
Have seen a glorious gospel day,
In Jesus’ lovely face displayed.

Thou only, Lord, the work hast done,
And bared Thine arm in all our sight;
Hast made the reprobates Thine own,
And claimed the outcasts as Thy right.

Thy single arm, almighty Lord,
To us the great salvation brought,
Thy Word, Thy all-creating Word,
That spake at first the world from naught.

For this the saints lift up their voice,
And ceaseless praise to Thee is giv’n;
For this the hosts above rejoice,
We raise the happiness of Heav’n.

For this, no longer sons of night,
To Thee our thankful hearts we give;
To Thee, who called us into light,
To Thee we die, to Thee we live.

Suffice that for the season past
Hell’s horrid language filled our tongues,
We all Thy words behind us cast,
And lewdly sang the drunkard’s songs.

But, O the power of grace divine!
In hymns we now our voices raise,
Loudly in strange hosannas join,
And blasphemies are turned to praise!

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you, he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea….”

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he–quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

It all started when . . . in a push to build mentoring relationships and in a series of Management Sessions in the Fall, 2005, we were exhorted to share with our students and colleagues what God was doing in our lives.

It all started when . . . in a Faculty Meeting in Spring, 2006, we were urged to come to the new administration with any suggestions we might have. I nudged Grant at that time and grinned, “There it is. There’s our opportunity.”

It all started when . . . I believed both those things — that they wanted us to talk horizontally about God’s work in our lives and they wanted us to talk vertically up the org chart about suggestions we had to bring the school back to its moorings.

God was still working in all that — in my naive optimism and their less-than-sincere exhortations. And when God works, it’s always good even if it is unsafe for systems, prejudices, organizations, and powers. And even if it feels unsafe for all of us wrapped in His arms, I have to keep reminding myself that God is good. Always.

In December, I signed the contract for Baylor to publish my dissertation. I had prayed about it. A lot. And I knew it was a good thing and a chance of a lifetime. I knew that it was good thing for a school seeking accreditation to actually have some peer-reviewed published scholars on the faculty. I knew that I’d kick myself if I dropped the ball — especially after only an idle threat from someone who hadn’t read it. If it’s publish and perish, so be it!

Now, in case you’re wondering and as a matter of record, I did talk to the author of the book personally — the book that was the subject of my still-in-process chapter as of the October 16 meeting. I shared my concerns in a very casual fashion in the Summer of 2005. I don’t believe he remembers. Another colleague, in order to stimulate discussion, emailed my blog post on the subject to a group which included the author. The author emailed me personally saying, “You don’t really understand all the issues involved, and I hope you don’t share this with the students.” So even though I had no idea way back when that this would blossom into a full-blown chapter, open discussion was just not an option. That was clear. I was dismissed as uninformed and told to be silent. But . . . it’s my academic research. Why should I be quiet about that? Talking about research is how you improve it.

And long before signing any contract, I did communicate a “down and dirty” version of that chapter to the Powers that Be in March 2006 just before Gavin was born. It was much more pointed than the academic critique. My IU professors taught me well that the best rhetorical criticism is self-criticism. And if I didn’t actually submit that chapter or if I changed its purpose or focus, I wanted those concerns at the very least to be heard internally. My email was met with a very cordial and agreeable response. It seemed to me that we agreed. I even saw some subtle changes in focus during In-service that Fall, and one of my superiors asked me for a bibliography on the subject so that he could educate himself. I’m not kidding!! All was well.

But after that October Doomsday meeting, I was no longer the go-to-gal on such matters. That email to the Powers that Be was also discussed at length in that meeting, and I was again told how wrong I was: how I didn’t know my religious history (uh. . . . a Ph.D. minor in Religious Studies isn’t enough?), how I only studied religion at a secular school (What? I took 8 semesters at BJU just like the rest of us in this room!), and how I was just plain ignorant. Mind you, just a few months earlier, the leader of that meeting was coming to me for advice on how to inform himself. But something happened between the beginning of September and October 16th, and I was now considered dangerously ignorant.

And by February, I was getting some really icky vibes from those higher on the food chain. It was weird. Grant actually approached someone on his side of the building to ask if there was some move to edge me out. “We’re a team! You get both or neither of us!” he said. His contact understood but had heard nothing.

The vibes were so strong that I took the bull by the horns. I sent my more-edited-and-now-nearly-final manuscript to a friend who was as high up the corporate ladder as I had influence. He agreed to read it, and I knew he would.

We met on February 16. He was very much a gentleman, and he treated me as a friend and a peer. He offered some constructive criticism overall which I was glad to have (scholars thrive on that). It was a good meeting, and I still appreciate his tone and his time.

But. . . . (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) There was the matter of that last chapter — the one I added after my dissertation defense. In sum, he said:

1) “There’s a different tone to that chapter.” Well, yeah. . . . I was all sweetness and light before. I’m kind of more pointed and, to be honest, more critical. So yeah. . . .

2) “We can’t have faculty criticizing ______’s theology.” Now, I objected to this one. I said, “I am not criticizing his theology. I have no room to criticize theology. That’s not my schtick. I’m criticizing his rhetoric. That’s what I do!” His response, “People won’t know the difference.” Okay. . . . maybe. But . . . so? I’m an academic. It’s not like I’m writing for the Times. This is really dull stuff.

3) “You’re misunderstanding him. You need to talk to him.” I had. By this point, on two occasions. Intellectual dialogue about rhetorical nuance was not going to happen. We tried. And while I am an advocate of empathetic criticism, I’m not beholden to the approval of the rhetor. That’s just not the way it works in any critical method. And I appreciate that the author may not intend to say what he is saying, but I don’t have access to that. No rhetorical critic has access to intention (if you want to really discuss it, we rhetoricians would argue that even the producer of rhetoric may not know his own intentions. We don’t really care about intentions. That’s for a rhetor’s therapist, not for the critic.). We only have words (do we have to check with Lincoln before critiquing his “Gettysburg Address”?). But why all the defensiveness over this guy’s writing? It’s a public offering; it should be able to withstand scrutiny. That’s the way it works! If the organization really wants to enter the academic fray — if fundamentalists really want to make scholars like they claim — then let’s do it!

Besides, I critique all sorts of people in the book. And none of them are upset. Why all the hullabaloo over this? Reminds me of another bad reaction to academic research from a closed community.

And I’m still baffled by the insistence that I keep my opinions to myself. We criticize other believer’s ideas all the time — John R. Rice, John MacArthur, John Piper are just a few that come to mind. The Body can improve with those criticisms because we all learn better how to edify each other. Iron sharpens iron. So . . . again, what’s the problem?

4) “He’s not speaking for the University. These are his own words, not the school’s.” Uh. . . . does he know that? Seriously though, I didn’t speak up about this at the time. But uh . . . the University publishes his book. The Bible faculty edit and endorse it. Students are required to read it at many crossroads. And it doesn’t speak for the University? I think that’s like some recent endorsements that don’t speak for the University either.

Also notice that while I, as a lone faculty member, do speak for the university in my critique, the author of the book does not. The more I hear this argumentative trope, the more I realize that it really is an avoidance strategy — anything to avoid the scrutiny of the customers.

5) And lastly, “If you publish this last chapter, you will be fired.”

There it was. Well, at least this guy was blunt and to-the-point with me. That was a relief.

I said, “Okay. I appreciate your being honest with me. My real purpose in that chapter is to take Kenneth Burke to task. I think he gets it wrong, and I really want to talk about that.”

He responded with, “Well, he’s an agnostic, so, of course, he’s wrong.”

I ignored that comment because it was missing the whole point. “I’m not devoted to that particular representative anecdote to reveal Burke’s mistakes. Do you have any other ideas for BJU texts?”

We brainstormed a little, but my friend seemed somewhat reluctant. To me, he seemed to simply want to press the point that nothing had changed rhetorically for the organization. I knew that wasn’t the case since I had studied it intimately, and there were plainly not the same outreaches generated as there were prior to Campaign 2000. I understood then and now that it was very important to him as a member of the new administration that everything was the same as before.

I finally said, “Okay — if I can get that last chapter out, the rest is okay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. I will go call the publisher right now. And I will contact you as soon as I know something.”

I did have a fleeting thought at this point that made me chortle inside: “Do you really want me . . . uh, independent?”

So I called the publisher. I was scared to death. I hate phones and I hate asking for favors. I braced myself for another brow-beating. Sigh. . . . But God took over. Here was this man down in Texas who didn’t know me in the least, and, I tell you, he treated me just like a Christian sister. I needed that. He put down his more official, professional tone and said, “Camille. . . . let me tell you. I’ve been there. Take my advice — don’t cross ‘em. I remember being in a similar situation years ago, and I’ll never forget a man poking his boney finger in my chest and saying, ‘We will destroy you!’ It’s not worth it, Camille. It’s not. You and I know that you’ve written something with integrity. It’s a good thing. And it can still be good without that last chapter. It’s okay. We can take it out. It’ll delay things a little, but it’s okay. . . . I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Marty and I were just talking the other day about you and I said, ‘Does she really belong there?’”

I laughed. But surely it wasn’t as bad as all that, right? Nah. . . . that was his story. That’s not my story. These are still my buddies, right? This is still my home.

::crickets chirping::

Hello?

I did decide to drop the chapter. I assumed that those who needed to read it had already read it. Now I’m thinking that it will be the basis for another whole book.

Well . . . I’ve kind of been a tease about this, haven’t I? Okay. I won’t build it up any further. You can read it for yourself. Here’s the chapter: “Just Two Choices on the Shelf: Growing Grace or Killing Self.”