The image of God in the re-unification of gender

In The Journey of Desire, John Eldredge paints a very noble picture of gender differences and sexuality (Chapter 8, The Grand Affair).

From Gen 1:27 he infers that gender is the means by which God's image is born by us.

God wanted to show the world something of his [sic] strength. Is he not a great warrior? Has he not perfromed the daring rescue of his beloved? And this is why he gave us the sculpture that is man. Men bear the image of God in the dangerous yet inviting strength. Women, too, bear the image of God, but in a much different way. Is not God a being of great mystery and beauty? Is there not something tender and alluring about the essence of the Divine? And this is why he gave us the sculpture that is woman. [p. 136]

I totally agree that these aspects of masculinity and femininity find their source in God and are intertwinned in the character of God. It may be that God needed to create two genders because the richness of all those characteristics could never be expressed by a single creature.

Eldredge quotes Peter Kreeft as saying "This spiritual intercourse with God is the ecstasy hinted at in all earthly intercourse, physical or spiritual." [p. 135] Seeing sexual intercourse as a metaphor for our union with God is key to what makes sex sacred. This has made me think about a further implication: if God had to separate aspects of God's nature to express them in two genders because they could not be contained within a single gender, then the re-unification of those genders through phsyical and psychological intimacy is an even deeper indication of what God is like. The mutual knowing of each other in sex (in ideal holistic sex anyway) – the intertwining of daring and strength and beauty and allure and mystery – is even closer to the image of God than what any of us contain within our single-gendered self.

My problem with the Eldredege quote above, however, is that any attempt to classify the difference between male and female inevitably over-generalises to the detriment of both portraits. Although there are significant differences in the psychology of being male and female and consequently in the ontological categories of masculinity and femininity, defining those differences always seems to me to be unhelpfully stereotypical. Why should daring rescues not be feminine? Why can't being alluring be masculine?

And why does Eldredge continue to use pronouns that imply that the source of these rich gender differences is male? That undermines the key point he seems to be making.

God didn't tell Eve not to eat the fruit!

Greg Carey writes on the Sojourner's website:

God does not prohibit Eve from eating the fruit. God fills the garden of Eden with trees that bear fruit. Yet God sets apart one tree as forbidden. “You may freely eat of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (2:16-17, NRSV). God provides this instruction to Adam but not to Eve. She hadn’t yet been created. Eve apparently hears this news from Adam (3:2-3).

How could I have missed that???????

Eve does *not* disobey anything God told her by eating that fruit, though it is clear from her response to the serpant (3:2-3) that Adam had passed on God's words to her.

Carey also observes that at least part of Eve's reason for eating the fruit was that she sought wisdom. And if the personalification of wisdom as feminine in other parts of the Bible (e.g. Proverbs 8) is any indication, that was an admirable outcome!

Technology co-opted in support of moral progress

I have only just started to read Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled and have been challenged already to rethink the role of technology in relation to moral imperatives.

Having read Jacques Ellul, I have largely accepted the thesis that technology imposes on us a drive towards a particular kind of "progress" beyond human control. In many ways we are not the master but the slave of technology. Although Bailie's book is not directly about technology, it nevertheless presents a counter-example to this "technological imperative" view.

In the passage I am referring to, on pp 17-19, Bailie identifies what he takes to be the most significant dynamic in human history: "the gradual awakening of a concern for the plight of victims."

Bailie uses the USA's involvement in Somalia in 1992 as an example of a current crisis of culture about how to understand and respond to violence. There is, he says, "a growing inability to subordinate empathy for victims to more practical political and geopolitical concerns." That is, we were once able to use practical political concerns to justify violence, but that stance is crumbling as people become more empathetic towards victims. This underscores a moral paradox: "that efforts made to fulfill the moral imperative to aid victims ... inevitably produce victims of their own."

Of course, the purpose of Bailie's book is to find a way past that dilemma by unveiling and undermining violence. But within this context he makes a fascinating observation about the role of telecommunications. Some say that what enables this current awakening and empathy for victims is the broadcasting of images of victims. In Somalia it was the images on TV. More recently, with the "Arab Spring", many have claimed that a key role was played by Twitter and other social media.

While Bailie doesn't deny the impact of telecommunications on this cultural change, he claims that what is more significant is "the moral and spiritual impulse to put this technology to work showing the world the face of the victim. ... It is this _determination_, and not the technological instruments it employs, that is the defining impulse at the heart of what we call Western culture and, in fact the true driving force of history in our world."

It is an extraordinary claim that the determination to undermine or de-legitimise violence by showing the face of the victim is the driving force of history! (Though that needs to be understood in the light of what he means by "history".) But this is also a challenge to my thinking about the relationship between technology and society and faith, because it reasserts what Ellul rejected, namely that deep and positive anthropological change can impose its agenda on technology rather than the reverse. It is not that technology will inevitably be used to expand the power of technology. In this case, a fundamental striving of humanity has been accelerated by co-opting technology to promote the cause of unveiling violence.

Towards a non-defensive faith

In a recent conversation with me, Jim Longley contrasted the Anabaptist approach to theology and ethics to what he labelled the "defensive" approach adopted by much of the church.

My experience of Christianity supports that categorisation. The institutional church, especially the Evangelical variety, and many individuals hold a position that is profoundly defensive. It is a position that assumes we have to constantly protect ourselves from the creeping immorality of society, from doctrinal error, from financial risk, from sin and the resulting guilt, from those who are not "one of us".

I am not referring to a kind of defensiveness that contrasts with offensiveness. There are, of course, parts of the church that promote a triumphalism that declares (against what they admit is evidence to the contrary!) that the battle belongs to the Lord and that victory is assured if only we have the courage (the "faith") to attack. That very offensiveness is rooted in a war metaphor that sees the church circling the wagons to separate ourselves and "defend our way of life" against the infidels.

It's not that kind of military defence that I'm picturing, but rather a stance that holds tightly rather than releasing, that is closed rather than open, confined and isolationist rather than expansive, scared rather than embracing, rigid and controlling rather than freeing.

That is not how Jesus lived. In his relationships with others he was open, inviting, accepting. He took risks, exposed himself, dis-empowered himself, allowed himself to be vulnerable, and actively drew violence against himself.

He did those things from a position of inner confidence. Jesus knew that he had all the power of God and that is why he was able to wrap a towel around himself and wash his friends' feet (John 13:3-5). This is in stark contrast to an apologetic Christianity too scared to speak the truth, and in just as stark a contrast to the the right-wing Christian political agenda that attempts to force Christian moral requirememnts on everyone via legislation.

I invite any readers to help me to understand how this has happened. Why does so much of modern Christianity takes this defensive position?

How does that stance undermine our engagement with the world? (There's the defensive assumption again, right there! As though we were this little enclave of people who feel a need to "engage" (like a gear cog?) with the big bad world around us!)

And how would we act differently if we took on the pattern of Jesus? What if the life of Jesus was normative - the exemplar of being truly human? What if I didn't have to protect my reputation? What if I really accepted that all truth is God's truth and that I didn't need to fear or protect myself against the truth wherever it may be found? What if I allowed myself to act rashly and accepted that I will make mistakes? What if I was vulnerable and allowed myself to be hurt? What if I embraced the people around me regardless of their social or perceived moral status?

Subverting the violent interpretation of Revelation

A traditional Evangelical reading of the book of John's Revelation seems to assume that the violent God of the Old Testament, after being temporarily assuaged by Jesus' death, returns with the big guns to teach evil doers who is really the most powerful. I've never really thought about the violence inherent in that framework, and never wondered whether there could be a non-violent understanding of the book's message.

So coming across Paul Nuechterlein's Nonviolence and the Book of Revelation was an eye-opener that will take some time to ponder.

I absolutely love his comments on Revelation 5:4-7: where John looks up expecting to see the Lion of Judah -- "the hoped-for warrior who devours God's enemies" -- but instead sees the Lamb that was slain. The Lion is never mentioned again and the Lamb becomes the dominant actor, subverting the dominant human hope for divine vengeance.

"The terrifying violence that we so often face in this world is decidedly not God’s violence but the violence of empires under the deception of Satan, the dragon. And God’s defeat of that violence is not one of superior firepower, of simply having more of the same kind of violence to subdue that of the empires. No, God’s defeat of violence is to expose it through the love of the Lamb slain whose self-giving love lets itself be slaughtered by the violence, and the Lamb’s resurrection shows its power of life to be victorious. Disciples of the Lamb follow not in a hope that there would be a different kind of victory someday, a victory in which the Lamb became a Lion and devoured all its enemies. But followers of the Lamb believe that his slaughter and resurrection have already won the victory, such that we wait with endurance and hope, following in the Lamb’s loving nonviolence if we must, until the day when Satan’s violence finally becomes its own defeat, collapsing in on itself."

There is still a lot of violent imagery in Revelation that I think will be difficult to reconcile with Nuechterlein's thesis, but seeing the Girardian subversion of violence implied by this verse inspires me greatly.

Sex and Social Justice

I stumbled across an article from 2008 by Bruce Wydick titled "Sex and Social Justice". Although he makes a reasonably good case for the Christian ideal of sex within marriage, a key part of his case simply doesn't match my personal experience.

From his perspective as an economist, Wydick considers the act of sex as a type of exchange.

"Seen in the simplest of terms, women are exchanging sex for commitment, and men are exchanging commitment for sex. Based on a male and female's basic biological needs, for males the price of sex is commitment and for women the price of commitment is sex."

That's a position he leads up to rather than assumes, and he emphasises that he is not implying that women don't enjoy sex or that men do not enjoy commitment. So don't take that quote as his whole case.

Wydick draws conclusions from this position mostly for men -- which is quite appropriate given his own gender. But I can't help thinking that a female perspective on this "exchange" may be significantly different.

Anyway, he does make what I think is a good point that this "exchange" has lead to an issue of justice because the prevailing social norm over-values sex and undervalues commitment. (It strikes me that there could be an equivalent issue of justice if the reverse imbalance occurred as well, but that's perhaps not the injustice we see in modern western culture.) In that case, sex becomes "cheap" and the woman in need of commitment is ripped off.

"When a man receives sex from a woman without paying the price of commitment, he takes something for which he has not paid. Put simply, he is stealing. ... Social justice requires that men fulfill their end of the exchange."

The injustice may still occur when a woman "consents", because a wide variety of social expectations may nevertheless be acting coercively on her to force her consent.

My problem with Wydick's position is that it over-generalises on two fronts. From my personal biography, it over-generalises the gender distinction. What if one party (or both parties) value sex and commitment equally? Like many males I know, I have a deep need for connection, belonging, affirmation and for someone to stand by me for the long haul. Two people's discussions about the appropriateness of sex in their relationship can be just as often about "how can we nourish each other with both pleasure and security" as about "how much of the one must I give you in order for you to give me the other."

It also over-generalises what constitutes consent and consequently diminishes personal empowerment of choice. I agree that there is a transaction inherent in sex and there is a power dynamic in the negotiation between the two parties. That happens both within marriage as much as it does without. In a wholesome relationship there could (should?) be honest discussion about what is being exchanged and a set of shared expectations that meet both parties' needs. The needs are the not same in all cases and the relative value of physical pleasure, long term commitment and numerous other "costs" and "benefits" undermine Wydick's simple model. There may be other value in the exchange for women other than commitment, and I would prefer to fully empower a woman to make a real choice than to remove their choice by applying a generalised rule.

Four steps towards bringing business intelligence to the masses

I've been working on a project with a couple of friends to bring data analysis to a broader audience. There are many Business Intelligence (BI) tools that target large businesses and require a major investment in time, money and internal resources. Surely the power of BI doesn’t need to be limited to that context! There are literally millions of people who have data that they want to summarize and visualize in ways beyond Excel’s ability, but who don’t have the IT skills required by the BI tools we are used to. But how could the functionality of the big BI vendors be made available in an appropriate format for the rest of the world – for the average individual, community organisation, church, sports club, or small business?

1. You’d need to keep it cheap and simple. 
2. Host the system in the cloud so that the users don’t have the hassle of maintaining IT infrastructure or managing software. 
3. Start with what people know. They already know about tables of numbers and graphs – though perhaps with a confused understanding of what chart type to use when. There’s a good chance they already know about the use of color-coding to distinguish between good and bad values. Thanks to Facebook they already know about online conversations. So build the simplest tool that allows them to apply that knowledge to their existing data sets. 
4. Lead people forward over time. Build additional features into that framework so that users can easily learn as they go and gradually take advantage of more advanced types of analysis. 

The initial reaction to the release of OTUS Analytics Dashboards shows that this approach is gaining traction. All sorts of people are trying out the hosted dashboard functionality of OTUS Analytics. They can securely upload data and very quickly layout dashboards to their own design. The dashboards can display any assortment of tables, charts, color-coded performance indicators and explanatory text. It's easy to create scorecards and strategy maps. Groups of users can view the same dashboards and discuss what they see.

Being a hosted system, features can easily be added over time without requiring users to perform any upgrade re-installations. We’ve recently extended the range of chart types, added heat maps, and will soon introduce gauges.

Let me know if you'd like more info.