Falling Upward by Richard Rohr

The Invitation to a Further Journey

"Many, if not most, people and institutions remain stymied in the preoccupations of the first half of life." This looks like
~"establishing their personal (or superior) identity"
~"creating various boundary markers for themselves"
~"seeking security"
~"perhaps linking to what seems like significant people of projects" (vii)

"But, in my opinion, this first-half-of-life task is no more than finding the starting gate" (viii).

Desmond Tutu: "We are only the light bulbs, Richard, and our job is just to remain screwed in" (ix).

True Self: "the larger and foundational self that we are in God"... not "the small self or the psychological self" (169).

"God gives our soul, our deepest identity, our True Self" (ix).

"Our unique little bit of heaven is installed by the Manufacturer within the product, at the beginning! We are given a span of years to discover it, to choose it, and to live our destiny to the full. If we do not, our True self will never be offered again, in our own unique form--which is perhaps why almost all religious traditions present the matter with utterly charged words like 'heaven' and 'hell'" (ix).

So finding our true self=heaven?? If so, it seems we attain it at our own effort. God has given it, but it is up to us to uncover it.

"All we can give back and all God wants from any of us is to humbly and proudly return the product that we have been given--which is ourselves!" (x) (Similar wording to Micah 6:8, very different message!)

"True religion is always a deep intuition that we are already participating in something very good, in spite of our best efforts to deny it or avoid it" (x). (Again, shockingly similar language to biblical language of James 1:27, but the message is just so not that. I think the essence of Rohr's message can have some value, but I wish he would not equate it with faith. The two can inform one another, but I wish he would make it obvious that one can be a heaven-bound believer, due to their faith in Christ's work, without ever taking this journey, and that it is also possible to go on this journey without ever coming to faith. They are different. Obviously I think one is more important. But I still think the other is important, I just wish he wasn't being so heretical about it.)

"You are already in the eternal flow that Christians would call the divine life of the Trinity." "There is nothing to join, only something to recognize, suffer, and enjoy as a participant." So we're all already a part of it, and not we are called to participate? A lot of what Rohr is saying I just don't even understand, aside from trying to fit into a Christian framework, which I recognize I shouldn't do despite his insistence on labeling it as such. Maybe it's because I'm a novice mystic, but it just sounds so poetic it's nonsensical. Hopefully I'll understand better...

Introduction:
"There is much evidence on several levels that there are at least two major tasks to human life. The first task is to build a strong 'container' or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold" (xiii).

"We are a 'first-half-of-life culture,' largely concerned about surviving successfully" (xiii).  "But it takes longer to discover the 'task within the task,' as I like to call it: what we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing" (xiv).

eros- life energy
thanatos- negative energy

"We actually respond to one another's energy more than to people's exact words or actions...What we all desire and need from one another, of course, is that life energy called eros!" (xiv).

"This is surely what Jesus meant when he said that you could tell a good tree from a bad one 'by its fruits' (Matthew 7:20). Inside of life energy, a group or family will be productive and energetic; inside of death energy there will be gossip, cynicism, and mistrust hiding behind every interaction. Yet you usually cannot precisely put your finger on what is happening. That is second-half-of-life wisdom, or what Paul calls 'the discerning of the spirits' (1 Corinthians 12:10). Perhaps this book can be a school for such discernment and wisdom. That is surely my hope" (xv). LORD HAVE MERCY, is this really his theology? Does he  study these Scriptures he takes wildly out of context? In this discussion of the spirits, where is the Person of the Holy Spirit?

"It is when we begin to pay attention, and seek integrity precisely in the task within the task that we begin to move from the first to the second half of our own lives. Integrity largely has to do with purifying our intentions and a growing honesty about our actual motives. It is hard work. Most often don't pay attention to that inner task until we have some kind of fall or failure in our outer tasks" (xv). Okay, I'm squinting my eyes a little less now. This makes some sense. When we are young, we are focused on rule following and frameworks, indeed we need them to begin to grow. As we grow older we can get to nuance and the heart of the matter, and integration. I relate to this in regards to my journey of faith, going from what others told me the Bible said to figuring out a theology of the entire Bible, and seeing how it can still be true in light of different perspectives, etc. I think many go through this kind of journey.

"My observations tell me that if we can clarify the common sequencing, staging, and direction of life's arc a bit more, many practical questions and dilemmas will be resolved" (xv).

"None of us go into our spiritual maturity completely of our own accord, or by a totally free choice. We are led by Mystery...setting out is always a leap of faith, a risk..." We "set out from the known and the familiar to take on a further journey" (xvii).

"The soul has many secrets. they are only revealed to those who want them, and are never completely forced upon us" (xviii).

"One of the best-kept secrets, and yet one hidden in plain sight, is that the way up is the way down. Or, if you prefer, the way down is the way up" (xviii). Examples: "Dr. Faust has to sell his soul to the devil to achieve power and knowledge; Sleeping Beauty must sleep for a hundred years before she can receive the prince's kiss. In Scripture, we see that the wrestling and wounding of Jacob are necessary for Jacob to become Israel (Genesis 32:26-32), and the death and resurrection of Jesus are necessary to create Christianity" (xix). "This, of course, was Scott Peck's major insight in his best-selling book, The Road Less Traveled. He told me personally once that he felt most Western people were just spiritually lazy. And when we are lazy, we stay on the path we are already on, even if it is going nowhere. It is the spiritual equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics: everything winds down unless some outside force winds it back up" (xix). These seem excellent observations. His examples of failures, suffering, and sin leading to spiritual breakthroughs, however, are downright heartbreaking. Adam and Eve "'sinned'" (in quotes), "Sin is behovely!" (xxi), and the if we try to avoid sin we are just Pharisees doing even more harm. Thus the sharp choice to call our spiritual breakthrough something we "fall" into. He concludes, "We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right" (xxii), and "the demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy of the good. Perfection is a mathematical or divine concept, goodness is a beautiful human concept that includes us all" (xxii). Oh, what a sad misrepresentation of the gospel. Oh, to see that we are indeed incapable of any breakthroughs or growth or anything good or meaningful on our own. To see that the answer is not to "fall" forward, giving up on perfection and seeing the goodness within, but to see rightly ourselves as already fallen and desperate for salvation. Oh, to recognize the need for a savior, that we may rightly celebrate the perfect gift of Jesus' righteousness that is given to us! Oh, to walk in his grace, to say "not I, but Christ in me" (is that not similar to Rohr's own language?). To be led by his Spirit! I remain convinced that this belief system does make sense, but only when we have all the pieces. If sin, atonement, imputed righteousness, or life by the Spirit are left out, it all falls apart, and we're left with meager innate human goodness and the spirit of eros.

Yet, I agree with him in part. Many have initially been taught to keep "up, clear, clean, and together" (xxiii), but when we, as Rohr says, "desire a downward path to growth through imperfection," or as I would say, realize that our best efforts at perfection or even goodness fall short, that is when the magic happens!! Rohr says, "those who have gone 'down' are the only ones who understand 'up,'" (xxv), and I would argue that only those who have become aware of their true desperation can know Christ's strength. We agree that "it is not by your own willpower or moral perfection" and that "we can't engineer it by ourselves. It is done unto us" (xxvi).

CHAPTER 1: The Two Halves of Life
"...the task of the first half of life is to create a proper container for one's life and answer the first essential questions: 'What makes me significant?' 'How can I support myself?' and 'Who will go with me?' The task of the second half of life is, quite simply, to find the actual contents that this container was meant to hold and deliver" (1).

"Only when you have begun to live in the second half can you see the difference between the two. Yet the two halves are cumulative and sequential, and both are very necessary....No Pope, Bible quote, psychological technique, religious formula, book, or guru can do your journey for you" (3).

Words for first-half-of-life-ers: juniors, beginners, novices, milk, letter, baptized, apprentice, morning, young
Words for second-half-of-life-ers: seniors, proficients, initiated, meat, spirit, confirmed, master, evening
The first look down on the views of the latter, because "they cannot understand what they have not yet experienced" (3).

The big three issues of the first half of life: identity, security, and sexuality and gender (4). Most of history, most generations, and most of religion is consumed with these, has only made it this far. This time is characterized by being "self-preoccupied," boundary formation, "ego structuring," boundaries (3). Another list: "success, security, and containment--'looking good' to ourselves and others...the early stages in Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs'" (6). There is a need for a "narcissistic fix," in that "we all need some successes, response, and positive feedback early in life, or we will spend the rest of our lives demanding it, or bemoaning its lack, from others" (4-5). Getting a narcissistic fix=being mirrored early in life. "You have already been 'attended to,' and now feel basically good--and always will" (5). "Once you have your narcissistic fix, you have no real need to protect your identity, defend it, prove it, or assert it. It just is, and that is more than enough" (5). "That is exactly what is meant by 'salvation,' especially when we get our narcissistic fix all the way from the Top" (5). "When you get the 'Who am I?' question right, all the 'What should I do?' questions tend to take care of themselves" (6). "We all want and need various certitudes, constants, and insurance policies at every stage of life. But we have to be careful, or they totally take over and become all-controlling needs, keeping us from further growth" (6).

Many teachers have used "process language" to describe the journey to maturity. "Unless you can chart and encourage both movement and direction, you have no way to name maturity and immaturity" (9). These many teachers agree:
1--"You can only see and understand the earlier stages from the wider perspective of the later stages" (9). These kind of people are the best leaders, and they're less concerned with defending their own stance, and more concerned with inclusivity and compassion.
2--"...from your own level of development, you can only stretch yourself to comprehend people just a bit beyond yourself" (10).

"If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal advantage--as if it were God!" (11). [Reminds me of my top take-away from None Like Him and Lore Wilbert's wise words on the Called Out Podcast.]

"Theologically and objectively speaking, we are already in union with God. But it is very hard for people to believe or experience this when they have no positive sense of identity, little courage yet, no strong boundaries to contain Mystery, and little inner religious experience at any depth. Thus the first journey is always about externals, formulas, quotes, and special clothing, all of which largely substitute for actual spirituality (see Matthew 23:13-32)" (13). Yet these things are "probably necessary" (13).

"In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, and in all things, charity"--Pope John XXIII (13).

"...authentic God experience...consoles our True Self only after it has devastated our false self" (13).  "...we have not found a way to do the age-appropriate tasks of the two halves of life, and both groups are losing out" (15).

CHAPTER 2: The Hero and Heroine's Journey

**Pause to take a deep breath and discern what is true in what Richard Rohr says, despite his audacious but amiss attempts to explain "the precise meaning of the wounds of Jesus!" (19).

All heroes go on a journey, which involves leaving security, safety, and comfort. "Unless you build your first house well, you will never leave it. To build your house well is, ironically, to be nudged beyond its doors" (23).

Chapter 3: The First Half of Life

"The world is more magical, less predictable, more autonomous, less controllable, more varied, less simple, more infinite, less knowable, more wonderfully troubling than we could have imagined being able to tolerate when we were young." --James Hollis

"Healthily conservative people tend to grow up more naturally and more happily than those who receive only free-form, 'build it yourself' worldviews, in my studied opinion" (25).

"You need to struggle with the rules more than a bit before you throw them out. You only internalize values by butting up against external values for awhile. All of this builds the strong self that can positively obey Jesus--and 'die to itself.' In fact, far too many (especially women and disadvantaged people) have lived very warped and defeated lives because they tried to give up a self that was not there yet" (26).

"Law and tradition seem to be necessary in any spiritual system both to reveal and to limit our basic egocentricity, and to make at least some community, family, and marriage possible" (29).

"...we ironically need limit situations and boundaries to grow up. A completely open field does not do the job nearly as well or as quickly.... If you want a job done well, on time, with accountability and no excuses, you had best hire someone who has faced a few limit situations. He or she alone has the discipline, the punctuality, the positive self-image, and the persistence to do a good job. If you want the opposite, hire someone who has been coddled, been given 'I Am Special" buttons for doing nothing special, and had all his or her bills paid by others, and whose basic egocentricity has never been challenged or undercut. To be honest, this seems to describe much of the workforce and the student body of America. Many of the papers I receive in summer graduate courses at major universities are embarrassing to read in terms off both style and content, yet these same 'adults' are shocked if they do not get an A. This does not bode well for the future of our country" (31).

"[Eric Fromm] says that the healthiest people he has known, and those who very often grow up in the most natural way, are those who, between their two parents and early authority figures, experienced a combination of unconditional love along with very conditional and demanding love!" (32).

"I know this is not the current version of what is psychologically 'correct,' because we all seem to think we need nothing but unconditional love. Any law, correction, rule, or limitation is another word for conditional love. It is interesting to me that very clear passages describing both God's conditional love and also God's unconditional love are found in the same Scriptures, like Deuteronomy and John's Gospel. The only real biblical promise is that unconditional love will have the last word!" (33).

"Butting up against limits actually teaches us an awful lot. 'I would not have known the meaning of covetousness, if the Law had not said, "You shall not covet,"' says St. Paul in his tour de force against the law in his letter to the Romans! (34).

"I am trying to place you and then hold you inside of a very creative tension, if you will allow yourself to be held there. I do promise you it is a creative tension, because both love and freedom are necessary for spiritual growth, as Paul says in Romans and Galatians...Despite having been directly taught to hold this creative tension, rare is the Christian believer who holds it well. We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them--both immature responses...very few Christians have been taught how to live both law and freedom at the same time. Our Western dualistic minds do not process paradoxes very well. " (35-36)

"I am also deeply aware of the damage that misuse of law, custom, authority, and tradition has done in human history and to personal development. I know the destructive and immature state that mere reliance on structure and authority has engendered. The anger and blindness it often brings is devastating, because it often takes away both a necessary self-confidence and a necessary self-questioning. We see this in our political debates today, in people's lack of basic self-knowledge (too-quick answers to keep you from necessary searching), and in scary fundamentalist thinking in all of the world religions" (38).

"But I am not here to say either-or. I am here to say both-and. It is not just 'the exception that proves the rule' but somehow that the loss or transgression of the rule also proves the importance and purpose of the rule" (39).

"None of us can dialogue with others until we can calmly and confidently hold our own identity" (42).

"Unfortunately, we have an entire generation of educators, bishops, and political leaders who are still building their personal towers of success, and therefore have little ability to elder the young or challenge the beginners. In some ways, they are beginners themselves. Self-knowledge is dismissed as psychology, love as 'feminine softness,' critical thinking as disloyalty, while law, ritual, and priestcraft have become a compulsive substitute for the actual divine encounter or honest relationship" (43).

"...spiritually speaking there are no dead ends. God will use this too--somehow--and draw all of us toward the Great Life" (43).

"Western people are a ritually starved people, and in this are different than most of human history" (44).

"The first battles solidify the ego and create a stalwart soldier; the second battles defeat the ego because God always wins" (47).

I'm not sure about the parallels he's making between Freudian terms and theological terms?? Maybe because I so poorly understand all the Freudian stuff, and I can't make sense of his theology either.

"The world mythologies all point to places like Hades, Sheol, hell, purgatory, the realm of the dead. Maybe these are not so much the alternative to heaven as the necessary path to heaven" (50).


Chapter 4: The Tragic Sense of Life

"Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship he wants to create with us" (57).

"...the whole drama was set in motion by the 'transgression' of Adam and Eve, and then the whole world was redeemed, say many Christians, by an act of violent murder! If God has not learned to draw straight with crooked lines, God is not going to be drawing very many lines at all. Judeo-Christian salvation history is an intergrating, using, and forgiving of this tragic sense of life. Judeo-Christianity includes the problem inside of the solution and as part of the solution" (59).

"Sin and salvation are correlative terms. Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor" (60).

"The only people who do not believe that the Enneagram is true are those who do not understand it or have never used it well" (61).

"I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you" (61).

Chapter 5: Stumbling Over the Stumbling Stone

"Sooner or later, if you are on any classic 'spiritual schedule,' some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life that you simply cannot deal with, using your present skill set, your acquired knowledge, or your strong willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be, you must be, led to the edge of your own private resources. At that point you will stumble over a necessary stumbling stone, as Isaiah calls it; or to state it in our language here, you will and you must 'lose' at something. This is the only way that Life-Fate-God-Grace-Mystery can get you to change, let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey" (66).

None of us leaves our comfort zone until we have to (66). "So we must stumble and fall, I'm sorry to say" (66).

"It seems that in the spiritual world, we do not really find something until we first lose it, ignore it, miss it, long for it, choose it, and personally find it again--but now on a new level....In the end, we do not so much as reclaim what we have lost as discover a significantly new self in and through the process" (67).

"There must be, and, if we are honest, there always will be at least one situation in our lives that we cannot fix, control, explain, change, or even understand. For Jesus and for his followers, the crucifixion became the dramatic symbol of that necessary and absurd stumbling stone. Yet we have no positive theology of such suffering, for the most part. Many Christians even made the cross into a mechanical 'substitutionary atonement theory' to fit into their quit pro quo worldview, instead of suffering this inherent tragedy, as Jesus did himself. They still want some kind of order and reason, instead of cosmic significance and soulful seeing" (68). Footnote here says, "For Franciscans, Jesus did not need to change the mind of God about humanity, but he came to change the mind of humanity about God. Ours is a Cosmic Christ from all eternity who revealed the eternal love of God on the cross, but God did not need any 'payment' to love us." This blows my mind, because it seems Rohr himself is trying to fit the event into his logical framework, but of course it doesn't fit it you don't believe in sin and in forgiveness as grace motivated by love and other things of such "cosmic significance." I really am trying to see things from his point of view, but I still don't understand why he thinks Jesus had to die, then. To prove that facing and overcoming difficult things leads to new growth? I think he did mention elsewhere that if Jesus hadn't died, Christianity wouldn't have been born. It's all very brain-contorting to me. He does say, "Jesus must be crucified, or there can be no resurrection" (69). Hmm.

"Suffering does not solve any problem mechanically as much as it reveals the constant problem that we are to ourselves, and opens up new spaces within us for learning and loving. Here Buddhism was much more observant that Christianity, which made even the suffering of Jesus into God's attempt to solve some cosmic problem--which God had largely created to begin with! The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem-- our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the 'scene of our crime'" (69). So this makes it sound to me like the point of suffering is to reveal imperfections within us. I don't know of any worldview that gives a satisfactory, nice-bow-on-it, oh-now-I-understand-and-am-at-peace explanation of suffering, but I will say I far prefer Christianity's view of suffering that there is innocent suffering.

"If you do you do not do the task of the first half of life well, you have almost no ability to rise up from the stumbling stone" (71). Away from any thoughts about Christian teaching, orthodox or not, this makes sense form a developmental, habit, identity sense. "There is nothing to defeat 'infantile grandiosity.'...We try to believe that is is all upward and onward--any by ourselves" (71). Most don't succeed at this, (and "stay at the bottom of their own lives and try to overcompensate in all kinds of futile and self-defeating ways" (71)), but those who do "succeed" and are kept from "awareness, empathy, and basic human compassion" (72).

Chapter 6: Necessary Suffering

Carl Jung: much "unnecessary suffering" comes from people not accepting the "legitimate suffering" that is just part of being a person. "It is no surprise that the first and always unwelcome message in male initiation rites is 'life is hard.' We really are our own worst enemy when we deny this" (74).

"The Christian truth, and Jesus as its spokesman, is the worldview that got me started, that formed me and thrilled me, even though the very tangent that it sent me on made me often critical of much of organized Christianity. In some ways, that is totally as it should be, because I was able to criticize organized religion from within, by its own Scriptures, saints, and sources, and not by merely cultural, unbelieving, or rational criteria. That is probably the only way you can fruitfully criticize anything, it seems to me" (75). AND ME TOO. 

"Necessary suffering goes on every day, seemingly without question" (77). I sure question it. My worldview holds this to be the result of the fall, and not forever. Is there beauty in time? Yes. Does suffering somehow bring about maturity? Yes. But will there be suffering in heaven? I don't think so. Even realities like: "only one saguaro cactus seed out of a quarter of a million seeds ever makes it even to early maturity," I see to be a result of the fall. Hmm.

"I quote Jesus [so much] because I still consider him to be the spiritual authority of the Western world, whether we follow him or not" (81).  This statement baffles me because it seems quite objective and final for Rohr...but only claims to make Jesus the authority in the West.

Rohr says that when Jesus commands his followers to "hate" their family, "he is actually undoing the fourth commandment of Moses" (82).  🚨.

"Many people are kept from mature religion because of the pious, immature, or rigid expectations of their first-half-of-life family. Even Jesus, whose family thought he was 'crazy' (Mark 3:21), had to face this dilemma firsthand" (83).

"To move beyond family-of-origin stuff, cultural stuff, flag-and-country stuff is a path that few of us follow positively and with integrity" (84).

"The nuclear family has far too often been the enemy of the global family and mature spiritual seeking" (84). Interesting idea. Very interesting in light of trauma/attachment, etc...but is this what Jesus is talking about?

Chapter 7: Home and Homesickness

"Home is another word for the Spirit that we are, our True Self in God. The self-same moment that we find God in ourselves, we also find ourselves inside God, and this is the full homecoming, according to Teresa of Avila" (91). But why capitalize Spirit here?? I have a spirit, but the Spirit is the Holy Spirit aka God.

"The Holy Spirit guiding all of us from home and toward home is also described in John's Gospel as an 'advocate' ('a defense attorney,' as paraclete literally means, John 14:16), who will 'teach us' and 'remind us' as if some part of us already knew but still needed an inner buzz or alarm clock to wake up" (92).

Chapter 8: Amnesia and the Big Picture

"It is religion's job to teach us and guide us on this discovery of our True Self, but it usually makes the mistake of turning this into a worthiness contest of some sort, a private performance, or some kind of religious achievement on our part, through our belonging to the right group, practicing the right rituals, or believing the right things" (98). 😕

"Any discovery or recovery of our divine union has been called 'heaven' by most traditions. Its loss has been called 'hell'...Only the True Self knows that heaven is now and that its loss is hell--now" (101). 🤪

"Everyone is in heaven when he or she has plenty of room for communion and no need for exclusion. The more room you have to include, the bigger your heaven will be....If you go to heaven alone, wrapped in your private worthiness, it is by definition not heaven" (101). If the first part means having humility and recognizing that I am just as unworthy as anyone else to receive God's grace, then 💯

"If you accept a punitive notion of God, who punishes or even eternally tortures those who don't love him, then you have an absurd universe where most people on this earth end up being more loving than God! God excludes no one from union, but must allow us to exclude ourselves in order for us to maintain our freedom... No one is in hell unless that individual himself or herself choose a final aloneness and separation. It is all about desire, both allowing and drawing from the deepest level of our desiring.... Jesus touched and healed anybody who desired it and asked for it, and there were no other prerequisites for his healings. Check it out yourself. Why would Jesus' love be so unconditional while he was in this world, and suddenly become totally conditional after death?" (102). 🤦‍♀️

Chapter 9: A Second Simplicity

"I totally believe in Adam and Eve now, but on about ten more levels. (Literalism is usually the lowest and least level of meaning)" (106). 🤔

"...there was a much bigger world than the United States and the Roman Catholic Church, which I realized were also paradoxes. The e pluribus unum("out of many, one") on American coinage did not include very 'many' of its own people (blacks, gays, Native Americans, poor folks, and so on), and as a Christian I finally had to be either Roman or catholic, [meaning all-embracing] and I continue to choose the catholic end of that spectrum. Either Jesus is the 'savior of the world' (John 4:42), or he is not much of a savior at all. Either America treats the rest of the world democratically, or it does not really believe in democracy at all. That is the way I see it" (108). Oh that people wouldn't feel they have to choose between the church and a faith for all people. Lord, have mercy.

"Unfortunately, most Christians are not well trained in holding opposites for very long, or living with what could be creative tension" (111). Yep.

"Basic religious belief is a vote for some coherence, purpose, benevolence, and direction in the universe" (111).

"I worry about 'true believers' who cannot carry any doubt or anxiety at all...People who are so certain always seem like Hamlet's queen 'protesting too much' and trying to hard....It is probably necessary to eliminate most doubt when you are young; doing so is a good survival technique. But such worldviews are not true--and they are not wisdom" (111). 💯

"As the body cannot live without food, so the soul cannot live without meaning" (112).

"Humans are creators of meaning, and finding deep meaning in our experiences is not just another name for spirituality but also the very shape of human happiness" (113). I see this and recognize its place, and it makes me long for what Eugene Peterson calls Spiritual Theology, because the spirituality of it all is essential, but so is good doctrine, IMHO. 

Chapter 10: A Bright Sadness

"There is a gravitas in the second half of life, but it is now held up by a much deeper lightness, or 'okayness.' Our mature years are characterized by a kind of bright sadness and a sober happiness, if that makes any sense" (117). Yes, it does.

"Holier-than-thou people usually end up holier than nobody" (118). 

"[In the second half of life] Daily life now requires prayer and discernment more than knee-jerk responses toward either the conservative or liberal end of the spectrum. You have a spectrum of responses now" (119).

On second-half-of-life people: " I no longer have to prove that I or my group is best, that my ethnicity is superior, that my religion is the only one that God loves, or that my role and place in society deserve superior treatment.... Erik Erikson calls someone at this stage a 'generative' person, one who is eager and able to generate life from his or her own abundance and for the benefit of following generations. Because such people have build a good container, they are able to 'contain' more and more truth, more and more neighbors, more and broader vision, more and more of a mysterious and outpouring God. Their God is no longer small, punitive, or tribal... They now enjoy the moon itself instead of fighting over whose finger points to it most accurately, quickly, or definitively" (121).

"I hope you are becoming that shining person yourself, and that this book is helping you... Otherwise, this book too will just be some more words--instead of words becoming flesh. Until it becomes flesh, it cannot shine and shine brightly" (125). In other words, apply what you read. Good advice in general.

Chapter 11: The Shadowlands

"Your shadow is what you refuse to see about yourself, and what you do not want others to see" (128).

"Spiritual maturity is largely a growth in seeing" (130).

"The general pattern in story and novel is that heroes learn and grow from encountering their shadow, whereas villains never do" (131).

"The gift of shadowboxing is in the seeing of the shadow and its games, which takes away much of the shadow's hidden power" (134).

"In our work with men, we have found that in many men this inability or refusal to feel their deep sadness takes the form of aimless anger. The only way to get to the bottom of their anger is to face the ocean of sadness underneath it" (135). 💯

Chapter 12: New Problems and New Directions

"If you are on course at all, your world should grow much larger in the second half of life" (137).

"'How can I honor the legitimate needs of the first half of life, while creating space, vision, time, and grace for the second?' The holding of this tension is the very shape of wisdom" (138).

"So again the meticulous navigating of our small river surpasses ever diving into the Big River" (139).

Then "Jesus' first definition of the church as 'two or three gathered in my name'" as being so wise: When did Jesus define the church this way?

"In your second half of life, you can actually bless others in what they feel they must do, allow them to do what they must do, challenge them if they are hurting themselves or others--but you can no longer join them in the first half of life. You can belong to such institutions for all the good that they do, but you no longer put all your eggs in that one basket. This will keep you and others from unnecessary frustration and anger, and from knocking on doors that cannot be opened from the other side. In short, this is what I mean by 'emerging Christianity'" (142). And my linear brain still just wants a definition, because I still don't understand what you mean. I have a lot to learn in understanding this line of thinking. 

"...the cure for loneliness is actually solitude!" (143).

"Basically, the first half of life is writing the text, and the second half is writing the commentary on that text" (143).

"At the risk of being too cleverly alliterative (though it may help you remember), here is the normal sequencing of the dualistic mind: it compares, it competes, it conflicts, it conspires, it condemns, it cancels out any contrary evidence, and then it crucifies with impunity" (147).

"Jesus, I am convinced, was the first nondualistic religious thinker in the West,... but his teachings were quickly filtered through Greek dualistic thought!" (149).

"Dualistic thinking gets you in the right ball park ('You cannot serve both God and mammon'), but non-dualistic wisdom, or what many of us call contemplation, is necessary once you actually get in the right field. 'Now that I have chosen to serve God, what does that really mean?' Nondualistic thinking presumes that you have first mastered dualistic clarify, but also found it insufficient for the really big issues like love, suffering, death, God, and any notion of infinity. In short, we need both" (150). 

Chapter 13: Falling Upward

"Until and unless you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level" (154).

"The only final and meaningful question is 'Is it true?' Not 'Who said it?' 'When and where did they say it?' 'Does the Bible or the pope or my president say it?' or 'Do I like it?' The only meaningful, helpful, and humble question is 'Is it objectively true?'" (156).

"Intimate I-Thou relationships are the greatest mirrors of all" (159).

Not sure where this quote came from:
"“When you get your “Who am I?” question right, all the “What should I do?” questions tend to take care of themselves.”-- Rohr


Quotes I really like are this color. A few jump out as ringing true and being important. 

😕 This is the face I make when I think he is saying something that has a grain of truth in it, but on the whole is still way off base to the point of being misleading. Usually it's something that would be a lot closer to true if he understood the gospel message that he is misunderstanding and therefore misrepresenting.

🤪 This is the face I make when I think, 'either you're crazy or I'm crazy' because I don't see it the same way at all. 

🤦‍♀️ This is the face I make when I feel so sad and frustrated at how he's interpreting the gospel message. 

Red and the alarm emoji are for when I feel more negative emotions than just sad about the way he's interpreting the gospel message. 

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

 "It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing" (203).

Spurgeon's Sorrows by Zack Eswine

 "Remember, it has required more faith for some to do less than you" (48).

"Some things we never get over. We get through them of on with them, but not over them" (57).

"Realistic hope is a Jesus-saturated thing" (85).

"It would not be wise to live by a supposed faith, and cast off the physician and his medicines, any more than to discharge the butcher, and the tailor, and expect to be fed and clothed by faith. We make use of medicines, but these can do nothing apart from the Lord, 'who healeth all diseases'" (112).

You're Not Enough (And That's Okay)

I share Stuckey's concern that our culture is searching for validation, meaning, fulfillment within the self in a way that is contrary to both the created order and the worship of Christ. What she defines as "self-love" if often manifested in mantras like, "You are enough," and "You are worthy," and emphasis on self-care and self-affirmation. I see the need for addressing this from a Christian perspective, because I believe that this approach on its own will never lead to fulfillment, but Christ can. Stuckey doesn't keep the focus on her book's titular topic; she covers everything from "the toxic culture of self-love," to race relations, to work, to marriage and dating advice, quickly turning this book into a chance to declare views on truth in many arenas. I found this disappointing for 2 reasons: one, in covering--mentioning, really--so many controversial topics in 224 pages, it was clear that she wasn't thoughtfully trying to model or teach discernment to her readers. There was only space to tell people what to think, to pat those on the back who agree with her. This wasn't even a space for either convincing others, or for helping those who already agree with  her understand why their views align with Biblical thinking. She only gave short arguments, and declared what was true, and moved onto the next thing. Two: There was utter dismissal of the fact that others within orthodoxy have different views. I agree with her on the (in these days, extremely counter-cultural) stance that God has authority to declare what is right and wrong when it comes to ethics, sexuality, and all the rest. What I don't appreciate is her treating her interpretation of Scripture as the Only One. There is a difference between standing for the primary doctrines of the faith, and stating, with just as much authority, that intersectionality has no place in the church. Her approach tries to exile even many who share the confession in the authority of God and Scripture from the Land of Truth. I found her tone lacking in humility and compassion. She's not trying to convince others as much as she's ridiculing those foolish enough to disagree. I do think our culture needs voices to speak against the blind acceptance of mainstream secularism and hyper-individualism, but I can't recommend this one.

One example is Stuckey's argument about self-love. She says that our culture already loves ourselves enough, as evidenced by our self-loathing, self-obsession, and "perpetual prioritization of our own wants, needs, problems, and dreams." She says that even someone committing suicide doesn't have a deficit of self-love because suicidal ideation is just one exercise of self-interest, as the concern is only ending one's own pain. To me, this whole argument points to a desperate need for definitions of terms. But sadly, this logic makes sense to me as Stuckey seems primarily set on arguing against the culture of progressives who prescribe self-love as salvation, who never point followers toward Christ. But sometimes, because we don't like the solutions the other side promotes, we deny even that their premise is correct. Stuckey herself ruins her own argument when she quotes CS Lewis: "Love is unselfishly choosing for another's good." If what Lewis says is true, then doesn't it follow that love of self is far different than self-obsession, and maybe the self-interest she's condemning is different from concern for the truly good? Choosing what is ultimately good for myself means pointing myself toward Christ and and his kindness and his truth. If the sufferer contemplating suicide were to love themself, that would look like walking away from a violent way of ending life; it would look like taking difficult steps toward healing and flourishing. And framed like that, it's hard for me to see how loving yourself (with a proper definition of love) is harmful.

Often, in my experience, Christians have created a false dichotomy that equates the self with the flesh, the deceptive heart, the depravity of fallen humanity, and says anything involving the self is bad because it is by definition mutually exclusive of Christ, goodness, and virtue.

Stuckey says that there's no indication that we don't love ourselves enough. Rather, she says, we love ourselves too much. "Yes, many of us struggle with insecurities and even self-loathing, but these are just other indicators of self-obsession. Even when we don't like ourselves, our perpetual prioritization of our own wants, needs, problems, and dreams above all else proves that we still love ourselves a whole lot." 

"The self can't be both the problem and the solution."

"The culture of self-love" falls short in light of Ephesians 2:2,4, which says that on our own we were dead, BUT GOD.

She speaks against "the cult of self-affirmation", in which the god is the self, and its tenets are authenticity and autonomy. The cult of self-affirmation shows up most apparently in the glorification of abortion." 

"This is why Christianity and the cult of self-affirmation can't coincide. The values of the Christ-follower aren't authenticity and autonomy, they're Christlikeess and obedience. We have an objective estandard of right and wrong, found in the Bible, which means we're not ruled by cultural standards or our feelings.

She quotes John Piper as saying, "We all have to ask ourselves, 'How do we find the pace we need to finish the race?'" We all need rest, breaks, etc, but is our mindset focused on what we are entitled to, or how we can best continue to serve for the long haul?

She quotes Brene Brown as saying, "The truth about who we are lives in our hearts." She then rips this apart because of course the truth of who we are is declared by God and revealed to us only through Scripture. OH FOR SOME NUANCE. I don't think this quote is in direct opposition to Christ. Of course, the foundation of our identity is based on who Christ says I am. As Christians, God's revelation should come first; anything else contradicting it cannot be true. But to act as if what our hearts tell us has no place and is always worthy of being wholly disregarded is just foolish. If I am healthy and growing in Christ, when I look in my heart, I will see the truths of what he has declared. And if when I look in my heart, I don't see the truths of Scripture, that is good for me to acknowledge, to be aware of, to investigate. I don't want what I Believe and Know about Truth to be so separate from my heart. This thinking that if any truth resonates with who we are, it is suspect or even automatically untrue, that to truly embrace absolute truth we have to disregard everything going on side of us, is harmful. Truly I think it's why so many are leaving the faith. We are not taught how discern, how to hold to the truth of Christ and integrate it into everything we are, even our hearts and experiences. We are not taught how Jeremiah 17:9 and Jeremiah 31:33 can BOTH be true, how there is our flesh and there is our identity in Christ, our now truest self. Then the world's offers of a life that validate this reality becomes irresistible, and sadly we think the two are mutually exclusive. 

"Our experiences and even ehtnicities matter, but they don't ultimately define us. We are defined by Jesus. There's not place for intersectionality in the body of Christ. This doesn't discount the disadvantages people indeed face, nor the uneven playing field that inevitably characterizes life on earth, and it certainly doesn't abdicate our responsibilities as Christians to help those in need."

"Colossians 3:23 says, 'Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for man.' We don't have to have the perfect job to glorify God with our work. The work that honors him only has to meet three qualifications: it's done well, it meets a real need, and it contributes to the good of those around us. This means that whether you're a CPA, a botanist, a janitor, a secretary, or a graphic desire, your work can matter and bring glory to God. Glorifying work doesn't have to earn a paycheck either. Stay-at-home moms, caretakers, and volunteer workers can still fulfill the qualifications for God-honoring work by working diligently to help those around them." 

She quotes AOC: "We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in. But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you're left to die, and that is, at its core, our problem." She says AOC and others view work as amoral and points to her Green New Deal, which provides for those who don't work. "This is an unbiblical view of work." 

Are warnings against idleness, warnings against the things AOC is talking about?

Just because we don't agree with the conclusions someone draws, doesn't mean we have to fight against their premises. Let's stop feeling attacked and suggest other creative solutions.

Then her explanation of her growing her role as commentator/speaker has to do with the satisfaction of doing something she knew she was good at and enjoyed. 

"There are not better earthly titles I could hold than mom and wife, as cliche as that may sound."

"You are entitled to your dreams" is a lie. She got exactly what she wanted, but we shouldn't expect that. 

She says that in order for feelings to be valid, they have to  be based in reality. "While all valid feelings are real, not all real feelings are valid." She goes on to talk about our fear not being rooted in the truth of God's promises, our anger being rooted in selfishness, etc. She tells us we should examine these and lay them before God. There is no room for getting curious about them. She then talks about sorting through our feelings. We examine them and lay them before God. 

In the section on marriage advice, she says, "feelings aren't everything but they are something, especially if they're giving you warning signs that something's not right." Then she goes on to say that investigating these feelings could lead to discovery of idols. This is a way more helpful way to look at it!

Compassion & Conviction by Justin Giboney, Michael Wear, and Chris Butler

 Law and Values

"The Separation of church and state was not intended to prevent Christians or any other religious group from promoting or applying their values in the policymaking process. All citizens have the right to advocate and vote based on their values, whether secular or religious. In fact, all policies and laws come from some set of values...

"A person's values are principles and standards of behavior, and laws are correspondingly based on principles and standards of behavior. The idea that it's possible to separate the values of the people from their laws is absurd" (31).

"There's nothing wrong with being conflicted about how both options are right in part and wrong in part. The bigger problem is when Christians are unaware or unbothered by the faults on the side they prefer. This isn't to suggest a false equivalency between the two parties. One party might be more wrong on more issues at a given time, but we must realize that both fall well short of the Biblical standard.

"Christians can choose a political party, but we can't choose between love and truth. We can't fully embrace movements that dismiss justice or undermine moral order" (40).

"The law is a teacher. When the law teaches the wrong lessons, it is our responsibility to listen and follow the teachings of Jesus and not allow politics to determine our values. However the societal effect of law is undeniable. If the law teaches that sexual freedom is an ultimate end, that will corrode the nation's moral infastructure. If the law teaches that economic profit is society's chief aim, that will corrode the nation's moral infastructure.

"How to apply moral standards can be complicated. Multiple moral truths might be in conflict when considering a single political decision. Policies that would seem to advance a moral truth might end up undermining it. Indeed, sometimes it is wise to accept that the best use of the law in a given situation is not to enforce morality but rather to allow for the freedom to be moral" (46-47).

"Partnering with nonbelievers can never mean agreeing with them on all matters" (59).

I learned about the Hidden Tribes study (Stephen Hawkins) that divides Americans into 7 tribes: Progressive Activists, Traditional Liberals, Passive Liberals, Politically Disengaged, Moderates, Traditional Conservatives, and Devoted Conservatives. "Interestingly, the two smallest and most extreme tribes (Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives, 8 percent and 6 percent of Americans respectively) have the loudest voice in American sociopolitical discourse because of their high levels of engagement and large amounts of money. They often frame the issues for the majority of us, who the study calls the 'Exhausted Majority' (67 percent). This has resulted in high levels of polarization" (62). 

Frederick Douglass: 'I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong' (68). May it be so.

"The civic space is full of hidden agendas and corrupt activity; it's no place to timidly accept the assertions of others. It's intellectually lazy to agree with the same political party on every single issue. That's a clear indication that we've become indoctrinated, which should never be an option for Christians" (73).

"Race is a part of the history of the United States and a part of the history of the church. Many of the personal and corporate experiences of Christians with race have been shameful and hurtful. Race is not an easy topic to engage, but an unwillingness to confront the issue of racism is one of the greatest roadblocks to reconciliation" (97). 

"We must confront racism with humility and grace, with a posture of self-examination, not self-defense, remembering that God demands something of all of us (Exodus 20), even if we've been the victim. As Christians we ought to have a much clearer view of our own depravity and need for mercy. That awareness of sin in our lives and in our own cultures must drive us to a posture of humility, first toward God and then by extension to our fellow humans (Ephesians 5:21). Furthermore, being aware of the profound mercy and forgiveness of God, we should find grace to confront our personal and cultural issues knowing that we serve a God of love who intends to cleanse us from sin rather than destroy us because of it (1 John 1:9)" (98).

"The basic, primal kinship that one can feel toward other people of the same race plays a part in identity politics: a black man wants to be able to show his son another successful black man as evidence that he can also be great. To conclude that your interests won't be fully represented when no one making the decisions looks like you or shares your experiences is a logical deduction with a sound historical basis" (100).

"And again, the church should be leading the way. We can understand and appreciate identity politics, intersectionality, and critical race theory. But our identity is in Christ, and our political values are deeply rooted in our faith. This should help us avoid identity-based manipulation at the hands of political parties and political leaders" (101).

I love the anecdote from Acts 19:32: "Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there" as a picture of what's happening these days. "There was chaos and confusion, and the only thing that people were sure about and agrees on was that they were angry. Some of the people in Christian tribes want us to be divided and stirred into chaos because it makes it easier for them to control the opinions of large numbers of people" (102). The implication here is not that only those in Christian tribes do this, but let us certainly not think that only those outside the church do it!

"Like any other field of endeavor, effective political engagement requires a range of skills, and as Christians we must never make the mistake of thinking that the right motives are a substitute for strategic precision and skill" (113).

"...civility is a recognition of human dignity. All incivility is, at its root, preceded by dehumanization" (118).

"Unfortunately, incivility is often used as a misdirection. Incivility is not an excuse to deflect on issues of public import.... We should reflect on whether we employ calls for civility in circumstances that might hinder our political ambitions, or whether we only call for civility from those we disagree with" (122). 

"Injustice does not justify incivility, but it is reasonable for incivility to spring forth from injustice. People who are proponents of civility but quietists on everything else are, in fact, a great threat to civility" (123). 

"Incivility is a public problem, but incivility among Christians in the public square is a genuine threat to the witness of the church" (123)

"Dear Christian, if you are going to do civics and politics, we first urge you to do it. All throughout Scripture there are diverse action commands. Without a doubt, civic and political engagement begins with what we think about what we believe--and our prayer is that this book has helped you to shape and clarify your thinking and belief. But never be drawn off into the false assumption that right thinking and right belief are sufficient. As with so many other areas of Christian life, orthodoxy is hollow apart from orthopraxy. Christian faith starts with what we think and believe, but it manifests itself in what we do. Democracy is not ultimately an adjective or even a noun; democracy is a verb" (128). 

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

 "Julia liked the church environment, the caring and support, the concept of renewal and inclusion through baptism. Yes, and why not? That Brad seemed to approve only motivated her further. We suspect Jesus had little to do with any of it."

"Then she met Xavier, and for the first time she understood what sexual desire felt like. How hard it was to control the urge to want to touch someone, and be touched by someone. How that desire lit you up inside, created what felt like actual heat in your groin. And so, she could excuse Brad somewhat, knowing that, as she'd been taught at New Hope, men had even more trouble controlling their desires than women did. By this standard, Brad was just being male... Sure, it's be great if a girl's own stepdad never though of her that way, but maybe that was asking too much."

"Here we have no choice but to be trite and say, 'Hindsight is 20/20,' and, 'what's done is done,' and continue with our story, because it's in the telling of a tragedy that we sow the seeds, we hope, of prevention of future sorrows."

"A trial would be futility made into spectacle."

Interesting enough but not all I hoped it would be. I picked it up because I saw it on Goodreads and the 'Gram and the blurb made it sound like something I'd like. I thought it might make a good Fall read with the cover :-) Having the neighborhood as the narrator was a unique and engaging choice, but did make it difficult to get to know any of the characters well enough to care much about them. So, I did encounter one of my big hang-ups--lack of a sympathetic protagonist. But I was very interested in the portrayal of purity culture, and the plot was interesting enough to pull me along. Here's the thing about plot-driven books, though--tragedies (and we were warned that this would be one) can leave the ending quite unsatisfying. And there was no redemption through development of any other character which I found disappointing. I did appreciate that though some of the more toxic elements of purity culture were called out, it was clear that it was purity culture itself that was doing damage, not faith or Jesus. It would have been a solid 3/3.5-ish star read for me, except for the other matter which is that it seemed okay as art but awkward as an attempt at activism. This article talks more about that, and in it the author says, "It provides the same frustration one feels at Thanksgiving, when your self-described open-minded aunt won’t shut up about the beautiful gay couple she waves to at the gym," and that's such a good metaphor for the vibes this book was giving me. So overall, I'm going with a 2.5, rounded up to 3 stars. 

Talking Back to Purity Culture by Rachel Joy Welcher

"We create opportunities to be disappointed with God when we put our hope in things he never promised." 

Quotes:

She points out how we prioritized events, role models, and books and often neglected discussions with parents (or other mentors, friends, community, etc). "Our choice to detach the topic of sexual purity from the whole of Scripture and life, turning questions that are meant to press us further into prayer, the church, and God's Word, into books, conference and websites. But the subject of sexual purity is too nuanced to squeeze into one book or conference. It must be integrated into our regular conversations" (12).

"Virginity as purity neglects Jesus' call for the pursuit of whole-person purity, which includes not only the hymen but our whole body, mind, and heart" (22).

"One question Christians need to ask is: What happens to the message of sexual purity when it is taught apart from Christ?" (22).

Observations about how purity was marketed to American teenagers: "The books I read growing up focused on how my sexual behavior would impact my life, my reputation, and my marriage" (23). "Growing up, the emphasis was on 'me and Jesus' more than my role as a member of the body of Christ. I didn't even become familiar with the term 'common good' in regard to Christian theology until I began graduate school in my early thirties" (23).

She points out that purity was often portrayed as a gift one gives their spouse upon marriage, not primarily about something between a person and God.

She calls attention to the truth that "sexual self-control is a lifelong pursuit." Unlike many of us were implicitly taught, temptation doesn't go away when one gets married. From a later chapter: "Christian dating books communicated a similar message: sinful lust was just a byproduct of singleness, and once I was married, I would be so sexually satisfied that lust would  become a nonissue. Sex would love it. Sex would solve so many things" (95).

"Virgins or not, Christians are real people who wrestle with sexual temptation. Instead of fixating on our virginity, our goal as Christians must be God's glory in our sexual brokenness. The elevation of virginity and the promised reward of great married sex for the chaste not only creates false expectations but makes the pursuit of sexual purity all about personal fulfillment.

"Christine Gardner put it best when she said that the solution for evangelicals is not 'to value virginity less but to value God more.' Too often our elevation of virginity neglects the true source of our purity. 

"Books like Every Man's Battle reinforce lust as the problem, and rules like Graham's make avoiding women the solution. Christian write Katelyn Beaty acknowledges that men who practice the Billy Graham rule likely do so with good motives, believing that 'it's better to limit interacting with women altogether than open the door to temptation.' However, she also points out that this way of dealing with sexual sin elevates 'personal purity' above the biblical command to love our neighbors. Instead of teaching men to avoid women, a proactive strategy for battling sexual lust urges men to see women as neighbors" (63).

"I think about what I would tell my son--that his body is a gift, something God declares good. That his sexuality is not a threat to fear or a weapon to wield. That women are not objects to use or to avoid but are beloved of God, partners in the gospel, and coheirs of the kingdom. That we are all image bearers of God but are born into Adam's sin. That we are endowed with dignity, but dignifying others is hard and takes care and effort. And that it is worth the effort, and God is with us as we wage war against sin and selfishness" (64).

"We create opportunities to be disappointed with God when we put our hope in things he never promised. Jesus did not die so that Christians could live out their own Nicholas Sparks novel. He died to set us free from slavery to sin, to make us new, and to draw us into the kingdom of God forever. It is not earthly marriage but the marriage supper of the Lamb that we are promised. It is adoption as sons and daughters that we receive, not because we stayed sexually pure or dressed modestly but because Jesus spilled is blood for our sins. Whatever our relationship status on earth, Christians can stand firm in their identity as children of the living God and as the church, his body, and his bride" (73). 

"Marriage is not the goal of sexual purity. God and his glory are the goal of sexual purity. Practicing purity is a form of worship, another way we praise God through obedience with our bodies, hearts, and thoughts" (80).

Pointing out the "Problems with the Promise of Sex"

"In I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Harris says that a commitment to sexual purity in singleness is like 'delaying our gratification' and 'storing up passion' that will make married sex more meaningful" (92). 

"My desire for sex as a divorced single differed from my desire for sex as a single virgin, but I was asking the same question in both seasons: What do I do with all this longing?" (101). THIS is what we need to talk more about. Some unmarried people long for marriage. Some married people long for children. Married people with children have unmet longings too! We all have longings. This should point us to the fact that we all have a deep longing for Christ, for heaven. 

"As a church, we must question any teachings that depict sex as a reward, a promise, or a need" (103). YES to that last one! How often do those in the church portray sex as a need (though, usually only for men), despite Christ himself and Paul and so many others in church history showing us that you can be a fully formed and fulfilled person without it. It is a gift for some, not a need for all.

What made me say "UGH": "John Eldredge says in Wild at Heart that Bathsheba goes unnamed because God was disappointed with her" (119). This makes me want to vomit. And this is the kind of teaching that goes hand-in-hand with the purity teaching I grew up with, the sexism and authoritarianism of it all that I'm untangling. I'm so thankful for Sandra Glahn's Vindicating the Vixens for offering another perspective to me on the story of Bathsheba, because how we interpret stories like this shapes how we view power, responsibility, and God himself.

Welcher postulates that Jesus, as an embodied person, was a sexual person without sinning sexually. "why does the fact of his embodiment make us uncomfortable? I believe it is because we struggle to separate sexuality from sexual sin, and therefore it is hard for us to imagine that Jesus could be both sexual and sinless" (129).

"When we sin sexually, it is not because sexuality is corrupt or because sex is evil, but because we are corrupt, continually exchanging the truth of God for lies (Romans 1:25)" (131).

Welcher offers some quotes from others who are re-examining purity culture, and have arrived at different conclusions, conclusions Welcher and I both would consider outside of orthodox Christianity. She quotes Bolz-Weber, "When two loving individuals, two bearers of God's image, are unified in an erotic embrace, there is space for something holy."

Welcher then says, 'Beloved, do not be deceived by such thinking. The gospel of self is everywhere, and it tastes sweet, like wine. Which is why we must drink all the more deeply of God's Word--so that our hearts are not deceived: God is about his glory. God loves you, and your highest good is to be about his glory too" (135)...."There is forgiveness at the cross for every sin. And we can grow from our mistakes, learn from our failures, and even look back with thankfulness at times when God showed mercy to us despite our disobedience. But when we start calling 'holy' what God calls sinful, we have ceased to honor him. We have ceased to understand what holiness means.

"Holiness is not premarital sex without shame. Holiness is the Lord Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come" (135).

"... if I am honest, I must admit that my genuine mercy often gets twisted up in my desire for human praise. I may start out with the right motives, but somewhere along the line my desire to be loving morphs into a desire to seem loving. And I can start to soften the edges of what sin, calling what God has deemed filthy, clean. And in doing so, I fail to love God and my neighbor" (136).

"So many of us walked right past the gospel on the way to a purity conference" (137).

"The Christian pursuit of sexual purity is biblical, but it must flow out of a recognition that it is Jesus who makes us pure. Otherwise, we become Pharisess" (137).

"I too believe that the church has failed in its approach to sexual purity. We have turned sex and marriage into household idols. We have talked about virginity as if it were a means of salvation. We have adapted a version of the prosperity gospel. We have shamed victims of sexual abuse for actions committed against them....But, beloved, upholding God's command to keep sex within marriage has not been one of our failings. And I will stand by all the other antiquated sticks-in-the-mud who still remember Jesus' words in John 14:15: 'If you love me, you will obey me' (WE)" (139).

"How can a Christian flourish sexually according to God's sexual ethic? By surrendering, body and soul, to God the Creator and lover of our souls" (139).

"Fergeson points out that 'it was not legalism for Jesus to do everything his father commanded him. Nor is it for us'" (141). I love this argument. All the "untangling" or "deconstruction" should be a quest to find what is actually right and for me, that is based on Scripture, and therefore I believe obedience does matter. That is what we must stand on! It makes me sad that later in the same paragraph Welcher goes on to defend this orthodox position with one of my least favorite arguments, what some apparently view as a self-evident observation but I find broken: "It is precisely the fact that men and women are different that makes their coming together as one through sex in marriage such a beautiful mystery. The communication it takes. The intentionality and patience" (141). It's as if the only thing that can make us diverse is our gender. It's as if any two people don't need communication and intentionality to be in close relationship. 

She again quotes Bolz-Weber: "we should not be more loyal to an idea, a doctrine, or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people" (142). And if that isn't just a summary of the spirit our day, I don't know what is.

Observation in the "What Will We Tell Our Children?" Chapter:

"By all means, go on dates. But do not fall for the purity culture lie that dating, courting, or marriage have cornered the market on intimacy. Our view of intimacy is too narrow, too entangled with the act of sex itself, when we thing that it can only be achieved by a dating or married relationship. That distorted thinking makes cross-gender friendships seem like a threat to purity instead of precious gifts from God" (153).

It wasn't mentioned in the book, but I heard Welcher discuss this on a podcast and mention that it is good for us to look back on what we were taught and question, work on constantly stripping away the extrabiblical, cultural, personality cult stuff and pushing further into timeless truth, and also it is good for us to have humility. She pointed out that in the same way that our well-intentioned leaders and parents and mentors espoused the teachings of purity culture, and later we are realizing what was harmful and less than true, we are likely reacting to things in our culture and teaching those under our influence things that are more than or less than truth and could potentially harm them as well. Let us do our work, and let us be humble and careful.

She quotes Joshua Harris from the I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye documentary: "You can change your mind about things." and then says, "This might seem like an obvious statement, but when it comes to our theological beliefs, changing our mind can look like sinking sand. One question could be one step toward drowning" (175).... "While writing this book, multiple friends and acquaintances have shared their concern over my questioning something the church has been teaching for so many years. With the recent news of Harris' deconversion, I can see why. Questions have led some, like Harris, to a full-on rejection of the Christian faith. Consequently, questions can look like the beginning of the end. But the idea that asking questions is something only 'liberal theologians' do is untrue. Asking questions can be a form of humility when what we are questioning is not God but our own fallible views about God. I have build my theological house on the foundation of God's Word. That is not what I am questioning. Rather, I want to examine the influence of Christian subcultures, like purity culture, on our interpretation of God's Word" (177).

"...we are a body made up of sinners saved by grace. We mess up. We get things wrong. And we ought to view it as a privilege, not a burden, to do the work of learning how to more clearly and lovingly represent Christ and his Word" (178).

"Sex is not a human right, and it is certainly not our Christian right. Some say, 'love is love,' but we know better: God is love" (179).

"We must talk more about the gospel than we do about lust because Christian obedience is about worship" (182).

"Purity is important to God--so important that Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, had to die so that we could live. But, too often, purity rhetoric hyperfocuses on what we should and shouldn't do instead of what Christ has already done. It neglects the gospel and places personal striving above the finished work of Christ" (183).

For me, purity culture teaching was so tied up in sexist gender roles and authoritarianism, that even the title of this book felt a bit rebellious. So I appreciated Welcher's words on the topic: "Questions have led some, like Harris [author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye], to a full-on rejection of the Christian faith. Consequently, questions can look like the beginning of the end. But the idea that asking questions is something only 'liberal theologians' do is untrue. Asking questions can be a form of humility when what we are questioning is not God but our own fallible views about God. I have build my theological house on the foundation of God's Word. That is not what I am questioning. Rather, I want to examine the influence of Christian subcultures, like purity culture, on our interpretation of God's Word" (emphasis mine).

I found this work so helpful. So many observations of patterns worth examining. Was it perfect? No, but we all need discernment as we read, so: read it anyway. Is it possible to represent the nuance contained in these topics in 200 pages? Of course not. (The treatment of same-sex attraction, though integrated into the conversation in a way that is refreshing compared to the purity culture that doesn't acknowledge anyone could ever not be heterosexual, particularly left me thinking more space was needed!) Welcher points out from the beginning that these topics need to be fleshed out in everyday conversations in relationships, not just in books. That is kind of the point, and one of the critiques of purity culture that made sexuality seem so separate from the gospel. On the whole, my views have landed pretty similarly to Welcher's so far, and I'm grateful to have a book that dares to examine these things while maintaining an orthodox perspective, and a devotion to keeping the gospel central. Because ultimately, that is why it's worth even fussing about this stuff: "Purity is important to God--so important that Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, had to die so that we could live. But, too often, purity rhetoric hyperfocuses on what we should and shouldn't do instead of what Christ has already done. It neglects the gospel and places personal striving above the finished work of Christ."