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WHY I AM
A CULTURAL EVANGELICAL
By Jenell Paris
I am a lifelong evangelical; in
the womb I kicked out praises, in grade school I memorized
hundreds of verses, and in high school I worked for my church’s
youth programs. One summer the church pastor (male by
theological necessity) called a meeting of our staff: a female
director, five female high schoolers and one male high schooler. The pastor informed us that while our positions were
identical—summer staff—the boy would be paid more than the girls
because he was the only male. “He’ll be working harder, because
he’ll have to mentor all the boys,” is what I remember the
pastor saying. The amount of money was trivial, but the message
was enormous.
I have always been an active
church member, but that experience and a few others from before
I graduated high school dissuaded me from considering seminary
education or church work. Though my dualistic theology valued
church or missions work over secular work, all the common sense
God gave me insisted that exercising my gifts elsewhere in God’s
world would be better than dealing with discrimination and
repression inside God’s house.
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Female
evangelical leaders hack different paths through the
tangled fields in which they labor, and while some
join other traditions, many “continue to try to find
a place and a voice on the boundaries of
evangelicalism and feminism." |
In Living on
the Boundaries: Evangelical Women, Feminism and the Theological
Academy, Nicola Hoggard Creegan and Christine D. Pohl
interview evangelical or formerly evangelical women who chose
the path I rejected, studying or teaching in an evangelical
seminary. Whether women remained part of evangelicalism or
joined a different tradition, negotiation of feminism and
evangelicalism “involves ongoing reflection on identity and
regular grappling with the complexity of gender assumptions
within evangelical institutions” (47). Female evangelical
leaders hack different paths through the tangled fields in which
they labor, and while some join other traditions, many “continue
to try to find a place and a voice on the boundaries of
evangelicalism and feminism” (48).
I still call
myself an evangelical, but not for the reasons I once did. Not
because I’m hopeful for women’s equality to be honored across
the evangelical movement; in fact, I’m saddened to see
patriarchy alive and well in even the newest generation of
movement leadership. It was one thing to be excluded from
leadership by men who were my father’s age. But now I see many
among my generation of male scholars, pastors, and professors
mistaking themselves as helpful by advocating “soft patriarchy,”
a kinder, gentler approach to complementarian belief and
practice. And not because I am always treated well as a woman
in evangelical settings. Not even because I can check off every
item on a list of essential evangelical doctrine. I remain
evangelical for cultural reasons, which I suppose makes me a
cultural evangelical.
Being a "Cultural Christian"
I was taught
that a cultural Christian was one of the worst things a person
could be. They were nominal and lukewarm, abiding just behind
God’s pursed lips, about to be spit out. Cultural Christians
used church as a social club, enjoying the performance of
worship and the meals and friendships of fellowship. In
contrast, we committed Christians rested in God’s right hand,
safe for eternity. We were born again, pursued a personal
relationship with God, attended church, and did good works in
the world.
I still believe
in being born again and cultivating an intimate relationship
with my Savior, but I don’t set the committed Christians in
contrast to the cultural Christians in the way I used to. Anthropology has taught me that culture is more than just
something ‘lite’ added on to the real deal. Culture, the shared
beliefs and practices of a group of people, is humanity’s home
on earth; none of us live without it. Churches and Christians
always exist in cultures, in relationships of mutual influence.
Being a cultural evangelical helps me remain wholeheartedly
engaged with a tradition that too often demeans women in both
theology and practice. If I reinterpret the phrase ‘cultural
evangelical,’ I see two good reasons for being one.
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Being a cultural
evangelical helps me remain wholeheartedly engaged
with a tradition that too often demeans women in
both theology and practice. |
First,
evangelicalism is my culture in the deepest sense of the word;
evangelicals are my people. Evangelicalism provides me with
symbols, words, and rituals for interpreting my world. I read
the Bible and believe it is true, and I pray to God and believe
God listens. I worship at home to the Gaither Vocal Band DVDs
and pray for Billy Graham’s health. I feel at home in Christian
bookstores; my mom and aunt still work at the one where I used
to staff summer sidewalk sales. American evangelicalism is my
tradition of birth and my tradition of choice.
As a result of
being formed by this movement as a child, I want to use my adult
abilities to help shape it. I pay attention to the evangelical
movement and consider the impact of my writing, speaking, and
teaching on it. Being a cultural evangelical in this sense is
not a weak attachment to tradition or to God, but a recognition
of how deeply we are shaped by culture, and how successful
evangelicalism can be in molding individuals into a Christian
way of life.
|
As a result of
being formed by the evangelical
movement as a child, I want to use my adult
abilities to help shape it. |
I wish my
allegiance to evangelicalism were simple and pure, but it’s
not. It was jolting, as a girl, to be in situations like the
summer staff one and to experience the disjuncture between
traditionalist theology and my own conscience. Discomfort
continues into my adulthood; it’s painful to be in disharmony
with my tradition, as I sometimes am because of my commitment to
gender equality and my lifestyle as a professor-mom with a
husband who (mostly) stays home with our three little boys. It
is difficult to make choices about what to believe and how to
live in a tradition that carries competing voices; there are
many affirming, like-minded evangelicals, but there are also
many who judge and condemn families like mine.
This difficulty
leads to my second reason for being a cultural evangelical:
because my evangelicalism is embedded in American culture. I’m
glad American culture socialized me for gender equality,
educational success, and a life that includes service in the
public sphere. In public high school and secular graduate
school I was educated by professional women and female-affirming
men, without being limited by my gender. Evangelicalism helped
shape my ethics and practice in those settings in indispensable
ways, but I was equipped and empowered for service largely by
people outside the church.
|
The
culture within
which my religion is embedded empowers me to speak
against anachronistic elements of my religion. |
I have
exchanged the church-world dualism of my upbringing for a more
holistic understanding of creation. God made everything, so we
can expect to see the image of God everywhere, even in people
and places that do not acknowledge their creator. Conversely,
we can also expect to see sin everywhere, even in people and
places that are devoted to God. The culture within which my
religion is embedded empowers me to speak against anachronistic
elements of my religion. I remain evangelical in part because I
am part of a broader culture that is more affirming of women.
Remaining an
Evangelical
As an
anthropology professor at a Christian college in Pennsylvania, I
am now twenty years and a thousand miles away from that summer
staff position in suburban Minnesota, but similar inequalities
persist. It may not be as blatant as what my pastor said to our
summer staff (though sometimes it is), but in the end, men’s
work is often rewarded and valued more than women’s work. These
inequalities mark the everyday experience of many evangelical
women working in seminaries, churches, para-church
organizations, and homes.
Sometimes I
want to leave evangelicalism for greener pastures, and I wish
blessings to women who do just that. As for me, I’m attached
to my tradition with a cord of many strands—my spiritual
practice, my family, my community, my intellectual life, my job,
and my parenting are all enmeshed with evangelicalism—and it is
not easily broken. May we who stay find courage and grace as we
work for change. |
Jenell
Paris
