Hello friends!

Thank you so much to those of you who have visited this site over the years. What an encouragement that has been! Your support has inspired me to keep thinking, writing, and sharing.

The past few weeks have provided clarity on where I should go with my writing, and I have some updates to share with you.

The first is that I have started a page on Substack calledSub-Creations. I will use it to share regular essays on history, theology, and life in general. They will be relatively short in length, so you can read them in that ten minute break at work. I welcome you to visit the site and subscribe to receive all the articles in your inbox. There is no cost to read these essays.

Second, I am now contributing articles to an organization called 1517, a Christian theological outfit that produces articles, podcasts, and videos. They hold conferences a couple times a year, the tickets for which are currently selling like hot cakes, and they have a network of speakers. I came across this organization while conducting research for my two most recent novels, as 1517 focuses extensively on Lutheran theology and the history of the Reformation. I am honored that they have chosen to publish some of my writing.

Third, I am now part of a guild. No, not a guild like the ones medieval blacksmiths used to join. This one has considerably less risk of infectious disease, and it accepts women. It is called the Mythic Mind Collaborative Guild, or less augustly, the Mythic Mind Collaborative Community. This new group is an initiative of my friend, Dr. Andrew Snyder. It is still very much in the formation stages, and its eventual destiny is yet to be revealed. However, it is likely that I will be contributing in some form, quite possibly with the occasional essay.

In addition to Sub-Creations, 1517, and Mythic Mind, I still have this personal website, which is what we in the olden days used to call “a blog.” I have been questioning what to do with it now that I am no longer producing my podcast, (A)Millennial, and I am taking part in these new initiatives. I also have my two novels about the Reformation that I will likely self-publish sometime next year.

So, here is the strategy I have developed going forward.

Sub-Creations: My personal Substack page will be used for short essays, typically 1,500 words or less. It will have a wide range of focus and minimal theological terminology. I hope that people of various backgrounds and religious/philosophical persuasions will find it helpful and accessible. Although I started by posting two essays a week, I will likely settle into a pattern where I release one every Monday, with possible breaks during times when I am traveling or illness visits our house.

1517: These articles will be similar in length, but they will always focus on Christian theology and Church history. They will very explicitly promote Christian beliefs in line with the Protestant Reformation and might include a higher number of technical or “in-group” terms. I am not sure at this point how frequent my submissions will be, but regular contributors to the website tend to be featured about once a month.

Mythic Mind Collaborative: This is very much yet to be determined, but such contributions as I make will likely be philosophical in nature, and I will strive to draw upon mythical narratives such as the legendarium of J.R.R. Tolkien and the heroic epics of the medieval period.

AmyMantravadi.com: I will now be using this personal website for longer essays that take a deep dive into topics of importance to me. The extended word count will allow for a more nuanced consideration of complex issues. Essays like this are disappearing from our intensely busy, smartphone wielding society, but I feel it is important to still produce them. My archive of past essays will remain on this website.

Thank you for taking the time to read these updates. Let me know what you might like to see from me in the future.

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The post Where I Go From Here appeared first on Amy Mantravadi.

This past week, I had the opportunity to visit the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the bishop’s seat for the Episcopal Diocese of New York. A quick Google search confirms that it is the largest church in the United States, despite being only two-thirds complete and jokingly referred to as “St. John the Unfinished.” Cathedrals tend to be long-term building projects—construction of Cologne’s cathedral began in 1248 and ended in 1880—but as I traveled north on the C line along the western edge of Central Park, I doubted whether this particular cathedral would ever reach its maximum size.

Two years ago, my husband and I watched a documentary series exploring traditional rituals at various sacred spaces on earth. Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Shinto, Muslim, and Native American sites were all featured. As a representative of Protestant Christianity, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine’s annual Blessing of the Animals was selected. Occurring each October, these services are packed with young children and their parents excited to see animals strange and exotic making their way down the central aisle of the nave. A cathedral employee remarked to the documentary crew that it was nice to see the space so full of people, because normally they have few attendees at their services.

As I exited the subway at 110^th Street-Cathedral Parkway, that comment was reverberating in my mind. The cathedral has long prided itself on being a beacon, refuge, and advocate for the community. Throughout the 20^th century and into the 21^st, it has worked to promote justice in the here and now, bringing a bit of heaven to planet earth. It has provided sustenance to the poor, supported AIDS victims, and engaged in interfaith outreach, seeking to be a home for the homeless and voice for the voiceless. As I climbed the hill upon which the cathedral keeps watch over Morningside Heights, I passed large panels featuring the stories of immigrants, this in the same week that Mayor Eric Adams would announce a state of emergency to deal with the busses of migrants regularly arriving in New York City from El Paso. The message could not be more politically topical, and yet I thought to myself, Where are all the people?

Arriving at the cathedral’s western front, I admired the Gothic revival architecture. Only one of the towers has been completed and the second is never likely to be, but it is nevertheless impressive. Over the central portal, the figure of Christ sits upon the judgment seat: hardly an original theme for ecclesiastical art, but there was something about this version that was a bit different. In medieval art, Christ passes judgment over all humanity, separating the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the damned. The offense of sin against God is the chief topic of concern. In the modern version at St. John the Divine, Christ is accompanied by a host of Native Americans, their eyes pointed not at Christ but the viewer. The implication is clear: Christ is casting judgment not on the entire world, but those who oppressed and exterminated the original inhabitants of the land upon which the cathedral sits.

Sobering thoughts of unspeakable pain! I did not doubt that the crimes against Native Americans were worthy of divine judgment, nor that the current status of their descendants should be a subject of concern for all Christians. Yet, as I entered the church and made my $10 donation for right of passage, I asked myself once again, Where are all the people?

But I had not come chiefly to see the people. I had come to see Christa.

“THIS IS 2016”

In the great tradition of Christian cathedrals, St. John the Divine has always been a patron of the arts. It has hosted the likes of Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington, and the French tightrope walker Philippe Petit. It maintains a poet-in-residence and hosts many temporary and permanent art exhibitions within its walls and across the cathedral grounds. I passed chapels featuring art dedicated to New York firefighters and members of the U.S. Armed Forces. There was a statue commemorating the 9/11 attacks and another work lamenting the desecration of the environment. Stained glass windows depicted familiar scenes from biblical tales and the lives of saints, but there were also windows featuring the medieval Crusades (quite wrongfully waged, in the church’s opinion), an icon of Our Lady of Ferguson in memory of victims of police violence, and a window celebrating the Founding Fathers that I suspect is destined for cancellation.

The most famous piece of art ever displayed in the cathedral is a bronze statue entitled Christa by the British artist Edwina Sandys. Famous for her provocative works that often feature feminist themes, Sandys is also notable as a granddaughter of Winston Churchill. Her art has been installed on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was during Holy Week in 1984 that the cathedral first displayed what was destined to be her most controversial work: an image of a naked female nailed to a cross.

Sandys recalled the thought process behind the work’s creation in a 2016 interview with The New York Times. “‘I thought: “What should I be doing today? Oh, I know, I’ll do a female Christ,”’ she recalled. ‘It really just happened, more or less automatically.’”[1] Call me a cynic, but it’s hard to believe such a controversial work of art sprung into being spontaneously, as if the clay had a will of its own. In another interview a year earlier, Sandys had said of Christa, “I wanted her to be suffering but compassionate. As I was modeling her out of clay and began to think of the meaning, I told some other women artists in the sculpture studio that I wanted to portray the suffering of women.”[2]

Here we seem to be getting more to the point. Christa is not meant to be an accurate historic representation of what happened one day in ancient Palestine. Rather, the sculpture expresses something about the meaning of Christ’s crucifixion. What Sandys wants us to know is that Christ is a fellow sufferer. As we see Christa’s female body twisted in agony, forcibly stripped of anything that might protect her from a cruel world, we think of the suffering imposed by thousands of years of patriarchy: women denied an education, forced to do the labor that men feel is beneath them, beaten and raped, forbidden even to speak.

Predictably, when Christa made her debut at the cathedral back in 1984, there were some who missed the intended point. “Theologically and historically indefensible”: that was how Bishop Walter Dennis of the Diocese of New York described the work at the time. Christa had been installed during the bishop’s temporary leave of absence, upon the approval of the dean of the cathedral, James Park Morton. The bishop minced no words, accusing the dean of “desecrating our symbols” by allowing the depiction of a female Christ to be displayed.[3] He was not the only one offended: the cathedral received hate mail, which at that time consisted of physical mail rather than digital replies. The statue was removed soon after its debut on the insistence of the bishop.

Thirty-two years later, Christa was welcomed back to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for part of an exhibition entitled “The Christa Project: Manifesting Divine Bodies.” It was permanently installed in the Chapel of St. Saviour, and the reception the second time around has been far more positive. The dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev. James Kowalski, said that the statue’s 2016 return was “an opportunity to reframe the conversation and, frankly, do a better job than the first time.” A New York Times article run the week of the installation added the following.

[Kowalski] said he did not know how much controversy the exhibition would generate this time around. But Lisa A. Schubert, the cathedral’s vice president for programming, said there had already been some “pushback.”

“We have people who worship here who expressed concerns,” Ms. Schubert said on Monday, as the statue was being put into place. Still, “the leadership of the cathedral said this is 2016, not 1984,” she added. “Surely we can have a woman on the cross.”[4]

How should we interpret Ms. Schubert’s words? “This is 2016, not 1984.” In other words, criticism of the statue is based on outdated opinions. “Surely we can have a woman on the cross.” Which is to say, having a woman on the cross is the natural result of the gains made in women’s rights over the previous century. “We have women bishops now,” Sandys commented in the same article, implying that acceptance of one should lead to acceptance of the other: that accustoming one’s self to the image of a female Christ is only logical if you believe in the basic of equality of males and females.

The bishop at the time of the 2016 re-installation, Andrew Dietsche, approved of giving Christa a permanent home at the cathedral. In a booklet accompanying the exhibition, he wrote, “In an evolving, growing, learning church, we may be ready to see ‘Christa’ not only as a work of art but as an object of devotion, over our altar, with all of the challenges that may come with that for many visitors to the cathedral, or indeed, perhaps for all of us.”[5]

WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine was not the first church I had visited that day. Earlier, I had made my way down Fifth Avenue in a relentless drizzle to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. There were some similarities between the two churches: both were begun in the second half of the19^th century to accommodate the city’s growing population of worshippers, and both eventually settled on a Gothic revival style. However, it was the cathedrals’ differences that struck me that day.

First, we could title the Roman Catholic cathedral “St. Patrick the Finished.” Primary construction was begun in 1858 and completed in 1878, with a pause for the American Civil War. Secondary construction continued until 1906, and the cathedral was consecrated in 1910, after all its debts had been paid. In comparison to similar building projects throughout history, that’s pretty much a sprint.

The second difference would be apparent to anyone who passes through the doors of both cathedrals on an average weekday: unlike its Episcopal cousin, St. Patrick’s is filled with people. In my whole time at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, I saw a dozen persons at most, none of them worshippers. St. Patrick’s, on the other hand, probably had somewhere between 100-200 people milling about, many of them dipping their fingers in the holy water upon arrival and subsequently kneeling in the pews or before one of the altars. Throughout the church were the traditional votive displays, many of their candles lit. It was very clearly a living place of worship,

Could the contrast in attendance have to do with the cathedrals’ geographic locations? After all, St. Patrick’s sits at the heart of Fifth Avenue, not far from Rockefeller Center and Times Square, whereas St. John the Divine is in a largely residential neighborhood on the north end of Central Park, just south of Columbia University. I have no doubt that this provides part of the explanation, but it is also worth noting that while US church attendance has decreased across Christian denominations in recent decades, mainline Protestant denominations have often suffered worse than others.

It can be tricky to judge the state of a given denomination: one may consider weekly church attendance, median congregant age, overall number of baptized members, or total annual giving. By nearly every measurement, the Episcopal Church in the USA is in worse shape than non-mainline Protestant churches or the Roman Catholic Church. Attendance at Episcopal Sunday services decreased by 24.5% between 2009-2019,[6] and it seems safe to assume things haven’t improved since the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be the most important statistic of all when comparing Episcopalians and Catholics in the US: as of 2016, the average Episcopalian was 56 and the average Catholic was 49.[7]

The decline in mainstream church attendance was observed as early as the 1960s, driven largely by young persons raised in the Church who departed when coming of age. Since the younger generation was more likely to be concerned about issues of social justice and sexual liberation, there were many who suggested that the way to stem the bleeding was to appeal to those instincts. But there has never been complete agreement on which strategy is most likely to increase attendance. Some favor a decreased focus on doctrinal rigor in favor of an open, accepting message of social justice and love extended to all.

For every person who adheres to that theory, there is at least one other claiming it is the very fact that the Episcopal Church is, in the words of Bishop Andrew Dietsche, “evolving, growing, and learning” that is its greatest problem. The way to attract young people, this group argues, is not to abandon historic Christian positions, but to double down on them. As evidence, this second group points to the fact that members of conservative denominations tend to be younger and attend services more often.

This brings me back to my visit to St. John the Divine. The first thing I passed on my approach was those murals featuring immigrants, most of whom were Hispanic. The church clearly wanted the neighborhood to know it welcomes immigrants, regardless of legal status, and is concerned with their social plight. This sentiment is largely shared by the Episcopal Church as a whole and other mainline Protestant denominations. But are Hispanics attending these churches? In general, they are not.

The Barna Group conducted a survey back in 2009 that found that, “While Hispanics make up 16% of the US population, they are only 6% of the mainline population.” Since that time, the population of Hispanics in the United States has continued to grow, while the proportional share of white and black Americans has declined. I saw Hispanic worshippers when I visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and many Catholic churches across the country now offer Mass in Spanish. The growth of the Hispanic population is the main reason that the Catholic share of the US population has remained fairly steady while that of other Christian groups has declined.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine may be “evolving, growing, and learning” regarding social issues, but “growing” is not an adjective I would apply to the Episcopal Church in the USA. I do not doubt that the residents of Morningside Heights have been fed and clothed by their local cathedral, but whether they have been converted is another question entirely. This is not surprising, given that the Barna Group found that only 31% of mainline adults believe they “have a personal responsibility to discuss their faith with people who have different beliefs.”

“BORN OF A WOMAN”

Remember old Bishop Dennis, the man who in 1984 described Christa as “theologically and historically indefensible”? The 2016 New York Times article portrayed him as a crank out of touch with the times. Was he really just a grumpy old misogynist, or was there something more substantial to his criticism?

Perhaps it would be worth asking the question, “Is Christa’s sex incidental to who she is, or essential?” Clearly, Edwina Sandys thought that Christa’s sexual identity was important when she formed her out of clay. Otherwise, Sandys would have never accepted the societal censure that was sure to come. She clearly felt that she could not communicate what she desired without altering Christ’s gender.

Critics of the work likewise see Christa’s sex as an essential part of who she is, and they believe the decision to make her female is a powerful theological statement. Here it is worth asking, “What exactly are Sandys’ personal religious views?” I could find no details online, but given the small percentage of British persons who hold historic, orthodox Christian beliefs, it seems a fair guess that Sandys does not belong to the more conservative end of the Christian spectrum, if indeed she is a Christian at all. In crafting the statue, she likely sought to make a social and political point more than a theological one, but when the subject in question is the death of Christ, any commentary is inherently theological.

Bishop Dennis might have been a crank, but he called Christa indefensible because he believed that Christ’s male identity was an important part of who he was—even an essential one. We live in a cultural moment when sexual identity means both everything and nothing at the same time: everything in that it must be legally protected and socially respected, and nothing in that it can change at any time based on a person’s emotional experiences. In such a society, when females have been accepted as the equals of males and traditional gender stereotypes are being broadly rejected, you could forgive a person for wondering why it is important that Christ was a male and not a female.

The Christian Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ was the second Adam. The Book of Genesis details how Adam was formed as the first human being from the dust of the earth and the very breath of God. It was to Adam that the command not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was given, and it was Adam who was held chiefly responsible when humanity fell into sin. As St. Paul wrote, “For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.” (1 Timothy 2:14) Adam served as a federal head for his descendants, which means that because of his sin, all humans now inherit a sinful nature. The doctrine of original sin has been essential to orthodox Christianity since the time of the Church Fathers and was powerfully explicated by Augustine of Hippo.[8] St. Paul taught that even as Adam was a federal head for humanity, so Christ has become a federal head.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, about to the many.

Romans 5:12-15

Even as Adam was a firstborn, Christ was a firstborn. Again, it was St. Paul who wrote of Christ that, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15) Adam imputed death to all those under his federal headship, whereas Christ imputes life to all who are under his federal headship.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.

1 Corinthians 15:44b-48

It was necessary for Christ to be a federal head like Adam to bring righteousness and life to human beings trapped in sin and death. But perhaps you are wondering, “Does that mean Christ had to be a man?” I would argue that it does, but lest you think God favors men over women or only used the former in his plan of salvation, allow me to destroy that assumption.

Although it was Adam who imputed sin to his descendants, Eve was the first to fall into sin after she was tempted by the serpent. God declared in response to the serpent’s act, “And I will put enmity / Between you and the woman, / And between your seed and her seed; / He shall bruise you on the head, / And you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:15) Soon after, Adam gave his wife the name Eve, “because she was the mother of all the living.” (Genesis 3:20) It seems reasonable to conclude that the “seed” of which God spoke was Jesus Christ, who would crush the devil, and that while Adam imputed death to his descendants, in the sovereign plan of God, life would be brought into the world through Eve and all the women who came after her, preparing the way for the Savior.

Christ was brought into the world through the body of the Virgin Mary. The female sex was therefore essential to the divine plan of salvation, as was the male sex. This is why St. Paul wrote, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) Jesus Christ was not made incarnate as a parentless individual. He was “born of a woman.” We must grasp this in order to appreciate 1) Christ’s true humanity, and 2) the necessity of women for salvation.

I therefore conclude that if Christ were not a man, he could not have been a federal head as Adam was, and therefore could not have delivered the benefits of his salvific actions to humanity. However, I also conclude that it was necessary for him to be born of a woman, and that it would have been impossible for him to be born of a man. To say that Christ could have been a woman is to say that Mary could have been a man. Rather than demeaning women, the insistence on recognizing Christ’s historic sexual identity simply acknowledges the importance of both males and females in God’s saving work.

CHRISTUS VICTOR

If it was necessary for Jesus Christ to be a man to impute his benefits to humanity, then it seems a rather essential part of who he is, not an incidental one. Even as Edwina Sandys could not accomplish what she intended if Christa were male, so God the Father could not have accomplished what he intended if Christ were female. This is not a misogynistic opinion, but simply an accurate statement of biblical teaching.

What is at stake is the very essence of human salvation, which Scripture clearly teaches is delivered through the person of Jesus Christ. The Church has always acknowledged this fact. Therefore, Bishop Dennis argued that it was “theologically and historically indefensible” to portray Christ as a woman: theologically indefensible because it flies in the face of Scripture and historically indefensible because it flies in the face of what the Church has always taught. It would be much the same as portraying the Virgin Mary as a man without a womb.

If you are a person who holds an historic Christian view of sin and salvation, you will have a problem with the idea of a female Christ (unless you are rather confused). I am now hitting very close to the heart of the disagreement, for the fact is that many Christians today do not hold to historic views of sin and salvation. They see sin as something committed against our neighbors more than God. They deny the existence of hell or hold to some form of universal salvation. Already in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, many Christians in what are now mainline Protestant denominations were denying the Virgin Birth, the full deity of Christ, and other key historic doctrines.

The Social Gospel movement, among others, emphasized the need to provide for and defend the vulnerable in this life while deemphasizing certain aspects of the life to come. Remember when I told you only 31% of mainline adults believe they “have a personal responsibility to discuss their faith with people who have different beliefs”? Perhaps the reason they see no such responsibility is that they view Christianity as one of many paths to a general salvific enlightenment rather than the only path toward the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

One of the main differences between conservative and liberal Protestant denominations today is how they understand the atonement—that is, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and its theological purpose. Conservative Protestants tend to favor penal substitution theory, which holds that Christ took the penalty of sin upon himself in order to spare those who would believe in him. Many of those who hold to penal substitution theory also teach a double exchange in which, through union with Christ, a person’s sin is transferred to Christ while the righteousness of Christ is transferred in the opposite direciton.

Liberal Protestants tend to reject penal substitution theory and hold to an alternative doctrine called moral influence theory. Pierre Abelard is usually credited with developing this view in opposition to Anselm of Canterbury’s satisfaction theory of the atonement. According to moral influence theory, Christ’s death on the cross is the chief display of God’s love for humanity. God is not a cruel judge who would meet out wrath upon his own Son. The closely related moral example theory, which seems to have appeared in the 16^th century, holds that Christ’s sacrificial death teaches us how to properly love God. The view was picked up by Immanuel Kant and eventually became the dominant one within liberal Protestantism.

If one holds to a moral influence (or moral example) theory of the atonement, then the federal headship of Christ becomes something of a non-issue. It is easier to see the main point of Christ’s death as a kind of “suffering alongside”: that he was confronting injustice by suffering as an oppressed person, and that we therefore should make sacrifices to confront injustice in our own day and stand up for the oppressed. Sandys’ desire to acknowledge the suffering of women therefore makes complete sense according to this view. When Jesus was suffering on the cross, he was suffering as a woman, a black man, a Jew, a disabled person, a gay person—whichever group one chooses to focus on that day.

But there is a problem with this view of the atonement: it does not provide the ultimate succor to victims of injustice that one would hope, because it mistakes the causes and nature of injustice. Injustice is not a simple behavioral problem. It is symptomatic of an evil that lies within every human heart and a curse that touches every corner of creation. That is what the mainstream, orthodox Church has always taught. If sin is the problem, and we are mired in sin absent the work of the Spirit of God, then no amount of behavioral correction is going to permanently solve the problem of injustice. It might produce some short-term improvements, but it is not a cure: only a mitigating treatment. What is even worse, society could begin to accept these minor improvements as if they were equivalent to a cure, thereby failing victims of injustice.

There is another theory of the atonement titled Christus Victor. This view sees the main point of the atonement as Christ’s victory over the devil and the evil powers of this world. On the cross, the forces of evil were decisively defeated and their power broken. Christ did not merely suffer alongside the oppressed: he provided the cure for their suffering by freeing them from the chains that bound them. If one holds this view, or the penal substitution view, or some combination of both, it becomes much easier, in this author’s opinion, to reckon with the problems of injustice and suffering than if one holds the moral influence view. There has been a great battle, and the light has defeated the darkness.

How one views the atonement is tightly linked with how one views the problems of evil, injustice, and suffering. I would submit that, while it may make us feel better to think of a non-judgmental God, such a God cannot save us from the world, the flesh, and the devil. He cannot be the death of death. This is a point on which I am unlikely to agree with most members of the Episcopal Church in the USA.

I thought of all this as I stood there gazing at Christa, but I also thought about something else: something that has been bothering me for quite some time.

A FALSE CHOICE

Edwina Sandys may not be the world’s finest theologian, but she is correct that women have suffered greatly throughout history. I do not object to her desire to honor women, but the manner in which she does it. A female Christ does not have the power to solve the problem of injustice. Only a male Christ can redeem the suffering of women rather than simply sharing in it.

In my understanding of the atonement, I am in line with conservative Christians and at odds with liberals, but in my concern for the state of women in the Church and the world, I find myself increasingly at odds with conservatives. Although I have never sought ordained office in the Church, but merely desired to write about Christianity, I have been criticized by those who see such writing as a kind of “gateway drug” to seeking formal authority in the Church. When I have raised concerns about sexism in the Church with respected conservative Christian leaders, I have not received the type of responses one would hope.

One female author asserted she had never experienced sexism in conservative Reformed churches, which she insisted were full of “good men.” A male pastor and author told me that if sexism was worse in his denomination than others, it was a “moot point.” One pastor seemed to give limited credence to my concerns, but then failed to follow-up. I wrote back multiple times over several months. He was always too busy.

I have had people question my motives for writing about theology and ask if I was driven by a desire for personal glory. Do they also address these questions to male writers? One time, after many months of witnessing misogynistic attacks by a particular Christian Twitter account, I finally warned others to avoid said account, only to be deluged with replies accusing me of slander. I watched female friends get harassed online by ordained ministers, and I saw exactly how little accountability those ministers received from their denominations.

I also saw how connected the mainstream of Reformed evangelicalism is to the more misogynistic fringes. I watched in dismay as men I had respected shared the stage with men who had attacked victims of sexual abuse. I watched the Southern Baptist Convention come under investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice due to its mishandling of abuse cases, only to have many SBC leaders insist it was all some kind of satanic plot and there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with the way they were treating women.

I cannot unsee these things. I cannot forget my experiences. Worst of all is the fact that I know my mistreatment has been mild in comparison to the experiences of other women. I reached a point where I seriously wondered who, if anyone, in conservative circles would treat me with respect and take my concerns seriously. I went out of my way to be gracious in the way I raised these issues. I waited for more information before rushing to judgment. I played by the rules, but the game was rigged against me.

The statue of Christa confronts me with a conundrum: Should I go to the portion of the Church that has a correct view of the atonement or the portion that respects me as a person?

As I live and breathe, the Lord has not placed this choice upon me. He has commanded the Church to teach correct doctrine and practice correct behavior, but there are plenty of people in the American Church who have an interest in forcing me to choose between those two things. The conservatives draw people by warning of the dangers of liberalism, and the liberals draw people by warning of the dangers of conservatism. It is a gross mirroring of the tendencies of our politicians. I have considered this conundrum, and I choose not to choose. No human being should be forced to make a choice between biblical truth and personal dignity.

I am never going to have a perfect church, because no such things exists. Like every Christian before me, I will have to live in the “already and not yet.” The kingdom of God is at hand, but the New Heavens and the New Earth are a thing of the future. Some of us will suffer more in this transitional stage than others, and it seems to me that women have drawn one of the short sticks.

I will not be defeated by the conundrum Christa presents. The real Christ and his cross are far too glorious to simply give up and walk away. But I will pray for the restoration of Christ’s Church. May the gates of Hades never defeat it. (Don’t worry. They won’t.)

All scripture quotations are from The New American Standard Bible (1995 version), copyright The Lockman Foundation.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/nyregion/an-evolving-episcopal-church-invites-back-a-controversial-sculpture.html?_r=3&mtrref=artfcity.com&gwh=E2095C032081CDCCE8B1322ACB59EAC6&gwt=pay

[2] https://feminismandreligion.com/2015/10/06/christa-interview-with-edwina-sandys-by-nettie-reynolds/

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/25/nyregion/bishop-attacks-display-of-female-christ-figure.html

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/nyregion/an-evolving-episcopal-church-invites-back-a-controversial-sculpture.html?_r=3&mtrref=artfcity.com&gwh=E2095C032081CDCCE8B1322ACB59EAC6&gwt=pay

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/nyregion/an-evolving-episcopal-church-invites-back-a-controversial-sculpture.html?_r=3&mtrref=artfcity.com&gwh=E2095C032081CDCCE8B1322ACB59EAC6&gwt=pay

[6] https://www.christianpost.com/news/episcopal-church-worship-attendance-drops-by-nearly-25.html

[7] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/11/which-u-s-religious-groups-are-oldest-and-youngest/

[8] The concept of original guilt has always been somewhat more controversial.

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I am now at a turning point. My last novel about Empress Maud of England is about to be released. I have ceased writing for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I wrapped up a third season of my podcast with what I felt was a very good episode with Tim Keller. What to do next? That was the question.

I am a full-time caretaker for my son, so my time to work on creative projects is limited. I have decided at this time to place both my blog and my podcast on hiatus to focus exclusively on a project that has captured my imagination: a new novel which I have hoped to write since 2016 and which is now slowly becoming something of a reality.

This novel will focus on two critical years in the history of the Protestant Reformation – 1524 and 1525 – and be told from the perspectives of Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, and Philip Melanchthon. Two Bible verses are particularly inspiring me as I conduct research for this novel. The first is in the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, where we read in verses 2:12-13,

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

The second is Psalm 27:13, which reads, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord / In the land of the living.” I continue to mediate on these passages and others as I think about how to communicate this new story to the best of my ability.

This means that I will not be releasing new blog articles or podcast episodes in the near future. If this is a disappointment to you, I apologize. I simply feel that, at this time, there is no other project to which I ought to devote my energies, nor one that inspires the kind of passion which this one seems to create. I dearly hope that I will one day be able to present this new novel to you and that you will enjoy it.

Thank you so much for your support of my writing pursuits! There is plenty of content already on this site. Use the search function and have a look around.

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How do we reach people for Christ in an increasingly secular age? That is the question Tim Keller considers in his short eBook, How to Reach the West Again. He stops by to chat about what we can learn from the early Church, how Christian writers and institutions can address our current cultural moment, and why we have ultimate hope in an unchanging God when society is constantly changing. He also gives his thoughts on the recent high-profile failures of evangelical leaders and how the Church should respond to them. Also in this episode: We finally determine what is up with Tom Bombadil.

Links for this episode:
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Author Website
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Approximately 25% of identified pregnancies end in miscarriage. All of us know someone who has lost a child in the womb, or perhaps we have lost one ourselves. Abbey Wedgeworth discusses this difficult topic with great sensitivity, responding to grief with gospel truth. Her book Held:31 Biblical Reflections on God’s Comfort and Care in the Sorrow of Miscarriage  is an excellent resource for those who have experienced miscarriage or seek to minister to others who have. Also in this episode: We discover that South Carolina and Ohio may, in fact, have slightly different weather.

Purchase Abbey’s Book
Author Website
Held Podcast
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Forthcoming Companion Book for Fathers by Eric Schumacher
“How Christ Redeemed our Suffering” by Amy Mantravadi

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“What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” That was the question the Church Father Tertullian asked, and ever since then Christians have been attempting to answer it. Can we use ideas taken from secular philosophy to inform our understanding of theology? Is there even a difference between philosophy and theology? Dr. Alex (Shao Kai) Tseng stops by to consider these questions and provide an overview of Christianity’s interaction with philosophers from Plato to Hegel. Also in this episode: Alex describes the lengths he will go to for tamales.

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Alex’s Tribute to J.I. Packer

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What role does the imagination play in helping people understand and appreciate the gospel of Jesus Christ? That’s the question that Justin Ariel Bailey asks in his book Reimagining Apologetics. We discuss how Christians can share their faith in what has been dubbed the “Age of Authenticity,” when a person’s individual experience is seen as the best source of truth. Also in this episode: We geek out about Tolkien.

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In All Things Podcast

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The Heidelberg Catechism tells us that our only comfort in life and death is that we belong to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ, but for many people in the modern West, this seems like a false comfort designed to keep us in chains. In his new book, You Are Not Your Own, Dr. Alan Noble argues that the false promises of self-belonging have left us with a world that is inhuman: obsessed with efficiency, built upon self-promotion, and unable to offer hope for eternity. He offers some correctives to popular societal maxims and points us to the hope that is found in Christ. Also in this episode: Listen to the very end to hear us get confused about one of Tim Keller’s degrees.

Links for this episode:
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Official website
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I am excited to announce that there will soon be new episodes of (A)Millennial once again! As always, I focus on quality rather than quantity: there will only be five episodes this season, but each one will offer something great. Weekly releases throughout the year are for people who aren’t full-time mommies and aren’t trying to finish up a novel. Here’s what you can look forward to this season…

• October 25 – “You Are not Your Own” with Alan Noble: A true glutton for punishment, Alan will be making his second appearance on the podcast to discuss his newest book. We will discuss what it means to belong to God in an inhuman world.
• November 1 – “Reimagining Apologetics” with Justin Ariel Bailey: Inspired by writers like George MacDonald and Marilynne Robinson, Justin has a vision for apologetics that focuses on baptizing the imaginations of the unconvinced, allowing them to enter into a Christian mindset and feel their way into faith when simply hitting them with logical proofs doesn’t work.
• November 8 – “Introduction to Philosophy in Theology” with Alex (Shao Kai) Tseng: I like to have one episode each season that provides an introduction to some major aspect of theology. After covenant theology and systematic theology, I will now speak with Alex about the ways that philosophy has (and hasn’t) been incorporated into Christian theology. When is it ok to benefit from secular philosophy? We’ll discuss it.
• November 15 – “Hope after Miscarriage” with Abbey Wedgeworth: As so many people I care about have suffered from miscarriage, this is a topic I’ve always wanted to cover on the podcast, and I’m glad to have connected with an author who addresses the subject from a biblical perspective. She has written about how the gospel and God’s character help us to think about the loss of a child in the womb.
• November 22 – “How to Reach the West Again” with Tim Keller: Bringing the gospel to the unreached and the skeptical has been one of the focuses of Tim’s ministry throughout his career. He will be joining me to discuss how we as Christians can address the challenges of our secular age and share biblical truth with a post-modern audience.

You can visit the official (A)Millennial website to listen to episodes or find links to your favorite podcast app. I hope you can join me for more theological conversations this autumn. Until then, enjoy previous episodes with Rachael Denhollander, Kristin Kobes du Muz, Matthew Lee Anderson, and others.

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NOTE: This article includes external links to the Lord of the Rings Fandom site for those seeking more background information. Be advised that the articles may (and probably will) include spoilers.

“Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.”

What is that place—that miraculous place where all is well? Where anxieties fade away into bliss, and the hurts of this world are made to flee? Where is that place? What is it? Does such a thing exist? Will you take me there?

I have never known such a place in all my years—never felt what it is to be, for once, without fear. Even in dreams, I have felt the cold sting of anxiety and the absence of peace. Upon waking, the pain has filled me immediately, like a rush of blood I cannot escape. Oh, how I longed to escape! To know for once the peace that surpasses comprehension. This is sehnsucht, my friends: holy longing.

Such a place the hobbits find in this chapter, and it is a thing of beauty. In the house of Tom Bombadil and his love, Goldberry, the normal rules of fear do not apply. Not that there is no thought of fear, for even here it crashes against the gates. But that is the point exactly: it makes an attempt, but it is overcome. It is cast back into the night.

Upon crossing this magical threshold, the four hobbits are greeted by Goldberry, who tells them, “Let us shut out the night! … For you are still afraid, perhaps, of mist and tree-shadows and deep water, and untame things. Fear nothing! For tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil!”

This is the cry of the light to those who live on earth: Fear not! Fear nothing!

We want to believe it. Of course we do! Yet the memory of shadow haunts our hearts. Can we trust this strange apparition that tells us not to fear? Not to fear would be to let down our guard: to accept that we are in the presence of something greater than ourselves, which is capable of protecting us against everything we fear. Are Tom Bombadil and Goldberry such persons? It seems so, for Frodo’s reaction is immediate.

‘Fair lady Goldberry!’ said Frodo at last, feeling his heart moved with a joy that he did not understand. He stood as he had at times stood enchanted by fair elven-voices; but the spell that was now laid upon him was different: less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to mortal heart; marvelous and yet not strange. ‘Fair lady Goldberry!’ he said again. ‘Now the joy that was hidden in the songs we heard is made plain to me.’[1]

Yes, to be around Goldberry and Tom Bombadil is to be in the hearing of music of the sweetest kind. It is more than a collection of notes. It has the power to enliven and encourage. It keeps the anger of the forest at bay and rouses all that is beautiful to join in the celebration.

We have seen previously how the Elves love to sing their ancient songs, but when we encounter Tom Bombadil, we find a song more ancient still: a song that rang out under the starry sky before evil ever entered the world. It was there before the Elves, and one gets the sense that if the Elves ever desert Middle-earth completely, this song of Tom will still be there. He is more unchanging than the earth itself and relatively untroubled by the goings on outside his forest.

“He is.”[2]

These words of Goldberry about her husband have sent Tolkien scholars and fans into a tizzy. After all, the Hebrew Bible calls God “I AM.” There is a certain similarity there, but one that Tolkien rejected. Tom Bombadil is not God Almighty. Very well, then. What is he?

“He is the Master of wood, water, and hill,” she tells us. This means not that he owns the trees as one might one a home, but that he exercises a kind of dominion over all and is immune to normal anxieties. “Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.”[3]

The next day, Frodo is still uncertain of his host’s identity. He has stayed in his home, ate his food, and slept in his bed, but he cannot understand the nature of the one who has granted him all these things. “Who are you, Master?” he asks, and receives an interesting response.

Don’t you know my name yet? That’s the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that’s what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from Outside.[4]

There seems to be a link between Tom’s ancientness and his lack of fear. He is not a man. He is not an elf. He is older than them. Indeed, he was there before the event that changed Tolkien’s created world of Arda forever: when Melkor invaded and attacked the light. He knew what it was to live without fear, when there was only the light and the music to comfort him and nothing to cause concern.

That is all well and good, but that time has gone. It is a memory of only the most ancient and greatest. Men, of which hobbits are a kind of subset, live in fear of death. Elves do not suffer natural decay, and yet they fear the darkness brought in by Melkor, later called Morgoth. Even the Maiar—the angelic class of beings to which Gandalf and Sauron belong—are clearly subject to fear. And in our story, there is one thing above all else that is causing fear: the Ring.

Frodo has enough trust in Tom to show him the magical Ring. Yet when he hands it over, something most unusual happens.

It seemed to grow larger as it lay for a moment on his big brown-skinned hand. Then suddenly he put it to his eye and laughed. For a second the hobbits had a vision, both comical and alarming, of his bright blue eye gleaming through a circle of gold. Then Tom put the Ring round the end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight. For a moment the hobbits noticed nothing strange about his. Then they gasped. There was no sign of Tom disappearing! Tom laughed again, and then he spun the Ring in the air – and it vanished with a flash. Frodo gave a cry – and Tom leaned forward and handed it back to him with a smile.[5]

Not only does the Ring seem to have no effect on Tom, either physically or emotionally, but he seems to have power over the Ring! It cannot make him disappear, but he can cause it to vanish. What’s more, when Frodo puts on the Ring, he becomes invisible to his fellow hobbits, but not to Tom. What on earth is going on?

Perhaps a word about the Ring is due at this time. It was created by Sauron, a powerful Maia. He poured a good bit of his own power into it. He was therefore able to use it to bend lesser beings to his will, and even beings of his own class. However, we have not yet been able to see how the highest class of beings—the Valar—react to it, nor what would happen if it was encountered by Eru, the One who is sovereign over all things. By implication, I think it is safe to say that neither Eru nor the Valar can be controlled by the Ring, for their power is greater than Sauron’s.

It is also worth asking why Tom Bombadil can see Frodo when the latter is wearing the Ring. Well, why does a person vanish in the first place when they put on that piece of gold jewelry? They do not actually cease to be. They pass into another realm: the realm of shadow. More will be said about this mysterious place later on, but suffice it to say that there is more to Middle-earth than what is visible to the naked eye. There are layers of existence and things hidden from mere mortals. It is not entirely clear where Men go after they die, nor are we given details of the Outer Darkness into which Morgoth was thrown at the end of the First Age of Arda.

I sense that Tom’s ability to see Frodo when others cannot is because he exists in multiple realms, or is not entirely bound by them. When combined with the fact that Tom’s powers appear to be superior to the Ring, I am led to the conclusion that he is either one of the Valar or some kind of being in a class of his own. I do not believe he is Eru, for the supreme One never seems to involve himself directly and physically in the world he created. But is Tom Bombadil one of Eru’s creations, or was he simply with Eru in the beginning, as the Valar and Maiar were? I think perhaps Goldberry has given us the answer: “He is.” There never was a time when he was not, and there will never be a time when he is not. Like the other Valar, he cannot be killed or destroyed, though he could potentially be bound by one or more Valar greater than himself.

But I have wandered a long way from the hobbits at this point. Even after entering the house of Tom Bombadil, they are still afraid of what lies outside. They have very recently been chased by Black Riders and attacked by Old Man Willow. But the words of Goldberry bid them rest in peace. “‘Have peace now,’ she said, ‘until the morning! Heed no nightly noises! For nothing passes door and window here save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top. Good night!’”[6]

That night, three of the hobbits have strange dreams. Pippin imagines himself trying to escape an attacking willow tree. Merry imagines that he is about to be drowned. Both are calmed upon waking by the memory of Goldberry’s words. But Frodo’s dream is of a somewhat different character.

Then he saw the young moon rising; under its thin light there loomed before him a black wall of rock, pierced by a dark arch like a great gate. It seemed to Frodo that he was lifted up, and passing over he saw that the rock-wall was a circle of hills, and that within it was a plain, and in the midst of the plain was a pinnacle of stone, like a vast tower but not made by hands. On its top stood the figure of a man. The moon as it rose seemed to hang for a moment above his head and glistened in his white hair as the wind stirred it. Up from the dark plain below came the crying of fell voices, and the howling of many wolves. Suddenly a shadow, like the shape of great wings, passed across the moon. The figure lifted his arms and a light flashed from the staff he wielded. A mighty eagle swept down and bore him away. The voices wailed and the wolves yammered. There was a noise like a strong wind blowing, and on it was borne the sound of hoofs, galloping, galloping, galloping from the East. ‘Black Riders!’ thought Frodo as he wakened, with the sound of the hoofs still echoing in his mind. He wondered if he would ever again have the courage to leave the safety of these stone walls. He lay motionless, still listening; but all was now silent, and at least he turned and fell asleep again or wandered into some other unremembered dream.[7]

Frodo’s dream is of a different character than those of the other hobbits. They see shadows of the day before, but he sees things his waking eyes have never witnessed. This is the second time this has happened, the first being his dream of the tower by the sea. What could account for it? The answers are not provided at this time, but later evidence will show that what Frodo experiences in sleeping is more akin to a vision than a dream, and it fills him with fear. Fear of Black Riders, yes, but also fear of something else: a dark tower of stone, fell voices, howling wolves, and some kind of magic staff. Gandalf carries a staff. Does anyone else?

The overwhelming feeling Frodo has is that he does not want to leave the walls of Tom Bombadil’s home, the one place where he need not fear. There a power greater than the Ring protects him from evil, but unlike Tom, Frodo feels a need to rid the rest of the world of the Ring’s evil. He has felt the chill of anxiety that Tom has not. That is why he must go on, further into darkness, until the light may return again.

The hobbits are warned that the place they are going next—the Barrow-downs—is plagued by Wights. This land seems to be the location of ancient kingdoms, where “the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords.”[8] All their weapons and wealth are now buried in green mounds, but the Barrow-wights still patrol. “Even in the Shire the rumour of the Barrow-wights of the Barrow-downs beyond the Forest had been heard. But it was not a tale that any hobbits like to listen to, even by a comfortable fireside far away.”[9]                                                             

Into this land of fear the hobbits must now tread, and tread carefully at that, but they have a plan. They will stick to the western slope to avoid as much of the Downs as possible, meeting up with the East Road at its north side. The plan sounds good enough, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. The hobbits may soon be reminded of just how unique the joy and peace of Tom Bombail’s house really is.

A FEW NOTES ABOUT SOURCES:

• The articles in this series freely include references to material in other books by J.R.R. Tolkien that are part of the same narrative, particularly The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. Citations will only be provided in the case of direct quotations.
• Any citations that include merely a number are from J.R.R. Tolkien’s
  The Lord of the Rings, Single volume movie tie-in edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994).
• All biblical quotations are taken from The New American Standard Bible (1995 edition), copyright The Lockman Foundation.

[1] 121

[2] 122

[3] 122

[4] 129

[5] 130

[6] 123

[7] 125

[8] 128

[9] 128

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