What if Adam’s Rib Is No Longer Willing To Be The Church’s Backbone?

Release Date: February 2012 – Tyndale House Publishers

photography/images above and below by Bill Dahl

A new Narrative?

In Her most recent book, Sara Miles has said: “Sharing our real stories, unvarnished and unfinished, not only provide helpful tips or sympathetic laughs: it’s the thing that allows us to become whole.” There are unvarnished, unfinished stories coming from certain sectors of Christendom in the U.S. — Jim Henderson’s The Resignation of Eve – What if Adam’s Rib is No Longer Willing to be the Backbone of the Church? — is filled with them. More about Henderson’s book in a moment. When one listen’s closely to the stories – a common narrative continues to emerge, based upon social research and socio-cultural observations. Allow me to explain. Listen to the narrative that seems to coalesce from the following:

Theologian Eugene Peterson has written: “We’ve been at this for two thousand years now, and people are not clamoring to join us.” [i] Alan Hirsch says, “I simply do not believe that we can continue to try to think our way into a new way of acting, but rather, we need to act our way into a new way of thinking.” [ii] Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman have said in their book unChristian: “We are at a turning point for Christianity in America. If we do not wake up to these realities and respond in appropriate, godly ways, we risk being increasingly marginalized and losing further credibility with millions of people.” [iii] George Barna has said that we have 340,000 Christian churches in America. The median age of women who attend, give money to, and volunteer in churches is between 56 and 59 years old. Read that sentence again…consider the implications. Barna goes on to say: “If you consider yourself a Christian, then you are called to follow His example and create the future.” [iv] The research underpinning David Kinnaman’s most recent book, You Lost Me – Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church and Redefining Faith emphatically points out that young Christians are leaving the Church in unprecedented numbers. Marcia Pally of NYU declares the following in her new book, The New Evangelicals: “The Divine may be omniscient and infallible, but religion as practiced in this world is a human institution….Religion, as it is practiced, is both adaptable and corruptible, as are all (human) social, political and economic systems.”……[v] Hmmmm…hear a narrative? A theme?

 Cuz God Said So…?

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said: “In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.” [vi] Blogger/Author/Writer/Creative Thinker…and activist  -  Pam Hogeweide of Portland Oregon writes:

“Most of my readership are disenchanted Christians who are sorting out what’s really real to them in their faith and what’s dogmatic conditioning from religious rhetoric and traditionalism. The perspective of women in the church by their men, and particularly the perspective of women of themselves is still in the grip of an archaic, hierarchical mindset that keeps women quietly busy serving in the kitchen or the nursery. But not the pulpit or the lecterns where only men can teach the faithful. It is unfathomable to the people I know here in Portland who are not Christ followers when they learn of the gender inequity that is alive and well in the halls of Christendom. “Really?” they ask,   “In this day and age?” [vii]

 Even in Islam, the role of the full participation of Muslim women is a lightening rod, as Irshad Manji points out in her book, The Trouble with Islam – A Muslim Calls For Reform in Her Faith:

“Girl’s can’t lead prayer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Girls aren’t permitted.”

“Why not?”

“Allah says so.”

“What’s His reason?”

“Read the Koran.”

Really? In this day and age?

Back Pain?

 Enter Jim Henderson and his new book The Resignation of Eve – What if Adam’s Rib is No Longer Willing to be the Backbone of the Church? This book is filled with riveting interviews with Christian women, whom (as a whole) George Barna refers to as the backbone of the church. (p. xvi). According to Barna, between 1991 and 2011:

1. Adult women attending church during any week has declined by 20%.
2. Women attending Sunday School has plummeted by 29%.
3. The percentage of remain who are characterized as “unchurched” has risen by 94% during this period.
4. More than a third of all women are now unconnected from the church.
5. Most weekly church attenders are women (53%) – and they bring their families.
6. Most church volunteers are women (57%).
7. Women are the majority in terms of attendance of adult Sunday school programs (59%).
8. 60% of those who attend small groups or Bible study are women.
9. Due to the demographic data compiled (Barna 2000 study) about the median age (56-59) of women contributing (in every sense) to the Church – women’s active participation in the future of the Church has been characterized as a “dying breed.” (p.252).

Henderson goes onto characterize what he identifies as The Three Faces of Resignation – resigned to, resigned from, re-signed. For Henderson, he makes a well-informed observation: “leaving doesn’t mean walking away; more often it means showing up without being present.” (p.7).

 The interviews and summaries of the same by the author are superbly crafted. They represent women who live or have lived at least one of the “Three Faces of Resignation” denoted above. (truth be told, one may exist in one of Henderson’s stages in degrees, if you will. In one’s lifetime, one may live through multiple stages). These interviews will make you think, shift in your seat, squirm, spontaneously blurt out “What” at least twice during your reading – and require you to contemplate the clear opportunity/necessity for change. Finally, the women whose interviews are contained in the book are precious children of God, just like you and I, whose lives are being shaped by the tenets of their respective faith persuasion. Some are “fine with it,” – others – not so much. Henderson does a splendid job of integrating interviews that flow with his evolving thesis throughout the book.

If the Apostle Paul happened to be Mary in The Bible, I sincerely doubt that The Resignation of Eve would have been written. We would likely be faced with another book — perhaps a few books with titles like: “The Anomie of Adam,” “Adam’s Angst,” “The Flight of Fred,” or “The Plight of Peter.”

The Heart of The Matter

Lyons and Kinnaman say “We are at a turning point for Christianity in America. If we do not wake up to these realities….” Kinnaman’s most recent book clearly raises the warning that young Christians are leaving the Church in unprecedented numbers. Barna’s research points out the fundamental, strategic importance of women as the backbone of the church. The demographic data alert us to the dying breed characterization. Unfathomable, as Hogeweide recounts?

 Henderson ends the book with three questions that truly must cause one to pause:

 What if our perception of God’s heart is far too narrow? What if His heart is wider and higher than we’ve been taught to imagine? What if God’s ways really aren’t our ways.” (p.276).

After reading this book, I couldn’t help but respond aloud to the author’s three questions, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

The challenge that The Resignation of Eve presents is, to use the words of Eugene Peterson, “akin to skillfully setting a compound fracture “sets” this belief in God into our behavior before God so that the bones — belief and behavior – knit together and heal.” [viii]

 After all, “the energy of reconciliation is the dynamo at the heart of the universe.” [ix]

 Buy this book. Discuss it with friends. Use it as a staple or supplement in your small group. Ask your pastor to recommend it to your church family. This book is timely, terribly important and was not created to sit on a shelf after a thorough reading – you can’t simply devour this book, leave it and walk away. Showing up without being present just ain’t gonna cut it anymore. This book should have a warning label: “NOTICE: The consumption of this book will cause the reader to act upon the heartfelt reflex to reflect upon reconciliation. Side Effects: May cause enlargement of your heart, stir your redemptive imagination, identify a fracture between your beliefs and behavior, and promote the onset of healing an enduring malady that continues to infect the hearts and minds of His Church.”

 Reconcile your heart to that.

NOTES

Don’t let the 506 pages (hardcover) plus another 200 pages of notes scare you off. This is a uniquely crafted insight into BOTH the life and mind of Joseph Schumpeter.

“No country, regardless of how long it has been prosperous, can take permanent affluence for granted. Nor can any company assume its continued existence…Digital Equipment, Pan American Airways, Pullman, Douglas Aircraft and The Pennsylvania Railroad remind us….And all are now in the dustbin of history, along with hundreds of thousands of other businesses of all sizes – once as strong as dinosaurs but now just as extinct.” (p. 496).

I adored this book and admired the incredible scholarly research that taught me about Schumpeter, his times, his work – and his contributions to the field of economics, organizational development, capitalism, and our world.

From The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (hardcover 2007 and paperback in 2010), this is a precious gem that deserves to be relied upon in in the exploration of a truly remarkable man and his mind….both of which continue to resonate with the challenges that confront societies across the globe.

Like I said, “a precious gem.”

Slater, Philip The Pursuit of Loneliness Beacon Press Boston, MA Copyright ©  1970 & 1976 by Philip E. Slater.

Timeless truths from a classic in sociology. It’s rather amazing to me how prescient Slater truly was. Many of his observations remain (fortunately or unfortunately) accurate today.

One of the major contributions of this work is Slater’s coining of the term “The Toilet Assumption.” He defines the concept as follows:

The Toilet Assumption, for one – the belief that social unpleasantness, once flushed out of sight. ceases to exist-remains cenntra1 to American culture. P. xii

Our ideas about institutionalizing the aged, psychotic, retarded, and infirm are based on a pattern of thought that we might call the Toilet Assumption – the notion that unwanted matter, unwanted difficulties, unwanted complexities and obstacles will disappear if they’re removed from our immediate field of vision.  P. 19

Slater’s characterization of economists still causes many to smile in acknowledgment of his accuracy in the following:

Economists – “But it would be hard to find a field more fraught with mystification than economics, partly because it figures so strongly in political disputes. Most people feel a vague but insistent skepticism about professional economists, the certainty of whose predictive pronouncements varies inversely with their accuracy. Government economists tend to take the position that the public is just naïve, ignorant of the complexities of economic processes. The fact that their own superior knowledge rarely leads them to agree with one another doesn’t seem to distress them. Nor does the fact that our economy has become progressively sicker in response to their ministrations.” P. 169

There’s so much to this book that requires one to ponder, to ask questions, to become befuddled as to why many of the social problems Slater delineates in the 70′s remain unresolved in the second decade of the second millennium.The following is one that rings so true:

There’s probably no more important task ahead of us than finding a way for people to make a living being useful to the community. P. 165

Contemplating or studying American culture? This particular book provides an essential perspective thatone does not often encounter.

Like I said, an American sociological classic.

I love that you do this!

Much love to you and yours…may this new year carry harvests for seed you long thought dormant!

Blessings

Paul

William Paul Young
www.windrumors.com

I happened to publish a review of “The Shack” on September 8, 2007 (on Amazon) when the book was scheduled for release of December 8, 2007. The review went “viral“

Taking time to share encouragement is vastly more powerful than we often acknowledge.

Stay tuned for “The Shack Revisited” coming out sometime during 2011.

Thanks Paul

One of the BEST books you will ever read about the pathway for the reform and improvement of U.S. public education. PERIOD!

I am admittedly rushing, so here are a few morsels (any emphasis is mine):

Finally, I have observed that the longer our children are in school, the less curious they become. Effective communication, curiosity, and critical-thinking skills, as we will see, are much more than just the traditional desirable outcomes of a liberal arts education. They are essential competencies and habits of mind for life in the twenty-first century. P. Xxiii

“Students are simply not learning the skills that matter most for the twenty-first century. Our system of public education-our curricula, teaching methods, and the tests we require students to take-were created in a different century for the needs of another era. They are hopelessly outdated.” P. 9.

We are simply not developing our intellectual capital to the extent that many other countries are. Perhaps our real competitive advantage as a country in the future will be in those areas requiring innovation-which in turn relies on curiosity and imagination.” P. 75

The most important skill in the New World of work, learning, and citizenship today – the rigor that matters most-is the ability to ask the right questions. Old World rigor is still about having the right answers – and the more, the better.

Have questions about how to improve the U.S. public education system? You should. If so, this book is required reading.

This is the magnum opus on the hedge fund industry. As other hedge fund related books seek to either vilify the industry or brazenly praise the uncanny good fortunes industry insiders – this book does neither – which I found refreshing and a strategic positioning of this work from “the rest.”

Sebastian Mallaby is currently the Paul Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He’s also a columnist at the WA Post and spent over a decade with The Economist responsible for international finance coverage – serving a bureau chief in Washington, Japan and southern Africa. He is the author of several noteworthy books on the political economy.

This work is an epic contribution to the historical evolution of certain financial products and the global industry(s) spawned therefrom in primarily, the western world. Welcome to the hedge fund industry, including an amazing cast of characters, their thought processes, training, relationships and the outcome of their work – The Making of A New Elite – with More Money Than God.

Admittedly, it is rare for me to dedicate myself to the reading of 400+ pages contained in any one volume, on any subject. Yet, the manner in which this book develops contains the unique qualities that inflame the desire within reader to come back for more. Incredibly well-written, researched, balanced and apolitical. This work is REQUIRED READING as an essential component in developing an understanding of global financial markets, risk assessment, risk management and the art of speculation.

As I read the book, Mallaby makes some points that have been central themes of other authors (See The WSJ’s Scott Patterson’s – The QUANTS), regarding the miscues that fueled poor investment/risk management strategies. Listen to Mallaby to garner the essence of this observation as it relates to the “art of speculation” – “The art of speculation is to develop one insight that others have overlooked and then trade big on that small advantage.” P.91

“After the 1971 debacle, Weymar set about rethinking his theory of the market. He had begun with an economist’s faith in model building and data: Prices reflected the fundamental forces supply and demand, so if you could anticipate those things – you were your way to riches. But experience had taught him some humility. An exaggerated faith in data could turn out to be a curse, breeding the Sol of hubris that leads you into trading positions too big to be sustainable.”

“The real lesson of LTCM’s failure was not that its approach to risk was too simple. It was that all attempts to be precise about risk are unavoidably brittle.” P.231

(LTCM) Had misjudged the precision with which financial risk can be measured.”p.245.

The point is that an unrepentant belief in the quantitative modeling that provides that “one insight that others have overlooked and then trade big on it” can have enormous consequences in either capturing returns or accelerating a cataclysmic demise of the capital under management.

How has that all worked out, in recent years? According to Mallaby, “Between 2000 and 2009, a total of about five thousand hedge funds went out of business, and not a single one required a taxpayer bailout.”

Ah yes, “bailouts” – what is Mallaby’s take on this issue? Listen to the following: “Capitalism works only when institutions are forced to absorb the consequences of the risks that they take on. When banks can pocket the upside while spreading the cost of their failures, failure is almost certain.” P.13. Mallaby is clearly not a proponent of “privatizing the gains and socializing the losses.”

What about our affection with history that drive financial and other forms of socio-economic modeling. Mallaby has some succinct insights:

“Projections are based on historical prices, and history could be a false friend.” P. 233.

“In 1997, Merton and Scholes (LTCM) received the news that they had won the Nobel Prize for economics. The award was greeted as a vindication of the new finance: The inventors of the option-pricing model were being thanked for laying down a cornerstone of modern markets. By creating a formula to price risk, the winners had allowed it to be sliced, bundled, and traded’ l thousand ways the fear of financial losses, which for centuries had acted as a brake on human endeavor, had been tamed by an equation.” P.231.

So, where does Mallaby leaves us at the end of this magnum opus? His analysis leads him to conclude “The worst thing about the crisis is that it is likely to be repeated.” P. 377. However, to suggest that the hedge fund industry was the primary culprit in either the creation or magnitude of the Great Recession would be erroneous. Again, between 2000 and 2009, 5,000 hedge funds are to have ceased operations – none of which required a taxpayer bailout. Mallaby also takes a rather benign approach to the plausibility/practicality of regulating this industry (“The record suggests that financial regulation is genuinely difficult, and success cannot always be expected.” P. 379).

Yet, at the conclusion of this work, one quote from Mallaby continues to resonate with me: “It is the nonintuitive signals that often prove the most lucrative.” p.302. However, the term “lucrative” as is as applicable to assessing risk and thereby avoiding potential losses, as it is to capturing returns on investment.

Like I said, an epic contribution to the historical evolution of the hedge fund industry. An uncanny, incredibly thorough, balanced treatment – written in a way that is appropriate for both industry insiders, and the lay-person. A perfect volume for graduate coursework in finance — one that focuses on human beings, as well as the quantitative financial services products they develop and deploy in the global markets today.

Consuming Jesus – Beyond Race and Class Divisions in A Consumer Church by Paul Louis Metzger

I’m going to have lunch with Paul Metzger — it’s on me Paul.

There are voluminous reviews of this work on-line at Amazon. I am just simply going to say that I truly enjoyed this work…and the heart of a man (Metzger) that resonates the love of Christ on most every page. Listen to Metzger:

“Paul is fond of saying that we settle for so little when God calls us to so much more. We need to settle for more — much more of God’s compassionate embrace of us so that we will extend that same compassion to the least of these in our world.” (p. 180).

This book reminded me of reading John Perkins. However, Metzger approaches many issues from new angles.

I highly recommend this book.

Thank you Paul!

Karen Armstrong is my favorite religious scholar. This NY Times bestseller is a tremendous resource for beginning to develop an understanding for our Muslim brothers and sisters, and the history of their faith.

Develop understanding beyond the flavor of your present faith. A wonderful book.

Editor’s One of the Best Books I’ve Read  Award

Scandrette, Mark SOUL GRAFFITI – Making A Life In The Way Of Jesus Published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, San Francisco, CA Copyright 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An Epic, Emerging Way Contribution

One of my difficulties with the emerging church movement is that I can’t find enough stories about people who are actually living what they say they yearn for. The “conversation” and the “dialogue” seemingly take precedence with many who yearn for a way of life with Jesus on this planet, in this lifetime that is somehow more meaningful than their former spiritual practices, relationships, affiliations and beliefs have delivered.

Mark Scandrette’s book, SOUL GRAFFITI – Making A Life In The Way Of Jesus is a first, hopefully not last, model of what’s been missing, addressing the fundamental concern I expressed above. Jossey-Bass should be congratulated for their foresight in producing this work as part of A Living Way: Emergent Visions Series. Soul Grafitti is a superbly crafted work that profiles what it really means to live the emergent way…this is footprints in the sand with a real live human being attached to those feet, holding your hand, stirring your soul, tugging at your heart — walking you through life today, the emergent way — Making A Life in The Way of Jesus. As Mark says, “As important as conversation is, it is stillborn if it doesn’t eventually lead to common action. In our fragmented society it is too easy to have discussions about problems and how we wish things could be different without making a commitment to work together to see change occur” (p. 56).

The term ‘vision’ typically contains a dimension that allows one to do, feel and believe that which you had heretofore been unable to experience on your own. ‘Vision’ provides elements of power, persuasion, passion and permission to move beyond where you presently find yourself in your spiritual journey. Mark Scandrette unselfishly shares his journey with us, weaving the ‘vision’ so many in the emergent movement have been so desperately yearning to visualize. I am humbled, grateful and awed by the bountiful, multi-dimensional contribution of this work. – it is unequivocally bountimensional. Visionary, yet practically essential for our times.

From a critical standpoint, the first 100 pages were a bit slow and somewhat redundant for me. Don’t skip the first hundred pages. After that, the book increasingly picked up momentum. That was my only complaint. The contemplation/action sections at the end of each chapter provide individuals and groups a superb resource for practical experimentation with growing into a life in the way of Jesus. (I hope Jossey-Bass will consider a separate ‘journey book supplement’ to the actual book that people can take with them during the week to ponder, relish and act upon). The psalms, Scripture, poems and people that Mark shares are precious. He is truly a companion, artist, healer and mystic led by Jesus today.

This book will not be without the anticipated critical backlash from those threatened by the emergent movement. However, one of the blessings of this book is the ‘Jesus dojo’ defined by Mark in the final pages of the book. Wondering what the “theology” of ‘this (Mark) emergent’ is, read Chapter 15 in Soul Graffiti. Of course, there is discussion of a number of theological constructs that are bound to elicit howls from those who really don’t understand the emerging church. There is the “opt-in/opt-out” stuff (p.87) that Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor illuminated in their recent book. There are distinctions about doing v. believing, good news vs. the gospel, doing v. being, intellectual assent v. actual behavior, and a myriad of other issues that will provide fodder for the cannons of the critics. However, in my opinion, all the controversy is overshadowed by the overpowering truth of a boundless love and endless compassion, as evidenced by Mark’s life…a life we must admire…a transformed, being transformed, Christ centered life available to all.

One of the most common criticism’s of George Barna’s book entitled ‘Revolution,’ (Tyndale House, Fall 2005) was from people wondering “where are they, these revolutionaries Barna is speaking about?” Well, read Mark Scandrette’s book, SOUL GRAFFITI – Making A Life In The Way Of Jesus – you’ll meet one. Learn to reimagine making your life in the way of Jesus. The choice is yours. Indispensable fare. Buy the book. You’ll be indelibly infected for the better. I have been.

I needed this book. Jesus tattooed my soul with this book. May Christ continue to change my life as Mark has modeled. The milepost literary work I have been looking for in the emergent way.

Thank you Mark (and Sheryl…and Tony).

Anne Lamott is essential reading. Schizoid, insecure, funny, earthy — compelling. A master storyteller. Riveting spiritual insights derived from the raw soul that has learned it the real way… through the complexities of life. Consider some of the dfollowing to whet your appetite:

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” p. 143

“I understand just enough about life to understand that I do not understand much of anything.” p. 75.

‘Not forgiving is like drinking rat posion and then waiting for the rat to die.” p. 134.

I needed to read this book. Now, I’m going to read another of Anne’s works.