I’ve had the benefit of interviewing Bell a number of times and have always found him thoughtful, gracious, and genuine in his pursuit of Christ. He was kind enough to talk to me once again–this time about his decision to leave his church, the lost theology of vocation, and how our view of the end of the world impacts the way we think about our work today. This is the first in a series of interviews I’ll be featuring on SkyeBox. Each interview is part of my research for my next book. So stay tuned for more thoughts from some of the most intersting people I know.

Skye: Apart from ministry, Christians talk very little about “callings.” What do you attribute this to?

Rob: The problem goes back to how you read the Bible. A lot of Christians have been taught a story that begins in chapter 3 of Genesis, instead of chapter 1. If your story doesn’t begin in the beginning, but begins in chapter 3, then it starts with sin, and so the story becomes about dealing with the sin problem. So Jesus is seen as primarily dealing with our sins. Which is all true, but it isn’t the whole story and it can lead people into all kinds of despair when it comes to understanding just why we’re here.

The Bible begins in Genesis 1 not with sin but with blessing, not with toil and despair but with life, and creativity, and vibrant participation with God in the ongoing creation of the world–which involves art, and law, and medicine, and education, and parenting, and justice, and learning, and thousands of other pursuits; callings that are holy and sacred in and of themselves. It’s all part of flourishing in God’s good world, which is our home. Here, on earth, is where the story begins and where it ends, and so our work here, in whatever way we co-create with God, is our vocation.

Secondly, we have to embrace our desires. For many, desire is a bad word, something we’re supposed to “give up for God.” That kind of thinking can be really destructive because it teaches people to deny their hearts, their true selves. What Jesus does is something far more radical. He insists that we can be transformed in such a way that our desires and God’s desires for us become the same thing. Incredible. What do you love to do that brings more and more heaven into God’s good world? What is it that makes your soul soar? What is it that you do, that your friends and community affirm, that taps you in to who you are made to be?

Describe how you discerned God’s calling to leave Mars Hill to pursue new ideas?

It was a vast array of factors, beginning deep in the heart with the awareness that Jesus was calling, inviting, tugging, doing that thing he does when it’s time to take a leap into the unknown.

Can you share more about where your energies are currently focused, and why you believe it is an important calling?

Nope. Haha. It’s better to do the work and wait until it’s ready to be released into the world. But it involves resurrection, of course, and the new world that’s bursting forth right here in the midst of this one.

What/who has influenced your theology of calling and work?

Dallas Willard, and U2, and Steven Pressfield, and Dorothy Sayers. Do what you do with every ounce of energy and passion you have, give it everything you’ve got, put in the hours and pour out the sweat and blood and don’t hold anything back. That’s an act of worship, it is holy in itself.

Don’t make grand claims about what it is, don’t tell people what they’re supposed to think about it, it will speak for itself. Let the Spirit do what the Spirit will with it. And most of all, enjoy the work. And while you’re at it, relinquish the need to label everything “Christian” or “not Christian.” Be a Christian. People can figure the rest out. It’s a noun, after all.

Reformation theologians took “vocation,” a word previously only applied to the clergy, and applied it to all believers. They promoted the idea that all work was God’s work. What can we do to reclaim this belief in our communities?

Stop using the word ‘missionary’ and stop sending people out to the ‘mission field.’ Or keep the word, but also commission public school teachers, and dentists, and CPA’s, and construction workers, and those people who take your money at the toll booth. We’re all disciples, all ground is holy, every interaction and conversation is loaded with divine potential, anytime, anywhere. Ordain everyone, call everyone a minister, invite the whole church to be on staff.

You’ve obviously gotten a lot of attention for your thoughts about eschatology in the last year. How does one’s vision of the future impact their work in the present?

The gospel is an embodied announcement about this world: it is good, and we’re home, and the word took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood. Heaven and earth are, in fact, coming together. We’re home. Soil is good, and so is wine, and sex, and music, and muscle, and arranging things, and building things, and getting hungry people the food they need, and jobs that empower people to make better lives for themselves.

What you believe about where the story is headed deeply impacts how you live now and what you believe matters, now. We’re not trying to help people evacuate. That’s a denial of the gospel truth that Jesus is reclaiming everything.

Amy Sherman, in her recent book Kingdom Calling, argues that popular eschatology has eroded the Christian understanding of vocation. She writes, “If we (mistakenly) believe that at the end, the earth will be completely destroyed and that just our souls will live on forever, it’s a bit hard to imaging being passionate for such things as environmental stewardship or cultural reformation…. If it’s all going to be burned up, isn’t our labor here on earth in vain?” How do you respond to Christians holding this view?

The truth is, people who hold these escapist views usually throw crap parties, because they’re essentially waiting for things to end so they can go somewhere else. Jesus shows up at the party, turns water into wine, and then essentially says “Oh we are just getting started…”

If a 20 year old told you she was entering full-time ministry because she wanted to serve God and make a difference in the world, what questions would you have for her? How would you respond?

I would ask her is she’s a Christian. If she said “yes,” I would say “Too late! You’re already in full-time ministry! The real question is: what are you going to do with your God-given passions and energies? Who are you going to help? What are you going to make? Where are you going to serve? Go do that, and release yourself from the need to give it labels.

Be sure to sign up for the SkyeBox Newsletter to read future interviews before they’re posted on the blog. The sign-up is located at the top of the right column.

Colson was responding to the rhetoric from some evangelical leaders warning their flocks not to vote for Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon. Since Romney has taken the lead in the GOP primary, with some bumps along the way, there seems to be a real effort to downplay his Mormon faith as an issue among evangelicals. I’ve read numerous articles and editorials reporting that evangelicals are indifferent to Romney’s religious beliefs, and like most other voters their highest concern is the economy and not theology.

But I’m not convinced evangelicals are embracing Romney as much as some would like us to believe. A closer look at the numbers reveals a problem may be looming for Romney and the GOP in November.

We must remember that the last two GOP presidential victories in 2000 and 2004 were achieved with the enthusiastic support of evangelicals in swing states like Florida and Ohio. Karl Rove was the “architect” behind mobilizing church-based networks to get out the vote for George W. Bush. In addition, state GOP parties successfully got marriage and stem cell initiatives on the ballot to draw even more conservative Christian voters to the polls. But it was Bush’s outspoken faith in Jesus that convinced many evangelicals to back him enthusiastically.

That enthusiasm does not exist for Romney. For example, the Florida GOP primary yesterday saw only 1.7 million votes, a 12 percent decline from 2008. And Iowa and New Hampshire’s numbers were flat–not a good sign for states with open primaries where non-GOP registered folks may vote. In other words, people are not excited about the Republican candidates in 2012. Florida, with its large evangelical population, is particularly important as we saw in 2000. While evangelicals may not be stridently opposed to a Mormon candidate, there are signs that they are highly unmotivated by one. That may cost Romney the White House.

In addition, a poll by NBC/Marist in Florida revealed that 59 percent of evangelicals believe Romney is an “acceptable” candidate. 25 percent said he was “acceptable with some reservations,” and 14 percent of evangelicals declared Romney to be totally “unacceptable.” One could spin this multiple ways, but if the percentage of GOP evangelicals that find a candidate unacceptable reaches double-digits, its going to be difficult to repeat Bush’s path to victory in prior elections.

The poll also shows the evangelicals are less likely to support Romney than other factions of Republican voters. Evangelical support was fairly evenly divided between Romney (34%), Gingrich (28%), and Santorum (25%). But among the rich (sorry, “job creators”), Romney’s support was 49%, and among non-Tea Party Republicans he gets 52%. So, among those for whom religion is a key value Romney lacks support.

Finally, 40 percent of Republicans polled do not believe Mormonism is a form of Christianity. This may turn out to be a bigger issue than the press is currently reporting. Romney, when he does talk about his faith, has insisted that he is a Christian. In his 2008 speech about his faith he only used the word “Mormon” one time, opting to use “Christian” far more. So, Mitt Romney isn’t just asking evangelical voters to accept him as a Mormon, he’s expecting them to accept him (and all Mormons) as Christian. Romney’s candidacy is an attempt to redefine Christianity for our society. And we all know how much evangelicals like redefining historical definitions of social institutions.

While many evangelical leaders will not actively speak against a Romney nomination for fear of losing political influence, you can bet there won’t be broad enthusiasm for him. Ironically, I think if Romney plainly claimed his Mormon identity and didn’t try to pass himself off on evangelicals as an orthodox Christian, more evangelicals would be likely to support him. Instead he is only fueling the general perception that he is a hollow candidate willing to do/say anything to get elected; a man without a core.

Conclusion:
Recent GOP victories have been the result (at least in part) of enthusiastic mobilization of evangelical voters. The evidence so far in 2012 reveals that Romney has an enthusiasm deficit among all Republican voters but particularly among evangelicals. While there is not a massive outcry against his candidacy by the church, the fact that 14 percent find him totally unacceptable and 25 percent have reservations, may be devastating in November.

Prediction:
Once Romney secures the Republican nomination he will need to find ways to gain more evangelical support. I would expect him to select a vice presidential nominee with an unquestionable evangelical pedigree (which rules out any of his present opponents). And if this fails to move his poll numbers among Christian conservatives, I think the GOP rhetoric against President Obama will become increasingly nasty and religiously-focused. We’ll likely see a return to fear-mongering about Obama’s family tree (including it’s Muslim branches), and a flurry of spam about his anti-Christ credentials. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans must have evangelical votes to win. And if they cannot lure evangelicals into the voting booth with their candidate, they won’t hesitate to scare them in.

What is new is the mountain of recent research by respected groups like Barna, Lifeway, and Pew indicating young people who leave are no longer returning. The hiatus has become an exodus. Why? David Kinnaman at Barna outlines six reasons in his research. And others have pointed out that young people are waiting much longer to get married than in the past, thereby delaying the felt-need to return to church. (Al Mohler’s solution to declining church attendance is to convince young people to get married sooner despite the much higher rate of divorce among young marriages. Kinda like motivating people to get a physical by breaking their legs.)

Books and blogs are filled with recommendations about how to reverse the exodus of young adults, and I have no silver bullet solution to offer here. But I do want to explore one area I believe many churches have overlooked- vocation.

Our religious lives, our communion with God and formation as his people, primarily plays out in two spheres of our lives–family and work. Our closest relationships (marriage, children, parents) are where we experience the joys and pains of life most acutely. They are where we practice, or fail to practice, love, patience, forgiveness, kindness, etc. So it would make sense that we utilize family relationships as a key context for discipleship–learning and applying the teachings of Christ.

For the last few decades the church has readily accepted the centrality of marriage and family. In fact, most churches have organized their entire philosophy of ministry around the nuclear family with age-segmented learning, marriage enrichment courses and retreats, and biblical instruction geared toward healthy household relationships. The evangelical church has learned to indeed “focus on the family.” And while there are problems with the way this is sometimes executed, which I will not address in this post, for the most part it makes sense if you are married with children.

And that is the problem.

With more young adults delaying marriage longer, and with most churches implicitly or explicitly designed to serve families, there is little reason for a single 28 year old to engage. Realizing they cannot rely upon family felt-needs, but still wanting to reach young adults, some churches reach for the only other tool in their box- mission.

We’ve been told that Millennials are the “activist generation.” They want to make a difference in the world by wearing (red) products, singing U2 songs, and going to banana republics as short-term pigeonaries. So we try to engage them in our churches with missional rhetoric and projects. And at times this can be effective, until compassion fatigue sets in and securing social justice proves to require more than a text donation.

But the missional approach relies on a young adult’s spare time, extra resources, and expendable energy. It doesn’t capture a core identity issue the way family-based ministries do. When a church helps a 40-year-old mother with her struggling marriage and anxiety-driven parenting, it is applying Christian faith to the center of her life and identity. Missional ministries that try to engage a single 30-year-old don’t accomplish this because they ignore what’s at the center of his life to nibble at the margins. And what is at the center for most young adults? Vocation.

It is the second significant venue (after family) in which our lives and beliefs are exhibited, and for those without spouse or child it is usually the venue. Despite being a significant focus of Reformation theology for centuries within the Protestant tradition, contemporary churches are largely silent on the issue. How does Christian faith impact my relationship with my wife? How can Scripture inform my parenting? What does Christianity say about sex, managing in-laws, or household finances? Most churches could probably answer these questions relatively quickly and comfortably. But what about these:

What does it mean to be in business to glorify God and bless others?
How does Christ want me to engage the health care sector?
Does being an artist matter to God?
How do I serve in the public school system as a follower of Christ?
Apart from not being dishonest, does it matter how I run my business?
I’ve been offered two jobs, how do I discern which one to take? Does it matter?
Can I be a soldier and be a Christian?
Does my work have any meaning apart from the money I earn and give to the church?

My guess is most church leaders would have to think a lot longer to answer any of these questions. We have not been trained or conditioned to consider a person’s vocation as a central part of their lives or spiritual formation. It is not a venue most churches value or equip their members for. But work is where most adults (young and old) spend most of their time and what occupies most of their identity. Without the ability to connect faith to either family or work, there is little remaining to engage young adults other than entertaining gatherings or a celebrity in the pulpit.

My friend and former colleague at Leadership Journal, Brandon O’Brien, recently wrote a series of posts on Out of Ur about his experience teaching a religion class at a local community college. The diverse religious backgrounds of the students allowed Brandon to explore how they felt about their faith. He writes:

In one assignment, I asked the students to reflect on how religion might hinder or help them attain their personal and career goals. This is where I found the biggest surprises. Predictably, students who weren’t sure about their spiritual convictions found the question hard to answer…. But those students who do consider themselves religious—most of them Christians—saw their religious beliefs having very little impact on their personal or professional goals…. Students were stymied to come up with a way religion could play any role at all in the parts of their lives that really matter.

We shouldn’t be surprised that most of these young adults drop out of church. Earlier in his posts, Brandon notes that none of his students reported having negative experiences in the church as kids. In fact, most recalled generally positive memories. But the church simply had nothing to say about their vocations. Faith, even for the faithful, didn’t impact their work.

No, developing a theology of work and vocation-based-discipleship is not a silver bullet to slow the exodus of young adults from the church. But I am increasingly convinced that it is a significant blind spot for much of the Western church that must be remedied.

Of course we would first have to establish the Man of Steel’s political affiliation. Is earth’s greatest hero a Democrat or a Republican? Below is my assessment of Sups’ political leanings based on his demographics, lifestyle, and values.

He is a white man between 30 and 50. (1 Point: GOP)

He grew up in a small town in Kansas…otherwise known as “real America” by Sarah Palin. (1 Point: GOP)

He now resides in an urban center, Metropolis. (1 Point: DEM)

He is a journalist and therefore part of the liberal media elite. (1 Point: DEM)

He is an undocumented immigrant. (1 Point: DEM)

He draws his power from earth’s yellow sun, a clean source of renewable energy. (1 Point: DEM)

He affirms American exceptionalism by standing for “Truth, justice, and the American way.” (1 Point: GOP)

He recently renounced his American citizenship to garner favor with other nations. (1 Point: DEM)

He believes in strong law enforcement. (1 Point: GOP)

His arch nemesis is a multi-billionaire CEO/job creator, Lex Luthor. (1 Point: DEM)

He does not want oil exploration in the Arctic that may reveal his hidden fortress. (1 Point: DEM)

He is a strong individualist and even built a Fortress of Solitude. (1 Point: GOP)

He believes in unilateral defensive action. (1 Point: GOP)

His Kryptonian parents were stridently pro-life. (1 Point: GOP)

Final score: Republican-7 points, Democrat-7 points.

What can we conclude from this exercise? It would seem that Superman, like most of us, holds a set of political and social values that do not fit easily within either party’s platform. Is he as frustrated as I am over the polarizing rhetoric and all-or-nothing, winner-take-all atmosphere dominating Washington these days? I can only imagine that he also shakes his head while watching the 24-hour cable news coverage while unwinding at night.

Of course there is another way of reconciling Superman’s seemingly inconsistent politics. Perhaps the Man of Steel’s political beliefs are split between his two identities. What if Superman is a Republican and Clark Kent is a Democrat?

Wait a minute…does Mitt Romney have an alter ego?

But Tim Tebow’s behavior on the field does raise important questions about prayer and how Christians ought to practice it. Andrew Sullivan criticized Tim Tebow saying his public prayers violate Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) where he taught his followers to pray in private:

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5-6)

Referencing Tebow’s habit of praying during NFL games before millions of spectators, Sullivan asks “Why does a Christian publicly repudiate the God he worships?” Is Sullivan right? Is Tim Tebow actually violating the teachings of Christ with his behavior on the field? The answer is more complicated than critics of publicly practiced religion may prefer.

Strictly speaking Jesus did not prohibit public prayer. In fact he prayed publicly on numerous occasions including before meals (Mark 6:41) and among a crowd prior to raising Lazarus from the grave (John 11:41-42). He also prayed where his followers could see and hear him. As a result they asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray,” (Luke 11:1).

What Jesus does reject in his Sermon on the Mount is hypocritical prayer. The word hypocrite is derived from the Greek meaning actor. It is literally one who pretends; one who fakes it. This is what Jesus sees among many outwardly religious people. They are pretending to be devoted to God so that they may win the approval of people. Remember, ancient Judea was a culture that highly valued religiosity. Such communities, past and present, put great emphasis on external evidence of religious devotion, and this tends to fuel hypocrisy.

At the core of Jesus’ teaching then is not the mechanics of prayer (how, when, where), but rather the motivation for prayer (why). Are we praying out of genuine devotion to God, or merely to win favor with people? I do not know what powers of perception Andrew Sullivan has, but I am incapable of peering into Tim Tebow’s soul to determine his motivation for praying on the field. If he is praying to win the accolades of the spectators, then Jesus says he has his reward. Unlike Sullivan, I choose to give Tebow the benefit of the doubt and assume his motives are pure.

Still, Jesus does offer practical advise for avoiding the pitfall of hypocrisy we can all stumble into. He tells us to pray in private. Privacy makes hypocrisy impossible. One cannot act without an audience. But does this call to pray behind closed doors still apply in our increasingly secular setting? Unlike 1st century Judea, 15th century Europe, or 18th century New England, our culture does not reward public religiosity. Today those who stand on street corners to preach or pray tend to be maligned rather than magnified. In our context praying “to be seen by others” is a less potent temptation.

Or is it?

I think a case could be made that the emergence of digital communication and online social media has made religious hypocrisy a more dangerous temptation today than we often recognize. Lee Siegel in his book Against the Machine, discusses how we hide behind false, “phantom” identities on the internet. It’s a medium we think fosters immediacy and authenticity, but in truth it breeds shallowness. It allows us to easily build and present a facade to the world; an image of who we wish to be rather than who we really are. And in the case of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, intimate relationships that peer behind our facades are nearly impossible to foster (despite what so many 16-year-old girls wish to believe). In other words, on the web hypocrisy is not only easy, it is mandatory.

When Christians live and display their religious lives online it can lead to precisely the danger Jesus warns about–seeking the approval of people rather than intimacy with God. I once heard a relationship counselor say, “There can be no intimacy without privacy.” She went on to describe this as the real danger of constant social media activity. If everything is on display, nothing remains to bind two people together. There is no secret knowledge or activity upon which their communion can be rooted. People who put everything on display, including their religious lives, for mass consumption seek to win the approval of others by being transparent. But in the process they lose the ability to nourish their souls in true intimacy with God and others.

So why are we so tempted to put our life, including our life with God, on display online? In the 2004 film Shall We Dance, one character had a really insightful bit of dialogue:

“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”

We all want our lives to matter, and we believe they only matter if they are noticed by someone. I wonder if this desire for a witness isn’t what fuels a lot of blogs, Facebook, and especially Twitter. We want someone, anyone, to take notice, to care about us, to watch us and by their attention communicate, “You matter. Your life counts.” If this is one of the hidden motivations behind engaging social media, and I think it is, we’re really talking about a spiritual hunger—one that cannot ultimately be satisfied online. This kind of hunger for intimacy can only be satisfied in hidden, private communion with our Creator. As the psalmist says:

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

I believe in God’s economy there is not a single thought, feeling, or moment that is lost. There is nothing that is unseen or unrecorded. But in our culture of digital voyeurism, we are tempted to believe things only become real when they are external…on paper, published, posted, tweeted, or displayed. All the more reason why we need to recapture the discipline of secrecy in order to foster our trust that God is indeed with us and witnessing every thought and reflection. In the privacy of prayer I discover that my life really does matter—not because someone read it, heard it, or saw it, but because God is my witness.

Apparently the mall’s managers were not bothered that Santa was difficult to see among the huge images of computer generated penguins, and clearly nobody was disturbed by the geographic discrepancy–penguins only live at the South Pole and Santa resides at the North Pole. Sadder to me was the absence of the enormous Christmas tree that had stood at the center of the mall since my childhood. It appeared that Santa had sold his season, and his soul, to Warner Brothers Studios. I was, however, comforted by the irony of the scene–the character that had commercialized Christmas a century ago had fallen victim to his own devices.

Christians have always had a strained relationship with Saint Nick. Although his origins are rooted deeply in church lore, his association with the secularization of Christmas has made him a persona non grata in many churches and Christian communities. But many of us forget that Christmas itself is a holiday of dubious origin. For example, the Puritans were stridently opposed to the celebration of Christmas. They could find no biblical support for the holiday, and they believed (correctly) that it was originally a pagan festival now masquerading as Christian one. This view was widely held in America throughout the 19th Century. In 1855, newspapers in New York reported that Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches would be closed on Christmas Day because “they do not accept the day as a Holy One.” And by the 1860s only 18 states officially recognized the holiday.

Christmas only gained acceptance among a majority of Protestant Christians when it gained wide acceptance by the American public in general. And that can be attributed to the rise of Santa Claus in the secular pantheon. Old Saint Nick became a marketing juggernaut for retailers who by the 1920s had embraced Christmas as the premier season for shopping. Church leaders no longer objected to Christmas on the grounds that it was a pagan holiday. Instead their concerns shifted to the ungodly materialism and indulgence of desire they saw being promoted in the name of Christ.

The New York Times conducted a survey of Christmas sermons in 1931 and reported a common theme: “the suggestion that Christmas could not survive if Christ were thrust into the background by materialism.” Another popular sermon of the period railed that Advent had become little more than a “profit-seeking period.”

Sermons about the pagan origins of Christmas or the danger of rampant materialism in Christ’s name are unlikely to be heard today. In recent years the dominant message heard from the Christian community during the holiday season has been precisely the opposite. Today, it seems many Christians are offended when unchecked materialism in December is not explicitly associated with Christ. The irony.

Since 2005, Fox News has deployed its minions to wage their war on the “War on Christmas,” and the American Family Association has pushed for a boycott of stores for not using the words “Merry Christmas” in their seasonal marketing. Like many public institutions, some retailers opt to use the inclusive phrase “Happy Holidays” which these groups interpret as a slam to Jesus Christ- the real “reason for the season.”

It amazes me that in less than a century Christians have gone from opposing over-consumption at Christmas to demanding it be done in Christ’s name alone. The explanation may be in the numbers. Two-thirds of the U.S. economy is based on consumer spending, and 50-75 percent of most retailers annual profits are generated during December. This means the weeks before Christmas are the high holy days of consumerism. If Christians engaged the Advent season as they did in generations past, by modeling moderation and self-denial or by ignoring the holiday altogether, it would likely destroy (what remains of) the economy.

To ensure economic survival consumers are stirred into a buying frenzy every winter with the goal of making this year’s shopping season more prosperous than the previous. Santa Claus has been the mascot of this manipulation since the early 20th Century, but if more Consumer Christians have their way the season of shopping would be inaugurated by the appearance of Jesus Christ at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade instead.

Sadly, the “War on Christmas” and “Christmas Under Siege” campaigns pushed by some conservative Christians says more about the church’s captivity to consumerism than its commitment to the love of Christ and their neighbors.

That night our son was born. We named him Isaac. It seemed appropriate because his birth came as a surprise just as Abraham and Sarah were joyfully surprised by the birth of their son in Genesis 21. So they named him laughter…Isaac.

Our Isaac was only four pounds, but strong and breathing well. But our joy was soon mixed with worry as his health failed. He lost weight, strength, and blood. Those were extremely difficult months for our family full of tears and prayers. We grew weary as we traveled to and from the hospital to hold our tiny son, waited by the phone for test results, and met with doctors who didn’t offer much hope. But they were also months that grew our faith and communion with God. And in the end Isaac pulled through.

This day always brings back memories of pain, hope, fear, and peace. But more than anything else I am thankful for my son and the God who gave him to me.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” -Luke 6:21

I’m not the only one. There has been a growing movement, by both religious and non-religious groups, to champion the value of modesty. Some push modesty as a means of protecting their children from the dangers of a sexually super-charged culture. Others hope to aid their daughters in developing a healthier self-image and push against the objectification of women that dominates the media and advertising.

But could the modesty movement backfire? Could attempts to de-sexualize girls in fact do the opposite? And could attempts to not objectify women actually do just that?

I came across a thought-provoking article by a writer named Sierra at AlterNet. She was raised in an ultra-conservative Christian community where modesty was the dominant value. But by emphasizing the dangers of showing too much skin, the community actually caused Sierra to obsess about her appearance. In other words, rather than making physical appearance a non-issue, modesty actually made it the dominant issue. She writes:

Modesty taught me that I was a decoration. Everything about my life was governed by whether or not a man was watching. How I moved and what I ate or wore all depended on the male gaze. Modesty taught me that nothing I did mattered more than avoiding sexual attention. Modesty made me objectify myself. I was so aware of my own potential desirability at all times that I lost all other ways of defining myself.

Please read the whole article. It will give you plenty to consider.

What it helped me remember is how easy it is to prescribe cures that are worse than the disease. For example, in response to the declining commitment to marriage in our culture the church has responded with decades of emphasis on the holiness, sacredness, and centrality of marriage. But in the process we have unintentionally dishonored the growing number of single adults in our communities by making them feel like second-class Christians. (And ironically the Apostle Paul actually extols the virtues of singleness above marriage in 1 Corinthians 7.)

And rather than focusing on deconstructing the cultural sanctity of personal desire or elevating a vision for the value of self-control as an essential element to Christian sexuality, many church leaders have decided to fight fire with fire. They launch 30 day sex campaigns and sermon series that promise more satisfying sex awaits those who maintain biblical boundaries. But rather than deflating the over-sexualized atmosphere of the culture, they are only adding to it while at the same time denying sexual fulfillment to individuals who do not qualify. I’ve had more than a few newlyweds speak to me about the unrealistic sexual expectations they inherited not from the culture but from the church.

And Sierra’s raw reflections about the unintended consequences of the modesty movement show how easily we can do damage in the process of seeking to do right.

I don’t have any great wisdom about how address this problem. But I do know this: I don’t want my daughters to see themselves as objects to be displayed, nor as objects to be hidden. But as image-bearers of God, fearfully and wonderfully made and loved by him.