Archive for the 'All Saints Pasadena' Category

“The Good Divorce”: prioritizing justice over unity, and the recognition that the Anglican Communion has run its course

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 15, 2008
in All Saints Pasadena and Anglican Communion
. 11 Comments

It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged about the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. Not so long ago, my spiritual life was centered at All Saints Church in Pasadena, where I served on the vestry and worked for many years as a youth volunteer. My faith journey, as it so often has, uprooted me from the comfort zone of that large and dynamic parish a little over a year ago. But I remain, in some sense, an Anglican.

The Communion is in turmoil. (A great collection of articles, written from a nearly-neutral perspective, can be found here.) Battles over the ordination of women (a fight that goes back more than thirty years), the consecration of women bishops, and over homosexuality in the church have hit a boiling point this summer. As has been widely reported, a loose coalition of conservative Anglicans (financed by disaffected traditionalists in the First World, but led by prelates from the Third) held a meeting last month in Jerusalem to plan a strategy for an “alternative” Communion. Other bishops are gathering in England this summer for the decennial Lambeth Conference under the auspices of the titular head of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The good Archbishop is besieged from all sides.

The most impressive church in the whole Anglican Communion, and perhaps the world, is to me the glorious Durham Cathedral. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the role of the prince bishops of Durham in the Anglo-Scottish wars, and spent much time in this loveliest of northeastern English cities. I never tired of visiting the stunning and majestic cathedral. The successor to my beloved medieval warrior bishops is the great N.T. Wright, author of a number of important works of popular theology and a leading evangelical voice within the church. I admire Bishop Tom, as he is known, and envy him his spectacular accomodations and his winsome writing style. I don’t share his traditional views on homosexuality, but have great respect for him regardless. Continue reading ‘“The Good Divorce”: prioritizing justice over unity, and the recognition that the Anglican Communion has run its course’

Guys in love: celebrating the new SUNY Oswego study on teenage boys and relationships

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 18, 2008
in Age, All Saints Pasadena, Men and Masculinity, Relationships, Science, Sexual ethics and transformation, Youth and Youth ministry
. 7 Comments

Reader “English Rosebud” sent me a link this weekend to this story that ran in the New York Times on Friday: Inside the Mind of the Boy Dating Your Daughter. As she mentions in her email, it’s a powerful corrective to the widespread notion that teenage boys have just one thing on their mind.

The stereotype of the 16-year-old boy is that he has sex on the brain. But a fascinating new report suggests that boys are motivated more by love and a desire to form real relationships with the girls they date.

Based on a study that appears in this month’s Journal of Adolescence, the researchers (from SUNY Oswego) concluded:

Among the boys who had been sexually active, physical desire and wanting to know what sex feels like were among the top three reasons they pursued sex. However, the boys were equally likely to say they pursued sex because they loved their partner. Interestingly, only 14 percent said they sought sex because they wanted to lose their virginity, and 9 percent did so to fit in with friends.

The researchers note that there is no way to assess the truthfulness of the boys’ answers, but the rate of sexual activity in the sample is consistent with national trends, suggesting the boys were answering honestly. The survey group was ethnically and economically diverse, and 95 indicated they were heterosexual, while 10 boys didn’t answer the question.

Bold emphasis mine.

The overall findings are contrary to cultural beliefs that boys are interested primarily in sex and not relationships.

“Let’s give boys more credit,’’ said study author Andrew Smiler, an assistant professor of psychology at the university. “Although some of them are just looking for sex, most boys are looking for a relationship. The kids we know mostly aren’t like this horrible stereotype. They are generally interested in dating and getting to know their partners.’’

(I wish Professor Smiler hadn’t used the phrase “horrible stereotype”. I wince at the implication that wanting sex for pleasure is “horrible”. After all, both men and women do sometimes pursue sex outside of the context of an enduring relationship. While dishonesty and manipulation are indeed “horrible”, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake need not be accompanied by deceit or abuse. It’s “slut-shaming” at its most tiresome to suggest otherwise.)

Still, I’m delighted with this study, and not at all surprised. I’ve worked with adolescent boys as a youth minister for many years, and I’ve taught slightly older young men for even longer. One of the most common complaints that I — and anyone else who works with teen boys — hear is “I’m tired of having everyone think all I care about is sex”. Like the boys in the SUNY study, the teens I work with don’t deny that they are sexual creatures; they don’t pretend that sex isn’t frequently on their minds. What they find more frustrating than unsatisfied horniness is the enduring stereotype that they have no real interest in love and romance. When speaking of teens of either sex, it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that they want either sex or a relationship. All the recent research suggests that adolescent girls can have powerful libidos; this study makes clear what youth workers already know: that teenage boys, as horny as they are, have deep and complex emotional desires. Continue reading ‘Guys in love: celebrating the new SUNY Oswego study on teenage boys and relationships’

Jesus doesn’t care who the current Caesar is: some thoughts on the latest phase in the All Saints quarrel

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 1, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Christianity and Politics
. 5 Comments

While we were away, the IRS issued an odd ruling in the All Saints Pasadena controversy. For more on the current state of the controversy, see Auguste’s post at Pandagon.

After an investigation of nearly three years, the IRS has decided not to suspend my former parish’s tax-exempt status over a sermon preached by rector-emeritus George Regas just before the November 2004 election. The IRS continues to maintain that the original sermon was inappropriate and amounted to “improper interference” in the election; thus, All Saints is off the hook with the government but still has no clarity about what is and what is not permissible from the pulpit. To make matters worse, there is some evidence of inappropriate collusion between the Bush justice department and the IRS, reported by the Times here.

I’m troubled by the allegations of justice department interference with the IRS investigation. That seems nakedly partisan, and it certainly warrants an inquiry of its own. But as the only blogger in the country who was present for Regas’ original sermon (I blogged about it very critically the next day), I agree completely with the agency’s conclusion that Regas’ sermon did amount to intervention in the presidential race. I’m relieved that All Saints is off the hook with the IRS. I may have left the parish after many years of loyal service to its youth group, but I still have genuine affection for many folks who worship there and for the church’s overall mission. All Saints does a lot of good, and it will continue to do so. It can do that good much more easily as a tax-exempt organization.

But Regas’ 2004 sermon was, as I wrote at the time, filled with appalling self-righteousness and indefensible certainty about how Jesus would want us to vote. I’ve spent time in right-wing fundamentalist churches, and until I came to All Saints, would have told you that “liberal fundamentalism” was an oxymoron. The heart of fundamentalism, however, is not reactionary politics. The heart of fundamentalism is certainty, a certainty that brooks no doubt or counter-argument, a certainty that flashes into self-righteous anger or sneering superiority the moment it is challenged. And the Regas sermon (complete with all the rhetorical flourish that a transcript cannot capture) was liberal fundamentalism at its self-satisfied worst: it made it clear that Jesus would want his followers to vote for John Kerry. If the sermon honored the letter of the IRS law on tax-exempt organizations, it violated the spirit in a gross and obvious way. I stand by what I wrote in 2004:

Both liberal and conservative Christians are too enamored of the power of the secular state to transform the hearts and minds and lives of its citizens and the citizens of the world. Yes, the moral character of the ruler matters. Yes, the policies of the state matter — and good Christians can differ in good conscience as to what those policies ought to be. But the God I worship had little time for great leaders when he walked the earth. Jesus was political, yes — but His politics were far more radical than anything any modern politician could possibly espouse. To claim Jesus’ endorsement for any party, any candidate, is unbiblical and profoundly offensive.

Those who defended All Saints were right that a double standard was clearly in place; many conservative churches regularly distribute “voting guides” to their congregants that clearly urge a vote for Republican candidates. That’s wrong as well, and I am angry by the apparent inconsistency of the investigation. Regas may be a fundamentalist of the left who stepped right up to (if not over) the line; there are even more fundamentalists of the right who regularly cross that line. It’s not unreasonable to ask for some consistency from the IRS, the Justice Department, and the courts.

Since I’m so critical of both left and right, do I think that the broader church should withdraw from the public sphere? Of course not. The church ought to be political, but it ought to embody the politics of Jesus rather than the politics of party. Last time I read my gospel, Jesus was not interested in forming a political movement to overthrow Caesar or Herod Antipas; he didn’t lobby Rome for a replacement for Pontius Pilate. Jesus wanted justice, radical justice — and nothing He ever said could possibly be construed as an endorsement of the idea that the State was primarily responsible for providing that justice. Changing the Caesar was not then and ought not be now the role of the church. It matters little that today’s aspiring Caesars are Christians; once in office, their loyalties to the state almost invariably trump their religious convictions.

I do care who wins elections. I do participate in voting, but I vote as a citizen of the United States, not as a Christian. My Christian obligations cross borders and have nothing to do with the passports I hold. As an American, I vote my conscience on issues like, say school funding and the capital gains tax. I have no idea whatsoever how Jesus feels about issues such as charter schools or relations with North Korea, and I’d reject categorically the appropriation of His name by any side in the discussion of these issues. Yes, Jesus was in favor of peace; yes, he asked us to “turn the other cheek.” But good Christians can disagree about how it is we are to live out that call to peace, and we can disagree as well as to whether the sanctions on our personal behavior are also binding on nation-states. And when any pastor implies that Jesus supports one candidate more than another in an upcoming election, that pastor not only violates IRS code, he or she misleads the congregation into believing that lasting, enduring global transformation will be accomplished by the princes of this world.

“Often in Error, Never in Doubt”: on leaving All Saints and a penchant for always ending up in leadership

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 22, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Christianity, Faith and Youth ministry
. 16 Comments

When I first started blogging four years ago this month (at a now long-defunct site), I was in active leadership at Pasadena Mennonite Church. After several years of worshipping at All Saints Pasadena, I left for the Mennonites in mid-2002. I remained, however, active in youth ministry at All Saints.

I left the Mennonites and returned to All Saints in late 2004. It was exhausting to be part of two very different church cultures, and though I felt more at home theologically among the Anabaptists, I felt more culturally comfortable with the Anglicans. I’ve written about this journey back and forth before (see here, here, here).

While at times I’ve been unhappy with what I’ve heard from the pulpit at All Saints, I’ve stayed at this flagship church of progressive Episcopalianism out of my devotion to my beloved senior high youth group. For nearly eight years, I was active as both a confirmation class teacher and Wednesday night facilitator, and believe I played a valuable role in the lives of many young people there. Though at times I had theological and political differences with the church in which I worked, I was able to put those aside (most of the time, anyway) because of my loyalty to the teens.

But this past spring, the church leadership and I came to what I can only describe as a fundamental philosophical disagreement about what youth ministry is and ought to be. Because so many people (including teenagers) associated with All Saints Pasadena read this blog, I’m choosing to avoid sharing details of this profound split between myself and at least some members of the church staff. I will say that all the adults involved were passionately committed to the well-being of “our” teens. But that shared commitment was not enough to bridge a wide gulf over what it means to pastor teenagers and what it means to provide them with a safe, nurturing, loving spiritual environment. The upshot: I’ve left the All Saints Pasadena community on amicable (if strained) terms.

I hate “church shopping.” I learned early on in my life as an adult convert that no one church was going to be perfect. As in some of my youthful romantic relationships, my church experiences followed a tiresome pattern: initial enthusiasm and idealization followed by gradual disillusionment, separation, and the repetition of the cycle. I broke that cycle with women at long last, and had hoped to break it with churches. But I didn’t make the kind of pledge to All Saints Pasadena that I did to my wife. And sometimes, being on a spiritual journey means moving on.

I’m not a cradle Episcopalian, a cradle Catholic, a cradle Mennonite, a cradle Pentecostal. I was raised by atheists, after all. I was baptized and confirmed into the Roman Catholic church as a college student, and began a spiritual journey that took me from studying (very briefly) to be a Dominican to the Assemblies of God, the Mennonite Church USA, and in and out of the Anglican Communion (at least twice). In that sense, there has indeed been some symmetry between my chaotic romantic life and my quest for a spiritual home in which my relationship with Jesus can flower.

Even before this serious disagreement with the All Saints leadership over what was best for the youth emerged, I was beginning to think it was time for me to find a different spiritual home. All Saints does many things well, but one thing it doesn’t do as often as I’d like: preach the central importance of relationship with Christ. Like many progressive, liberal churches, All Saints does a wonderful job of calling people to action. All Saints not only encourages political activism, it encourages valuable social work in the community. Faith without works is indeed dead faith. But works without faith often leave those who do the works exhausted and alienated and in desperate need of spiritual refreshment. And for me, that spiritual refreshment comes in the reminder that Jesus is Lord. And that reminder isn’t offered at All Saints as often as I’d like.

So I’ve been going to the Warehouse. I sit quietly in the back, participating with enthusiasm but without any desire to step forward into leadership. I have a bad habit with churches: I join them, start volunteering, and within six months, am invariably asked into leadership. I was only at All Saints Pasadena for two years before I was invited onto the Vestry (if you know how vestries work at large Episcopal parishes, that’s a fast trajectory); I was at Pasadena Mennonite for all of five months before I was placed on the Leadership Team.

Whenever I’ve joined a church in the past, I’ve compensated for my feelings of anxiety about a new experience by throwing myself into the center of that church’s life. My inner ENFP kicks in, and I start signing up for committees and volunteer opportunities, showing up early and staying late. And I’m a pretty smooth talkin’ guy who can project a considerable amount of enthusiasm when called upon, so invariably I end up in leadership much too soon. By the time I start asking questions about whether the church and I are really compatible, I’m enmeshed in responsibilities and duties. Heck, I asked each of my first three wives to marry me within four months of starting to date them. My family motto, passed on for generations, is “often in error, never in doubt.” In church and in relationships, I’ve lived that out for years.

I’ve known she who is today my wife for many years. We dated for nearly three years before getting married in 2005. Never before had I moved so slowly, and that willingness to do what is so against my impulsive nature has paid enormous dividends. It’s time for me to start practicing that same degree of care and caution in my church relationships. That doesn’t mean diminishing the intensity of my love for Jesus. It does mean allowing myself to go to church just to worship, without feeling compelled to start taking over. It means resisting the urge to move into leadership before I am ready. It means being okay with going somewhere where not everyone knows my name.

The other reason to be hesitant about doing more than worshipping at my “next” church: when I’m in leadership, I have an obligation not to make public statements that are at odds with church teaching. When I was at Pasadena Mennonite, I got into trouble because I take a publicly affirming position on gay marriage — and I also feel quite strongly that pre-marital sex is not always offensive to God. At All Saints Pasadena, I’ve taken issue with a variety of stances adopted by the church and its leadership. When I represent the church as a senior youth leader or a Vestryman or a Prayer Team coordinator, I have an obligation to conform my public reflections to church teaching. But as someone whose views don’t fit easily into any particular political or theological template, that’s very hard.

I know full well I don’t share every view held by the leadership at Lake Avenue (the parent church of Warehouse). I like the way folks get together there to praise God, and I want to be with them as they do it. But I’ll be in the cheap seats rather than right up front, at least for now. And though I’m sure I’ll end up in leadership and youth ministry again somewhere soon, I think it’s okay to take a time-out for now.

“Why not rather be cheated?” A note on lawsuits, divorce, and Anglican court battles

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 27, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Christianity and Divorce
. 25 Comments

In a rather surprising ruling, the 4th Circuit of the California Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles yesterday. For those not in the loop, three conservative parishes within our diocese have broken away over the issue of homosexuality; in opposition to same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate gay clergy, these parishes have sought to leave the diocese — and take their church property with them. Yesterday, reversing a lower-court ruling, the appellate justices said that the church buildings belong to the diocese, not to the rebel parishes. Y’all can leave, in other words, but the bricks and mortar stay.

It’s a setback for the break-away traditionalists in California, and perhaps nationwide. Though the Times reports that the rebels haven’t decided on whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court, I can’t imagine that they won’t. The stakes are much too high to let things come to a tidy end here.

I have mixed feelings, of course. On the one hand, I’m a strong supporter of same-sex blessings and of the full integration of non-celibate gays and lesbians into holy orders and into the full, rich life of the Anglican Communion. I’ve also known Bishop Bruno for years, going back long before his stunning upset victory in the 1999 bishop coadjutor election. (You’d have to know a lot about dull diocesan politics to know what a shocker that was. He beat the favored candidate of All Saints Pasadena, and it took a couple of years to patch things up between the new bishop and the largest parish in the diocese. Let’s just say that there were some very, very disgruntled people at All Saints when Jon was elected; they’ve become “gruntled” since.) So as the bishop’s friend and admirer, I support him in his decision to do battle.

On the other hand, I know a thing or two about divorce. And having managed to get through three divorces without any serious legal fights, I know that the smart thing to do is to be generous towards those with whom you are ending a covenanted relationship. In the end, as my third wife and I agreed when we split, “it’s just money.” And no, neither of us had so much cash that we could afford to be recklessly cavalier about the subject — we just both knew that new houses could be bought, new silver patterns selected, new retirement accounts opened. Adding my three divorces together, I’ll reckon I walked away from somewhere around half a million dollars (most of it in real estate, of course). Could I find good use for $500,000 today? No doubt! Would it have been worth a nasty court battle, or two, or three? No.

I love what Paul says about lawsuits in 1 Corinthians 6:5. It was a great comfort to me during my last divorce, which was amicable and kind and generous on all sides:

The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

So many people say “I’m not going to court over money, it’s the principle of the thing.” But Paul is truly subversive here; he calls on us to allow ourselves to be wronged and cheated rather than turning to secular courts to resolve our disputes — particularly our disputes with fellow Christians.

Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? That’s the question I ask equally to both sides in the property dispute between the church and its traditionalist rebels. It’s the question I would pose to Jon Bruno, and to the vestries of the three renegade parishes. I would urge the rebels to abandon their property rather than sue to keep it; I would urge my friend Jon to let the dissenters take that same property rather than sue to get it back. If both sides act with glorious generosity, who knows what good might come of it?

Some more thoughts on All Saints, youth ministry, and making choices at the crossroads

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 5, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Faith, Youth and Youth ministry
. 11 Comments

Another year of youth ministry at All Saints Pasadena came to a close this past weekend. Another group of seniors heads off to college. Once again, I’m awed by how fast “my kids” grow up. Four short years ago, they were beginning ninth-graders, wriggling and squirming in hyperactivity and anxiety and awkwardness. Today, they are (mostly) legal adults, increasingly poised, increasingly confident, increasingly compassionate and empathetic. Kids I towered over in 2003 now have blown right past me — and I’m not merely referring to height.

Two days ago, on Trinity Sunday, we had our annual “youth service.” The teens serve communion bread and wine, the teen choir handles the music, and two teens help design the sermon. One young woman who preached on Sunday has been dear to me for many years. She spoke of how she’d been a member of our church since the womb, of how she’d grown up safe and loved in this large, unruly, vibrant community.

She spoke of how she’d gone through our Seekers confirmation program (which I co-led from 2001 until this year) as an agnostic who flirted with atheism. As she put it, she got confirmed at the end of her frosh year in order to honor the eight-month process of Seekers, not out of any newfound certainty in her faith. Interestingly, she reported from the pulpit on Sunday that she has — at last — begun to experience a sudden openness to God. After years and years of living by the All Saints creed of the “gospel of social justice”, the creed that suggests that “Jesus was a heckuva nice guy and an important advocate for change”, she’s begun to find a more evangelical faith. She found it through her school’s gospel choir, and in the rhythm and emotion of gospel, she’s opened herself up to the possibility that Jesus was and is more than a human role model.

It was a brave thing to say from the All Saints pulpit. It contained both praise and a rebuke for All Saints. This flagship church of American Anglican liberalism is very, very good at encouraging individual exploration. We are very good at raising awareness of suffering in the broader world. We are very, very good at teaching young people how to ask the right theological questions. We are very, very good at instilling suspicion of any person or institution who cllaims to have The One True Answer. We are, most of the time, pretty good at loving kids “where they’re at” instead of where we think they should be.

But we liberal Episcopalians are often not so good at helping kids to come to certainties. Too often, when a young person in pain asks “where is God when I need Him?”, the institutional response is to say “Ah, my child, that’s an excellent question, one asked by many people over the centuries. We invite you to pray and reflect on God in His Mystery and His Apparent Absence, and know that we support you as you wrestle with the Great Dilemma of Faith.” We’re really good, we Episcopalians, at encouraging a process of discernment. (Heck, is there any word we love more than “process”?) We revel in “acknowledging dichotomies” and “appreciating uncertainty” and “holding apparent contradictions in simultaneous tension”. This is great, heady stuff, but it isn’t really helpful to a teen wrestling with the suicide of a friend, an eating disorder, the decision to terminate a pregnancy, their parents’ divorce.

What I try to do in my youth ministry — and what I see at least a few folks trying to do as well — is fuse an evangelical passion for Jesus as Savior and Best of Friends with an appreciation for theological pluralism. In other words, Jesus may not the be the Only Way, but to live in relationship with Him is certainly One Way, and I am unashamed to proclaim that for me, He has turned out to be the Best Way. It’s healthy and right and good to ackonwledge a multiplicity of equally wonderful choices, but at some point (particularly in a time of great existential crisis) it’s helpful to make one choice.

We all know Frost’s poem about the road less traveled. Too often among my fellow liberal Anglicans, I sense a real delight in remaining permanently stuck at the crossroads. One of the penchants I really dislike among some of my friends is the tendency to see the refusal to make any theological commitments as evidence of great wisdom. Some elevate “analysis paralysis” to the level of a high virtue. That’s fine for adults, but it’s not helpful for most teenagers, who, despite their natural suspicion towards authority, really need at least some certainties, even if the primary certainty that a good youth leader can provide is that they are loved.

When you’re a child, you take the path your parents tell you to take. When you’re a teen, it is right and good to become aware of options, of choices — and the church ought to point out that other choices exist. But after we acknowledge that there are other paths, perhaps just as worthy and good as ours (the ocean refuses no river, after all), we need to say definitively: this is our path. This is our way. And we will walk this path with you.

Tearing up

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 3, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena and Music
. 6 Comments

There are a few hymns that are guaranteed to make me cry, every time. The spirituals like “Oh, Freedom” tend to do it. “Great is thy Faithfulness” can do it, depending on the orchestration (it can soar, or be very tendentious.) “Guide me, oh thou Great Jehovah” is great, and makes me think of Welsh rugby. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” frequently makes me a bit teary. But for some reason, I always come undone when we sing “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.” The tune is murderously hard (makes “Lift Every Voice” seem easy), but cripes, it just flattens me. And it flattened me today.

A misunderstanding about youth ministry, boys, and the meaning of “work”: a response to Toy Soldier

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 26, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Men and Masculinity, Relationships, Youth and Youth ministry
. 27 Comments

I often refer to what I do, professionally and avocationally, as my “work.” I talk about “youth work” and “pro-feminist work” and “men’s work”. I had thought that everyone would understand that what I meant was clear, but a recent comment by Toy Soldier below my “Sheer desecrated hurt and anger” post makes it obvious that I need to be more explicit.

I wrote:

Real men’s work is about reaching young men where they are. Not just the ones who are obviously willing to be reached, either. Real men’s work — especially in school settings — is about initiating relationship with the shy, the bookish, the brooding and the hostile. It is frustrating, difficult, painful, and very tiring work. It is also joyous, especially when the breakthroughs happen. I’ve been working to do this for many years now, with a wide variety of young men. And it may be the most important thing I do.

Toy Soldier replied:

If one considers it work to aid a young man in need then one has already missed the point. Speaking as a “brooding” young man from Cho’s generation, I think the above attitude is one of the many reasons why Cho’s hurt and anger remained suppressed. As John mentioned above, one must approach helping young men with the intent to actually help them because it is the right thing to do for them. It requires respect, which the above–no offense–selfish, self-serving attitude completely lacks.

Whoa, cowboy. I’ll ignore the “selfish and self-serving” bit and focus instead on the misunderstanding of what I mean by “work.”

Sometimes, it’s fairly obvious that (at least on my mother’s side) I am descended from a lot of Scots-Irish Calvinists and North German Lutherans. The “Protestant work ethic”, stripped of its theological nuances, is one of my family’s secular religions (the other being good manners). Somehow, early on in life, I picked up the idea that there was no greater sin than idleness. Sin was, I believed and still often do believe, more about what you didn’t do than what you did. From my cousins, I picked up a “work hard, play hard” ethos. As long as I was doing the former, I was allowed great (perhaps too much) latitude for the latter. Getting straight As or making money weren’t vitally important, mind you — but having focus and goals were.

So I end up talking about almost everything as “work.” I’ll be the first to say that my marriage is blissful. It is also challenging work. Indeed, if my marriage wasn’t sometimes a hell of a lot of work, I’d figure that there was something amiss. If I’m too comfortable, I’m stagnating; the only way to fight decay is to keep in constant motion, in near-constant effort. My teaching is work. I am good at what I do, I think, but I know I could be better. I could be kinder, more sympathetic, even more passionate. Teaching is joy — teaching is hard work.

I “work out” every day. I do it for the thrill of the endorphin rush to which I am most definitely addicted, but I also do it because I like working at physical things. I like pushing up mountain trails and doing ever-more difficult positions in Pilates. Is there an element of playfulness, of creativity, of fun in all of this “working” out? Of course there is. But is it also mental and physical work? Abso-flippin’-lutely.

And my youth ministry is also “work.” I work at being a better, kinder, more intuitive mentor to girls and boys. I work at new ways to reach the kids who are toughest to reach. Is it often exhilarating and fulfilling? Sure. But it is also often tiring and disheartening. If I only did youth ministry in order to be adored, to be wanted, and to be validated, I’d be a piss-poor volunteer. If I only did youth ministry with the kids whom it is easy to reach, I’d be a fraud and a coward. Every danged week, I have to push myself out of my comfort zone to try and connect with the sullen, the angry, the hurting, the defensive. I have to be willing to have my initial efforts at connection rebuffed, knowing that building trust with a wounded, alienated kid takes a long time and is frequently hard work.

Toy Soldier — and some other men’s rights activists — think that pro-feminist men have only one motive to work with boys: we want to make sure that they don’t hurt women. The implication, and it’s one that I hear often, is that men like me don’t really like or care for other men or boys. Yet because as pro-feminists we see the colossal harm men and boys inflict on women and girls, we apparently consider it our distasteful duty to reach out to our little brothers in the hopes of molding them into respectful egalitarians like ourselves. According to this theory, men like me have no interest in working with boys as boys, only in working to “defuse” their toxic masculinity. It’s a cute theory, but it’s simply not true.

I work with girls, and I work with boys. Ask anyone who has seen me do youth ministry: my time is evenly divided with all of “my kids”, and my joy in their growth and my concern at their setbacks is equal, whether they are male or female. I do youth work because I want these teens to grow up into empowered, socially responsible, authentically happy human beings who delight in their own createdness and who feel a strong desire to help heal the world. I want them to do justice and love mercy. I want them to know that they are loved and adored no matter what they do or who they do it with. And I am willing to do a hell of a lot of work to help get them there. And make no mistake, it is frequently very hard work.

There’s a lot of work to be done, people! The earth needs savin’, the animals need protectin’, the poor need housin’, the naked need clothin’, the rivers need cleanin’, the kids need lovin’. We need God’s help to get all this done, but we are His co-workers, His commissioned agents, His proxies. There’s too much pain in the world for us to be self-indulgent or lazy for too long. Let’s get crackin’.

George considers the Army: some thoughts on the similarity between pre-marital sex and joining the military

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 13, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, People, Politics and War
. 28 Comments

I don’t have much time for a post, but this has been on my mind.

About two weeks ago, I had a very polite argument with a fellow All Saints youth leader. One of our boys, a splendid young man nearing graduation from high school, is considering enlisting in the Army. “George” is attracted to the idea of service, he doesn’t feel ready for college, and he likes the financial benefits.

My fellow youth leader came to me and said “Hugo, you’ve got to talk George out of this.” (I have a great relationship with George, probably closer than the other youth pastors do.) I told my colleague that I would talk with George and explore his reasons for considering the military, but I had no intention of automatically discouraging him from Army service.

My classes at Pasadena City College are filled with young men and women who are veterans. I have several students this semester who’ve done time in Iraq. In conversations with a few of them, I know that they hold a widely divergent set of views about American policy over there. But virtually all — Army or Marines, as I rarely get Navy or Air Force vets — view their service as a positive. And while I have no hard evidence to support this theory, I note that my ex-service members (including many who are still in the reserves) have far better work and study habits than their peers of the same age. They aren’t necessarily any brighter, but my goodness, they have considerably more focus and initiative.

I still remain committed to the essential tenets of Christian pacifism. I am not a naturally peaceful person, mind you; my instinctive response to many of the worlds’ grossest injustices is to suggest a swift and violent solution. My heart and my soul are convinced that we are called as individuals and as citizens to “turn the other cheek”; I believe theologically that Jesus’ call to nonviolence is binding on Christians in both their private lives and in their public service. But my head tells me that sometimes violence, while never redemptive, can protect the vulnerable. As someone who teaches the young, and who longs to be a father, that protectiveness butts up against my pacifism more and more these days.

Despite my pacifism, I don’t have a knee-jerk disposition against military service. I’ve only had the chance to have one conversation with George, and I look forward to more. But I am eager to find out more about his reasons for wanting to join the Army, just as I am eager to know why one of his good friends considers UC Riverside a better fit than, say, UC Davis. I am committed to the basic notion that “my kids” are unique individuals with different paths to follow. And though I worship and volunteer in a community that is often reflexiviely anti-military, I am convinced that for some young men and women, the Army may well be the best possible option.

In April 2005, I posted this brief piece about teaching sex ed at All Saints. I took a lot of heat in the comments section, especially from many of my fellow evangelicals, for my reply to one question that the kids asked. One child asked “What do you think about us having sex at our age?” And I answered:

You guys, when I look at you, it isn’t possible for me to see you as a group of generic teenagers. When I look at this room, I don’t just see fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen year-olds. I see people whose individual stories I know. Some of you I’ve known just a little while. Some of you I’ve known since you were bratty little sixth-graders five or six years ago. When I look at you (pointing around the room), I see (names changed) Michael, not a sophomore boy. I see Marie, not a senior girl; I see Janae and Brent and Alexa and Rick, not just four random kids sitting on a couch. And though you are all alike in so many countless ways, you’re also fundamentally different people with different needs and different histories. Honestly, the more I work with you, the less I feel comfortable handing out a one-size-fits-all moral agenda with any confidence. In truth, while I think in general it is better to wait before taking on the enormous responsibilities and consequences of sex, I know full well that some of you are simply “readier” than others. I’m not going to name names, of course! But I can’t help but see you as individuals with different desires and different levels of maturity, faith, and emotional preparedness.

Many of my more liberal commenters applauded that sentiment; the conservatives considered it hopelessly wishy-washy.

But my feelings about college versus military service are more or less exactly the same! Just as I am convinced that some kids in high school are more emotionally and spiritually prepared for healthy sexual activity than others, I am equally convinced that not all are called to go directly to a four-year college. For any number of reasons, I think that a stint in the Army might be the absolute best thing for a young man or woman hungry for a very particular kind of public service, hungry to have the fast-forward button pushed on their transition into full adulthood. I’ve seen too many disaffected, directionless young men (and one or two young women) sign up for military service and come back transformed — deeper, more confident, more capable, and to my own very great surprise, more compassionate and committed to others. It’s not for everyone, but it may well be the right choice for a few. And my desire to see my kids grow and transform as individuals is greater than my own pacifist politics; my longing to see them “find themselves” trumps my own very grave misgivings about American military policy.

George hasn’t signed up yet. I hope we’ll have a chance to talk again before he does. But when we do, my thoughts will be first and foremost on what is truly good for George. Yes, I worry about him being sent to Iraq; I worry about his safety. But he’s leaving childhood behind. His parents and youth leaders must accept that part of his growth narrative will be the acceptance of great, even lethal risk. I can pray that God watches over him, as I pray for all the All Saints kids. But I won’t pray that God redirects his heart towards, say, the community college after high school. I don’t get to write the scripts my kids follow. I just get to love them through whatever they choose, and I get to give a little advice and a lot of encouragement.

Fourteen Marthas, not one Mary: a retreat report and a long meditation on girls, pressure, parents, and people-pleasing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 12, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Christianity, Faith, Favorite posts 2007, Feminism, The Martha Complex: perfectionism in adolescent girls, Youth and Youth ministry
. 23 Comments

I’m in my office, just before 8:00 on a Monday morning. Daylight Savings Time has arrived early, as almost everyone knows, and I am happy. (Even if getting up this morning at five for my boxing session felt particularly challenging.)

I had a wonderful time once again with the All Saints confirmation class this weekend on our retreat in the San Bernardino mountains. (I’ve written about past retreats on this blog: here are the 2005 and 2006 reports.). I was a bit disappointed by the abnormally warm weather and the nearly complete absence of snow, despite the fact that we were up in the mountains three weeks earlier than usual.

Though in 2005 we had more boys than girls in our confirmation class, this year our gender ratio was wildly skewed. After a couple of cancellations, we ended up taking fourteen girls and one boy up to Big Bear for the weekend retreat. (The boy, a very outgoing and relaxed kid, was more than delighted at his unique status.) In our intimate and emotional discussions Friday night and Saturday, one clear pattern emerged in the stories these young women were telling about their lives.

After years and years of teaching confirmation classes, I’ve noticed that each class has a slightly different “feel.” The 2007 “Seekers” confirmation class is not merely notable for being overwhelmingly female; this year’s crop is also marked by an often frantic desire to live up to the expectations of the outside world. Never have I gone on retreat with so many young women who were so completely exhausted! I’m not talking about temporarily underslept; I’m talking about girls who are 14-16 years old whose daily schedules are as demanding as that of a young Japanese businessman trying to climb the ladder at Sony.

Never have the youth leaders had to work so hard to convince so many kids to take a weekend away! These girls weren’t worried about missing dances or parties. They were worried about missing speech tournaments, SAT prep classes, and biology homework. They were worried about not being able to exercise and stay fit for their various team sport commitments. Many begged to be allowed to bring some books to study from “in our free time.” (We have a fairly strict “no homework” policy; the kids know about this weekend six months in advance.) And the thought of spending forty-eight hours away from their elaborately programmed schedules and responsibilities was terrifying for many of them.

Before a retreat, I always joke with the other youth leaders about “packing plenty of Kleenex”. We expect a lot of tears as we go through our emotional, spirit-filled weekend. But rarely have we had as many sniffles and wet eyes as we did these past few days. On Friday night, as we “checked in” with our fourteen girls and one boy about their lives and their faith journey, it was as if a massive dam had suddenly broken. One after another, they broke down. Some were angry at themselves, others angry at God, many confessed feeling utterly overwhelmed by pressure and expectations. The most common phrase I heard all night was one I don’t always anticipate to be the most common: “I feel so guilty.” These girls had guilt and shame weighing them down. I could see it in the slump of their shoulders, in the puffiness of their eyes.

The specific pressures vary. We have one girl who’s a dancer, a very good one; she’s trying to get ready to audition for professional companies at the same time that she’s carrying a full load of advanced placement classes as a sophomore. Another girl is captain of her debate team and active in student government at her school. Her days begin at five and end at midnight. She does three to four hours of homework a night, tutors underprivileged kids, prepares for speech tournaments and is gearing up to run for class president for next year. She’s a tenth-grader, but her anxiety about not “getting into a good school” and “letting everyone down” is so palpable that when she tries to relax she ends up sitting and shaking rather like a wet chihuahua.

As a feminist and a Christian, the desperate “people-pleasing” of so many of these young women troubles me. Many of them acknowledge carrying the double burden familiar to so many modern women: these girls know that they are expected to live up to traditional feminine standards of behavior and looks, at least much of the time. (Three girls talked quietly about their struggles with disordered eating and body self-loathing.) But in addition to the cultural expectation to be bright-eyed, cheerful, virginal and pleasing, they also feel pressured to be intellectually, athletically, and professionally successful. They all volunteer (often as part of school-mandated community service). Their parents have told them all their lives that they can “be anything they want to be”, which sounds great — until the girls are forced to excel at virtually everything they do in every facet of their lives so as “not to miss out” on any opportunity to succeed. The superwomen complex is alive and well in girls so young that some were born after Bill Clinton became president! That breaks my heart.

As we wrapped up our first session Friday night, I pulled out the Bible. I read two sections. From Matthew, I read my beloved 10:37:

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Honestly, it’s often twice as hard to get young women, raised since birth to please and to perform, to grasp this than young men. We are so much more tolerant of male rebellion; we are more tolerant of young men who “take time to find themselves” or who “are going through a slacker phase.” And to put it more simply, more young men seem to have an easier time daring to disappoint their parents. (Of course, there are plenty of boys near collapse from trying to meet other’s expectations. But their numbers are fewer.)

What I wanted the girls to grasp from this passage is that a real relationship with Christ is one that comes unmediated by parents or peers. To live in Christ means to follow Him with the very likely expectation that His plan for your life is not the same as your parent’s hopes. That doesn’t mean that Jesus is an excuse for narcissistic rebellion. But it does mean that if you put pleasing others, especially your parents, ahead of discerning God’s unique plan for your life, then you have missed the point. I made it clear to “my kids”: Christ comes to set captives free, and sometimes the jailers are the very people who love you most.

After praying silently for quick inspiration, I felt called to read Luke 10:38-42:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Earlier, as our fourteen girls shared, I had realized that I was sitting in a room filled to the rafters with Marthas, with nary a Mary to be found! Like Martha, they are “worried and upset about many things”. They don’t know how to rest; they are “distracted by all the preparations that (have) to be made.” These Marthas — my dear, beautiful, brave, overachieving, anxious, exhausted girls — live lives that are governed by an endless series of “to do lists”. They wake up with “have to’s” and go to bed with “ought to have’s” and spend their days thinking about their “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts.” But only one thing is needed, and that is to sit at the foot of God.

It says in Kings, “after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” The earthquakes and fires in these girls’ lives are all that they hear; they hear only noise, only storm and fury. As I said to them, that “gentle whisper” (what the KJV famously calls the “still small voice”) can’t be heard until you learn to press the mute button at your peers, at your coaches, at your teachers, at Facebook, at Youtube, at Jane Magazine, and yes, at your parents. Martha is too busy to hear the gentle whisper. She worries too much, fearing what will happen if she stops to rest, fearing who she’ll be if she stops her endless motion, her endless people-pleasing. Choosing “what is better” is about placing one’s own spiritual growth ahead of everything else. Choosing Mary’s part over Martha’s is to risk the wrath of some who love and care for you; it is to risk disappointing those who raised you and nurtured you. It is to risk having to confront your own fear of not doing enough. And if you want joy, if you want fulfillment, if you want rest, it’s what you absolutely gotta do.

Thanks to the remarkable success of several waves of American feminism, the girls I work with today have more opportunities than virtually any generation before them. Though they have to confront a misogynistic backlash that has taken root in many aspects of our dominant culture, they have the chance to achieve more and do more and enjoy more than their mothers and grandmothers. But we’ve made the terrible mistake of turning opportunity into obligation. We’ve sucked the joy right out of their over-programmed, over-monitored, over-achieving little lives. True feminism and true Christian faith are absolutely congruent in their mutual opposition to the idea that young women ought to live up to an ever-more demanding set of duties and commitments.

As a feminist and a Christian, I want to see “my girls” becoming more like Mary, less like Martha. And if that means that some of the boys need to go and spend a few minutes taking over Martha’s duties so she can take a break, then they damned well can step up and do it.

UPDATE: My dear mother, long a defender of Martha, writes me today to remind me that many traditions say that Martha ended up in Tarascon, France, where she may well have slain a dragon. It’s a happy thought.

All Saints stands strong: a note on prayer shawls and worship music

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 26, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Christianity and GLBTQ
. 5 Comments

In addition to watching the Oscars this weekend, I spent time both Saturday and Sunday at church.

We’re at a watershed moment in the history of the Episcopal Church and of its flagship liberal congregation, All Saints Pasadena. It is in our parish that the very first Anglican blessing of a same-sex union in the entire Communion took place back in 1991; almost sixteen years later, the global church is on the threshold of schism over this very issue of homosexuality, Scriptural interpretation, and inclusiveness. (I wrote a bit about this last week.)

Here’s a summary of the current debate from the Los Angeles Times.

After a meeting ten days ago in Tanzania, the primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion have directed the Episcopal Church USA to stop ordaining gays and lesbians and to stop blessing same-sex unions. The deadline to comply is September 30, 2007.

Though the ECUSA has not yet issued a formal response, at All Saints Pasadena, we’ve done so. Last week, our rector, Ed Bacon, issued this (PDF file) release.

“We have been blessing the unions of our gay and lesbian parishioners for 15 years and we have no intention of denying them blessings in the future”, Ed Bacon said.

On Saturday afternoon, I helped organize our “youth and families” 5:00PM worship service. This week Susan Russell preached; Susan is an internationally recognized spokeswoman for progressive Episcopalians (see her here on the Newshour, for example). Susan also blogs at An Inch at a Time.

Susan was preaching to a congregation of little kids and teenagers; she avoided bringing up the heavy theological issues that are at hand. But she didn’t make the mistake of assuming that children are incapable of understanding the core issue, which is the issue of who is welcome in the church. She unveiled a beautiful indigo prayer shawl, knitted by a group of parishoners who knit as a spiritual disciplne; each stitch and knot is carefully prayed over. The shawl has just been finished, and it will be sent this week to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori. It is Jefferts Schori who must answer to the primates for all of us, it is Jefferts Schori who must choose whether to give in to heavy pressure from traditionalists abroad (and at home) or to, like Luther at the Diet of Worms, stand in courageous defiance.

Susan Russell invited us to pray over the shawl, that it might act as a covering for our presiding bishop, that it might give her strength to make difficult decisions, that it might help her to choose to stand up for the marginalized. I ran my hands over the shawl, remembering my brief sojourn among the Pentecostals, remembering the power of the Holy Spirit ought never be doubted or underestimated.

Susan assured us that whatever the cost, we at All Saints Pasadena will not change our stance on including women, gays, and lesbians in every facet of church life. We’re not going to sell out the most vulnerable among us in an effort to appease. Living in Communion means we have an obligation to listen to each other and pray together, but it doesn’t bind us to submit to what our conscience, our reason, and the Spirit itself tells us is grave injustice.

One reason I like our Saturday service: we often use contemporary praise music in worship, singing songs more often sung in far more conservative congregations. During communion, as the kids raced around the room, we sang that Jesus Camp classic “Every Move I Make”:

Every move I make I make in
You
You make me move, Jesus
Every breath I take
I breathe in You
Every step I take I take in
You
You are my way, Jesus
Every breath I take
I breathe in You
Waves of mercy
Waves of grace
Everywhere I look I see Your face
Your love has
captured me
Oh my God, this love
How can it be?

Whatever one thinks of the language of contemporary worship music (Jenell Paris, one of my favorite bloggers, has great article on this very subject in the latest issue of Mutuality, alas not online), there’s no question that it puts a personal relationship with Jesus front and center. And what I love about All Saints is that under the leadership of an exciting and dynamic team of professional and volunteer youth ministers, an ever more explicitly evangelical message is being lived out with our children and teenagers. Our commitment to full inclusion for gays and lesbians, our sense that God’s view of sexuality is richer than we had once imagined, in no way vitiates the intensity of our faith in Christ. We can have Jesus and justice.

So we prayed over the shawl, and we danced around during communion, and I left a bit teary-eyed, thankful that God put me in this place, in this church.

Same shepherd, different paths: a note on the current state of the Anglican Communion

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 20, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena and Christianity
. 17 Comments

One thing I tried to follow while on vacation was news from the Anglican Primates meeting in Tanzania. In a world at war, with the Darfur crisis spilling into Chad, the glaciers melting at a faster rate than previously imagined, tensions ratcheting up with Iran, a depressing and ongoing stalement over the Palestine question — with all of that on the table, the leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion spent most of their meeting in Africa (a continent with a host of pressing human and environmental problems) focused on how best to rebuke the Episcopal Church USA for its consecration of an openly gay bishop and its support for same-sex unions. Priorities are clearly straight (pun intended) in my global church.

Here’s the BBC story. And read more coverage at Kendall’s.

This is not to say that sexual morality isn’t an important topic, and one that the church ought to discuss. But it ought to make all of us in the Anglican church sad, regardless of where we find ourselves on the issue of sexuality, that yet another argument over “pelvic morality” is distracting us from so many other vital concerns. We must ask ourselves the question: in spending so much time and energy discerning God’s will on the question of homosexuality, what other vital issues are we ignoring? How many lambs are going unfed because we’re too busy trying to disqualify some of the very shepherds who want to feed them?

I’m convinced that for most straight people, the issue of same-sex marriage is an attractive one over which to argue and debate. It’s why we like to argue about it so much in the church. Most other issues call us to personal repentance and transformation. Christ calls us to think differently about how we eat, about how we spend our money, about how we interact with our neighbors, about how we live so many aspects of our lives. But if we’re straight, taking a position on homosexuality (whether or not it’s an affirming one) is ultimately pretty damned cheap.

No straight person gives up anything when he or she comes out for or against same-sex marriage. So we progressive heterosexuals get to feel virtuous and brave for standing in solidarity with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters; conservative straights get to feel as if they are “defending the Gospel” by trying to bar the ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of non-heterosexual unions. And whatever side we’re on, it doesn’t cost us much. The focus is off our own flaws, away from the logs in our own eyes. And so both right and left collude to make homosexuality the defining issue in the modern church.

But of course, for our GLBTQ friends and neighbors, this debate isn’t cheap. It goes to the very heart of their identity. And it is for the love of these friends and neighbors, my brothers and sisters in Christ, that I am willing to see a schism in the church I love. Unity is a good, but it isn’t anywhere near the highest good. To progressives, justice is a higher good than unity. To conservatives, fidelity to tradition and Scripture is a higher good than unity. If both sides can at least agree on that, then perhaps we can gently break apart the wider Anglican communion.

As my rabbi friend often says, “Sometimes divorce is a mitzvah.” I’ve often written that there are redemptive aspects to the end of a marriage, particularly when both parties become stronger and better people as a result. I believe that just as there can be both amicable and hostile divorces, there can also be amicable and hostile church schisms. While there’s still a chance to separate gently, with a mixture of regret, sadness, respect and relief, we should take that chance.

Our shepherd has told us he leads sheep from many folds; let’s let those who cannot be in our fold any longer follow our same shepherd on a different path.

16 girls, 3 boys: a note on the sex ratio in a confirmation class

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 6, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Christianity, Men and Masculinity, Youth and Youth ministry
. 18 Comments

As I mentioned yesterday, we had a terrific time with the All Saints kids during our fasting fund-raiser on Friday and Saturday. Another night for Hugo in his sleeping bag on the floor, surrounded by snoring and wheezing boys. (Here’s my dilemma: I find it much easier to sleep on retreats when I have both ear plugs and one of those little night shades to cover my eyes; I have a nice pair from a British Airways amenity kit. But is it safe, given what teens get up to, for the youth leaders to be unable to hear a darned thing? Should I always sleep with one ear open, as it were? I go back and forth on the matter.)

Our confirmation class this year has a very skewed sex ratio. We have 16 girls and 3 boys, which is the most lopsided it has been in my seven years of serving as an instructor and mentor for the confirmation program. On Saturday, I was chatting with a parent as we were finishing things up, and this parent (whose child was in a previous confirmation class) lamented “We really need more boys. I’m so worried that all the young men are missing.”

I’ve heard a lot of this public anxiety about “missing boys” this year. I’ve heard it nationally, as the mainstream media frets that bright and talented young women are somehow driving young men off of college campuses. And I’ve heard it at All Saints, where for any number of reasons, we have a very small number of boys in our 2007 “Seekers” confirmation class. (I am happy to say that in terms of overall numbers, the trend in the raw number of confirmands is going up in our parish.) In the past, we’ve always had a few more girls than boys, say with a 10-8 split in favor of the females. But never as stark as the 16-3 ratio we’ve got at the moment, a ratio that is particularly obvious when we divide the teens for overnight sleeping arrangements.

Let me be clear that I’d like to see more boys involved in our youth program. But I’m growing a bit frustrated with the hand-wringing over their absence. The three boys we do have this year are bright, sweet, fun lads; the girls we’ve got are equally wonderful. As always, once I get to know them well, I find myself starting to fall in love with the whole danged pack of them. (In this paranoid age, let me be clear that this is a pure and uncomplicated passion!) And I’m worried that it is all too easy to become so concerned about the “missing boys” that we ignore the equally important needs of the girls who are seeking out confirmation and committing to our eight-month program. We are in danger of focusing too much on who isn’t with us, and why they aren’t, and too little on the precious, magnificent young people who are right in front of us.

As a male professor and youth leader, I take my job as a role model very seriously. I know that I have a role to play in the lives of both young men and young women. The fact that I am male doesn’t mean that the boys are any more or less important to me than are their sisters. But to some extent, adult males are particularly important for boys because they can model an alternative vision of what it means to be masculine. Teenage boys want very much to know how to live as adult men, and it is considerably easier for a grown man to show that in his actions as well as his words. This doesn’t mean that adult women can’t mentor boys, and adult men can’t mentor girls; it just means that we often learn differently from same and other-sexed role models. So I get that I have a special task when it comes to the boys.

The reasons why our confirmation classes have such a skewed gender ratio are hardly unique to All Saints. Like many liberal churches, relatively few of our prospective confirmands have been forced by their parents to be in the program; if it were compulsory, we would expect a more even number of boys and girls. And all things being equal, more girls than boys seem interested in exploring their faith and spending time in service. I’ve heard a variety of suggestions floated to make the program more attractive to boys (less talking, more outdoor activities), but most of those ideas, if implemented, would gut the program as it exists. It would also mean ignoring the generally positive responses of the few boys whom we do have in the program. And it would mean we were showing more concern for men than for women, more concern for those absent than for those present.

The current obsession in education is a hyper-anxiety about the well-being of boys, and an almost misogynistic fear that our current pedagogical structures favor girls. After all, if more girls than boys are showing up and being successful, this must be attributed to an anti-male bias rather than to a greater interest and effort on the part of the girls themselves! Too many girls and well-behaved boys have been ignored for too long by teachers and youth leaders who devote too much attention to coping with the few “problem boys” (chronic troublemakers, overly medicated hyperactives, etcetera).

Am I upset that we’ve got 16 girls and 3 boys? Heck no. Would I be upset if we had 16 boys and 3 girls? Nope. Jesus calls us to feed His lambs, and we feed the lambs who come for food. What point is there in searching endlessly after those who aren’t showing up, if the end result is that those who have come to be fed are ignored?

A happy weekend

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 5, 2007
in All Saints Pasadena, Movies and Stuff
. 0 Comments

More thoughtful post later, but I want to begin by reporting that it was a happy and successful weekend.

At All Saints Pasadena, our thirty-hour fast to raise funds for Episcopal Relief and Development went very, very well. We had 24 kids participate; we made sandwiches for shelters; walked the labyrinth (an eleven-twist labyrinth, made of cloth, that we keep around the church); Saturday morning, we drove down to the African-American Museum near USC to see a photo exhibit on Rwandan orphans — organized and curated by two of our parishioners. The kids were very moved, and so was at least one of their youth leaders. We finished the fast with a Saturday evening church service and some delicious communion bread; the body of Christ is never more savory than after 30 hours of no other food!

And Sunday, my wife and I spent the whole day together. No getting up early for church; no getting up early to run. We slept late, read the paper together, and went to an early matinee of the wickedly fun Notes on a Scandal. (Dench and Nighy were marvelous, but the relationship between Cate Blanchett and her pubescent student was, well, unconvincing.) After that, it was off to the Huntington Library for lunch and a visit to the new John Constable exhibit; lots of his big “six-foot” landscapes from the Tate and the National Gallery. (I thought of my father, who was fond of Constable and Turner.)

We finished the day by dropping in on a youth group Super Bowl Party, before heading home to a quiet dinner, snuggling on the couch, and two episodes off one of our old Sopranos DVDs.

I can’t remember the last time when we’ve actually had a fun day like this — usually, we have to leave the country in order to get quality time together, away from our various obligations and avocational duties. Yesterday, we made such a day happen, and I am very happy.

Off to teach.

More on youth group, boundaries, and accountability

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 15, 2006
in All Saints Pasadena, Sexuality, Youth and Youth ministry
. 6 Comments

Lauren not only designed this blog, she’s inspiring two posts from me today. Yesterday, our Indiana friend posted about her own church camp experience. She talks at length about one particularly creepy counselor, a man who was regularly and stunningly sexually inappropriate. Lauren shares some anecdotes, and notes that he acted out in full view of

other adults, all of whom were, as mentioned, too nice to say anything about how grossly inappropriate all of this was.

That strikes a nerve with me. I’m a veteran church youth volunteer; I help lead Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon teen groups. I’ve gone on many, many weekend retreats. And I’ve written at length about the importance of good, loving boundaries with teenagers. (See here, here, here.)

But I’m also prone to bouts of niceness. Yes, I watch my own behavior around teenagers very carefully; I make sure that I get regular feedback from other adult volunteers who see me hug and pat and “love on” the boys and girls with whom I interact. But reading Lauren’s post, I am struck by how trusting I am of my fellow volunteers! Let me be clear that I have absolutely no reason to doubt the integrity of any of them. I’ve never witnessed any inappropriate behavior — yet on the other hand, I’m not as zealous about checking up on my colleagues as I am in monitoring my own interactions with the teens. And like many people, I don’t like confrontation one bit. Challenging a peer — or a church leader — would not be easy. But I’d like to think that if I saw an adult behave inappropriately with one of our teens, I would intervene quickly. I’m hoping my desire to protect the vulnerable would trump my eagerness to maintain a “nice and pleasant” atmosphere.

In a comment below Lauren’s post, Thomas writes:

I’m very concerned at accounts I have read over the years about people knowing of and ignoring adults with a history of sexually charged behavior with and access to children. It is my experience that people can turn their heads more easily when nobody requires them to take responsibility. I recommend the following question:

“Will my child have contact with anyone here that you have reason to believe may be sexually attracted to children?”

Anyone with a brain knows that if they have been ignoring the rumors about Mr. Davis, and they say no, then their ass is now on the hook in both a moral and likely a legal sense.

It’s a tough question for a parent to ask, but I’d be pleased if a parent asked it of me or any other youth leader at All Saints. Thinking of my fellow volunteers and youth pastors, I’m completely confident I could give a hearty “no”. I wouldn’t be offended by the question at all, even if was directed at me personally. Asking direct questions like this set a clear tone: it makes it evident that the protection of children and teens is more important than avoiding putting adults on the spot. It makes it clear that parents expect that the adults to whom they entrust their young people will do more than simply refrain from harming their kids. A parent who asks the question Thomas suggests makes it clear that he or she is holding those of us who work with youth accountable. And I welcome that accountability, and am committed to living it out.

We had our final youth group meeting of 2006 on Wednesday night. We had a Christian rock band, Transistor Radio do a gig for the teens. We had tacos and Christmas cookies and a gift exchange. And we had lots of laughter, lots of hugs, and a bit of gentle “moshing” as the band performed. And when it came time to say goodbye until 2007, there was a lot of hugging. As I’ve written before, I don’t foist my embraces on anyone — but when hugged, I hug back with warmth and exuberance and enthusiasm. The kids I work with know that if they need to be held, I will hold them. They know that if they need me to keep my space while they talk, I can do that too. And I know that whatever I’m doing is seen by the wider community, and I welcome their queries or concerns. Lauren’s post reminds me that I can’t forget I also have a job to lovingly watch how my colleagues interact with our kids, and be fearless about challenging anything that seems out of place.