LifeWay Christian Bookstores decided not to carry Rachel Held Evans’ A Year Of Biblical Womanhood. Since 40% of Christian bookstores are LifeWay (aka The Southern Baptist Publishing Conglomerate) this is a real blow to Evans’ sales of the book. The Christian blogosphere is all over this tempest, steam pouring from the spouts of angry feminists and traditionalists alike. Evans claims that the book has been excluded because she used the word vagina. Others respond that it’s because she is openly, forcefully feminist (egalitarian in Christian parlance) and LifeWay is decidedly not feminist (the word Christians use for this is complimentarian.)
I do not know all the whys and wherefores, but knowing a great deal about both parties I think that LifeWay probably has a good point. Rachel Held Evans is someone I agree with on a great many things, someone with whom I disagree with on many more things. She is openly liberal, openly postmodern and holds a great many aspects of the traditional church experience in contempt. It’s that contempt that bothers me most about her position. Because she is loving, tolerant and fair in her approach to other believers most of the time but bristles at the idea of women staying out of the pulpit.
Anyone who knows me for four and one-third minutes understands that I’m a libertarian. As a libertarian I believe that both LifeWay and Held Evans can do exactly as they please. Their business is their business. So why am I even bothering with a blog entry on the topic?
Because of Christian publishing and the attitude that my fellow believers have toward that business. I’ve become friends with a great many Christian writers over the years and most of them aspire to the golden status of Traditionally Published. For most writers getting published is the equivalent of God The Father landing on your head in the form of a dove and saying “this is my beloved child in whom I am well-pleased.” Getting published is a big deal to a writer. It’s a validation. It’s The Validation. (I sometimes suspect this is why so many authors are vehement in their protestations against self-publishing. In a way self-publishing is very much like starting your own country instead of getting elected to Congress.)
Over the years it’s become pretty clear to me that a lot of Christian writers think that they are owed a publishing contract by right of siblinghood in the family of God. More than once I’ve met someone who writes Christian books because “it’s easier to get published in the CBA.”
Christian publishing is a business. <——read and repeat three times.
I know that Jesus said all are welcome into the faith. But being welcome in the faith doesn't mean that the business arm of the church owes you any favour at all. And when you've spent the bulk of your waking hours challenging the business leaders you can't really honestly think that they'll go ahead and do business with you.
Whether or not a church should run a business is a deeper question for another day. But the plain fact is that Christian publishing isn't Christianity. It's a business designed to supply the products demanded by Christians. That's all.
Seeing that the Restless Reformed crowd has been calling her publisher for months to pressure them not to publish her book (yes, they made a concerted internet effort to do this), it isn’t surprising that Lifeway decided not to stock it. The Southern Baptists are strange bedfellows of the New Reformed crowd, conjoined by their “women are separate but equal” doctrine and patriarchal views. But, alas, I don’t feel sorry for RHE because wouldn’t some of our Christian author friends just LOVE this kind of promotion of their books?! It all makes me very cynical–oh, wait. I already was.
I had no idea.
That’s probably a good thing, since Reformed are on the top of my Aggravational Persons list, tied with millenials and people who post porn on GoodReads.
As far as this being good promotion–of course it is. I was quite cranky to see RHE’s “it’s because I said Vagina” take on it. I seriously doubt that, but it certainly created a lot of buzz. And now all these folks are going to buy the book as some sort of statement about their femininity.
I’m pasting what I wrote on this topic in Mir’s thread on FB:
As a keen student of male and female anatomy, I know, intellectually, that RHE likely owns a vagina, but that doesn’t mean I want to see or hear about hers. I’m not offended when she talks as she does, but I decided awhile back not to Follow her or subscribe to any of her social networking identities. She can be as provocative as she wants and I’ll just do my own thing in relative bliss.
My complaint here is pragmatic: Is it really so shocking to a) know one’s audience, and b) respect someone’s preference for a little decorum?
I rather like vaginas (or at least the one I am legally and morally licensed to enjoy), but I think there’s a line of consideration here that I don’t want to (heh) poo-poo. Yes, as a male, I have a penis, but if I spent my time talking about it, I wouldn’t be enlightened, I’d just be a dick. And to quote one of my favorite philosophers, “Jesus said, ‘Don’t be a dick!.”
Yeah, I agree. The thing that’s got me so upset about it is that she isn’t using it as a scientific term. There are at least 6 books I know of that sell through LifeWay in which the word appears. They’re books about married sex and/or Christian womanhood.
Her objectional usage was a snide comment wherein she referred to a chastity vow as an “oath to God and my vagina.” That strikes me–a Christian and a feminist–as a shade too blasphemous AND more than a shade too flippant.
I’m all for demystification of sexual terminology. I’m all for acknowledging humans as sexual beings. But most of the time with her stuff I feel like she is poking bears with sticks and then getting all “you meanie, meanie bear!!!” when it growls back at her.
(This would be some of the subset of “things I disagree with her about.”)
I just find it odd that Mark Driscoll can use all the hard-hitting language he wants, even discussing anal sex, and Lifeway will sell it because it’s Driscoll.
I guess all I’m saying–having just read your comment, Katherine–is that this probably has little to do with the word and more to do with the author.
Oh, it has EVERYTHING to do with the author. Everything. She’s framing it to be about “the word” because to frame it otherwise–as LifeWay’s salvo in their ongoing argument about Egal Vs. Comp–invites too much speculation into the philosophies of both parties. By making it all about “vagina” she has a salacious story with a buzzword that draws controversy and gets her book noticed.
I imagine a small part of her (or maybe a large part…and by the way, this is in no way a reference to her anatomy) simply enjoys the thrill of being “controversial” and causing a stink. (Again, not a reference to her anatomy.) Controversy sells books, we know that, but should Christians use controversy to manipulate people to buy books? I don’t think so. But then again, I don’t know her ultimate motives.
I personally find the use of the V word for shock value demeaning to my gender and in poor taste. A male Christian writer would not be allowed to use the P word in that context. I wouldn’t want my pastor to mention his P. I don’t have anything against them, I just don’t want to think specifically about his. It crosses healthy boundaries.
As for all these terms, egal and compo…what the heck, who has the time to come up with this stuff? Aren’t we supposed to be spreading the gospel and helping the lost become found?
I’m just now figuring out what evangelical means, but I still haven’t figured out if I am one, or if I even have a choice in the matter.
I’m a little sad that there’s a such term as “the V word” or “the P word.”
I don’t know that there is, I just made them up to serve my purpose because I can only stand hearing the word vagina vagina vagina so many times in one day. And, throwing the word around is a feminist ploy that really annoys me. Just because men worship their penis’ doesn’t mean women have to worship our sexual organs as well.
I use it not as a “ploy”. I don’t “throw it around.”
I use it because it is a noun describing something that is not shameful or dirty. I don’t use it as a punchline or a joke. But when the conversation is about body parts I’m no more going to say “the v word” or “hoo-hah” than I would say “my seeing thingies” instead of Eyes or “my thinkery box” instead of brain.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
than I would say “my seeing thingies” instead of Eyes or “my thinkery box” instead of brain
Oh my goodness, Katherine, that cracks me up. Seriously, I should remember those in case I’m ever in a conversation where people use babyish euphemisms.
I’m all for calling things what they’re actually called. Even in fiction. For the most part, I just find euphemisms either silly or insulting. Although, I do have a couple pet peeves about the word ‘vagina’. One is that a large number of people are so clueless about anatomy that they use it when they really mean ‘vulva’ (or even parts even farther away from the actual vagina). The other is that the word’s actual meaning in the original Latin means ‘sheath’. Which is so, so inherently sexist it’s ridiculous. They may as well have called it ‘that thing a penis goes into’. Also, a sword without a sheath is still an awesome and cool thing. What’s a sheath without a sword? Worthless. Men really shouldn’t have been allowed to name a woman’s body part.
While vagina does mean ‘sheath’; penis does not mean ‘sword’. So, in reality, we are left with a mixed metaphor, because penis means ‘tail’ in Latin.
Pencil, on the other hand comes from the same root and has the connotation of ‘little penis’. And Pen, of course, shares this root.
This is all apropos, really, since we know that “the pen is mightier than the sword”.
I should add, though, that I’m also not looking for a reason to bring it flippantly into conversations that aren’t about that to begin with.
I find the use of “vagina” as a humourous word even more annoying than slang terminology. That’s why I think things like RHE’s use of it in the book (“oath to God and…”) was just offensive.
It’s like my post above this one where I rant on porn. I don’t like porn in part because it turns female sexuality into an object. And when folks go on and on about “vagina” as a punchline it does the exact same thing. It makes the body part an object separate from the human.
And I don’t see people making jokes about eyes or elbows.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Katherine, all the times you’ve used it, I’ve found it humorous. And yes, in a clinical setting or description, just use the word, no need to blush.
It’s the intent behind its usage that I often don’t like from feminists…the heart of the person speaking that makes me recoil a bit, because the person is often lashing out in anger, but doing it in a veiled way. I prefer plain speech. “I’m pissed off at men and the world because of this, this, and this…”
If a male Christian blogger referred to an “oath to God and my penis”, I would change the channel, so to speak, and tell the guy to grow the heck up. It’s crass and unnecessary.
(And even so, when it’s used humorously, it’s just one of those words that annoys me…the vowels and consonants themselves…I have a daily threshold…)
But that’s what makes me sad. I’ve never, ever heard someone say “I can only stand hearing the word finger finger finger so many times in one day.”
The amount of shame tied to sex organs in our culture is ridiculous.
Dolphin, on the one hand I agree with you, as I think is clear. On the other hand, if I had to refer to my vagina in as many contexts during the day as I have to refer to my finger, I think I’d be having some problems. Of course, I have arthritis.
I’m not sure I understand. Is the objection to fiction that contains contexts in which words like “vagina” might show up, or is the objection to using the word “vagina” instead of some euphemism or babyism?
None of the above. The author is trying to characterize the controversy as an objection to the word being used in a book on religion.
That isn’t the case in this case. The book in question is a memoir detailing the author’s year of living her life according to some Halachal guidelines. I say “some” because while she is making a lot of hay about how she slept in a tent in the front yard during menses I understand that she didn’t keep Kosher.
Christian FICTION does have vocabulary guidelines, most famously censoring the word “panties” once upon a time. But that is at the publishing House’s discretion. It has also changed over time.
The vocab restrictions are a hot button among Christian authors. I’ve seen conversations about the use of the word “damn” go on for MONTHS. Literally.
What happened here was that a distributor had philosophical and doctrinal issues with an author. But the author–who is well aware of the vocab hot button–made a lot of noise about “hey, you guys!! They want me to take “vagina” out of the book.
It’s both publicity AND misdirection.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
This kind of vagueness and misdirection is why I’m not sure I like her. I remember her from the “Tired of the culture war!” post she did, and I browsed her blog some when you wrote this post.
Like, I can get not wanting to waste energy defending certain hot-button issues in the secular square. I can agree with it on the basis of energy misspent. But reading her I am uneasy because she seems to ride the line of “I don’t agree because of misspent energy” and “I don’t agree because I am on the same side of the issue the secular people are on.” If someone locked her in a room and wouldn’t let her out till she gave clear positions on certain beliefs, I’m worried what would come out.
It’s not good to do this kind of misdirection, ambiguity, or slight of hand.
Sounds like a good reality check to me. I don’t really know much about all of this controversy, though. I don’t read nonfiction (almost ever), and I don’t read a lot of Christian fiction. Sometimes, but a lot of times it just seems like they feel like they should get a pass on writing a solid story because they’re trying to get a Christian message across. And so many of them come off as overly preachy, which annoys me in any novel, even when they’re preaching something I agree with.
Also, I didn’t even know you were a Christian. I don’t really know much about libertarianism. I’d be interested in reading if you felt like blogging more about that, especially how (or if) it relates to your writing/producing at all.
Oh wait, arg! Just delete that last post of mine. For a second I thought I was on a different blog. *facepalm* Oh, why won’t they let me delete a comment on here?