Emerging Women

By Jessica Glaser

Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl
By Susan Campbell
Beacon Press, 2009

I first spotted the book ‘Dating Jesus’ on a friend’s list of books she was currently reading on her blog. I had a chuckle, as about a half a year ago I had started countering growing questions of “So when will you be getting married?” with answers of “When Jesus comes back. I’ll be a bride of Christ.” With that in my head, I asked if I could borrow it when she was finished, and she generously provided.

The book doesn’t give tips on dating your favorite resurrected deity, but instead covers most of what Campbell can remember from her childhood up until, roughly, her graduation from high school. Her life was defined by her participation in the fundamentalist church of Christ in Missouri, into which her family as inducted by her new stepfather. She begins by discussing her immersion baptism at the age of 13 (which had to be done over, in her mind, because there was an air bubble that ruined the whole process the first time), then goes back earlier to her vague memories of being in a Christmas pageant as a little girl in a different church, in stark contrast to the church of Christ, which had no pageants or even a piano in the sanctuary due to some scriptural sticking point.

Between discussions of baseball, the Bible, sexism in the church, and odd expressions of fundamentalist suppression, one gets the impression that this would have been a fairly grim childhood had it not been for Campbell’s own joie de vivre, spunk, and intelligence. She rewrites the stories of women in the Bible when she is dissatisfied with their scriptural treatment (an early fanfiction writer! A woman after my own heart!), but this early gift of writing and hermeneutics is quashed by her stepfather when he finds out, as she should not change one “jot or tittle” of the original scripture. She knows her Bible backward and forward, knows Jesus inside and out, and chafes at the way her church will not let her use her knowledge to teach Sunday school because a girl cannot teach boys past a certain age, or at the way she is punished for asking too many questions. She runs into the same problems that St Paul and Martin Luther did before her: she cannot follow all the rules all the time, even though she really wants to and is really trying. Yet she is not saved by grace in a church where every law must be followed to the letter, and where her physical embodiment (and all the disadvantages conferred thereof) trumps the power of her mind every time.

Sprinkled throughout the narrative are her stories of trying to become equal in the realm of sports in the days prior to and just after Title IX, rounding out the development of her mindset in which fair play is important and embodiment is not something to be ashamed of. Also included is her growing awareness of the world of boys and dating, but her by and large rejection of both due to her fears regarding her salvation and the restrictions of her church and parents (hence the “dating Jesus”). A big chunk of the book isn’t personal at all, but an exploration of the history of feminist theology and the women’s movement in the United States. She also shows the intertangled roots of the evangelical movement, the temperance movement, and the first wave feminist movement before they split off. The way she connects the desire for social justice and a better society with the desire for equality between men and women outside and inside the church is an important and key missing piece, I feel, that has been lost in discussions of women’s role in modern Christianity. My mother is fond of saying if it wasn’t for women, there wouldn’t BE a Christian church. Campbell is arguing something similar in her efforts to remind us reclaim our own history.

My primary qualms with this book don’t have to do with the subject matter at all, but the way we see her go from high school student filled with self-protective notions about purity and love to a fully grown, unchurched adult with liberal leanings. There is no discussion of the conversion process, or the first time she is able to break down her barriers about what she thinks love should be, or the first time she owns herself as a woman shedding an oppressive past. It’s a little disjointed. Perhaps she isn’t comfortable talking about it, and that’s understandable. A little more of a hint might have been useful, though.

At the end, she talks about how she is “haunted” by her fundamentalist past, and how she and her brother feel that fundamentalism “broke off” inside of them; they were pierced by this brutal arrow, and have never been able to fully heal from that experience. It reminds me of why I am troubled by fundamentalism, with its dedication to a set of beliefs with no discernment regarding them at the cost of Christ’s message and actual living people.

In spite of some gaps in the narrative, I heartily recommend this book to people looking for humor, knowledge of Christian hits and misses, American history, and a love note to the fearless little kid that used to live inside all of us.

Jessica Glaser is a fierce mainline/emergent feminist affiliated with University Park United Methodist Church and House For All Sinners and Saints in Denver. Her writings can be found at http://aredhel72.blogspot.com/.

Tags: Dating Jesus, Jessica Glaser, Susan Campbell