Author Archives: Martha

Church Mom vs Pastor Martha

Leave a reply

Have I mentioned that God works in mysterious ways – and with a weird sense of humor?

 Have I mentioned that I am a slow learner?

 I have these three alter egos ­– Dr. Myre, Pastor Martha and ChurchMom.  Dr. Myre is obvious.  I love school.  I spent 12 years at Perkins (I used to say that I was the only student with tenure).  I actually enjoyed writing my dissertation!  I adore teaching and I think I am pretty good at it. But Dr. Myre has never been my primary persona.  My primary persona has been Pastor Martha.

My Pastor Martha alter ego is obvious, too; I have, after all, been working for 20+ years at becoming a pastor.  I love being a pastor; I have always insisted that my congregations call me “Pastor Martha” instead of “Dr. Myre.” Why? Because I wanted to embrace my pastoral identity, not my academic identity. I wanted people to see me as a pastor among them, not an expert over them.  I know that some folks who have gone to the trouble of earning a doctoral degree feel that they need and deserve the recognition and respect that comes with the title. But I was never all that impressed with myself as a scholar. I know my strengths, certainly. Don’t get me wrong – I know that I am really smart and I have a gift for learning and teaching (that’s not arrogance, it’s just the way things are. Being smart is a genetic accident like my blue eyes and brown hair.  I can’t really be “proud” of my smarts because I wasn’t responsible for them).  But I also know that part of being really smart and having a gift for learning is that one spends a lot of time confused and struggling to understand concepts that are just beyond one’s reach. That’s how you move forward.  But it also gives a person a healthy sense of her own weaknesses and the places where she needs to grow.  And fundamentally the reason for doing the PhD was always so that I would be a better pastor and would be able to be a resource to the church.  Dr. Myre was always the servant of Pastor Martha.

 What may not be obvious is ChurchMom.  Where did ChurchMom come from and who is she?  She started as a password (which hopefully I have now changed.) It was the password I would use on those accounts that needed a password but whose security I wasn’t terribly concerned about.  I mean, who is going to hack my Caring Bridge account? ChurchMom grew in strength when I developed an Etsy shop to sell my prayer beads.  The shop needed a name and the name seemed to be ChurchMomShop.  As I have been trying to decide on a “name” for my extension ministry, I have tried to think up names that are clever, witty, relevant, etc. But I keep coming back to ChurchMom.  So I am going to go with it.  ChurchMom has declared herself and I am beginning to pay attention. 

 I am spending a large part of my sabbatical time getting in touch with ChurchMom. So what is the difference between ChurchMom and Pastor Martha?

 Let me tell you a story: At my first full time church I had a very small youth group – 2 teenage boys.  I was the one who did the youth group because one of the young men had grown up in church and had asked the question in Sunday School one day, “Why believe in God?”  The teacher had ignored (!!!) the question. I couldn’t. So . . . we spent youth group time going to the park, riding skateboards (them, not me!), listening to rap music, going to see SpongeBob Squarepants movies.  They wore what they wanted to church, they used whatever language they wanted, and I worked hard at being open and nonjudgmental. I didn’t do “lessons” with them, but I talked about God because, well, that’s just what I do.  I would answer questions honestly – if I knew the answer – if I didn’t I would say so.  The other young man had never been a part of a church, so this was his first and only contact with church.  I never knew if I was making a difference or not, but I turned it over to the Holy Spirit and just went with it. Several years later when those boys had graduated from high school, they came to see me at the church I was serving.  When we went to lunch afterward, the young man who had never joined the church got a phone call.  He took the call, but told the caller he couldn’t speak with him because he was “at church.”  I was humbled and blessed to realize that for him, being with me was  being “at church.”  That’s when I realized that it wasn’t so much what I did, as who I was.  That is a frightening thought; it means I have to make sure I am open to God working on me to be who God wants me to be before I can do what God wants me to do. 

 At another church, the people told me, “ you helped us grow up.”  I want to do that.  I want to nurture, support, listen, challenge, mentor, etc. I want to be with those who are hurting and need to be healed.  But I don’t want to have people depend on me.  I want to point them to God. I like doing things for people, so I will keep helping, but Pastor Martha took on too much.  ChurchMom is more like a mom mom -  I want to show people there is a way to be a Christian, to be a Christ-follower in a way that may be different from what they are used to. I want to be “the church in the world” instead of the church in a building.

We’ll see.

Question: How do Atheists/agnostics understand suffering and evil?

1 Reply

(Job and his friends: a picture of undeserved suffering and questioning friends) evil suffering

A reason given by atheists and agnostics who reject God is that religious people can’t answer the question,  “Why is there so much suffering, pain, and evil in the world if God exists?”

I think that is a fair question. But here is my own question (actually a series of questions):

How do  atheists/agnostics explain or deal with suffering? Or do they even try?

Do atheists/agnostics even talk in terms of evil?  Is that a concept that makes sense?

Here is the reason I ask: As far as I can tell from the atheists I have read, evolution is the major force at work in “creating” the world. While I realize that evolutionary theory is now much more complex than the “survival of the fittest” explanation, that explanation still lies at the heart of what drives the evolutionary process.  So things like Tsunamis wiping out large numbers of people could simply be attributed to the fact that the people were foolish enough to live along a coastline.  In this case the world is telling us that coastlines are dangerous places to live and that those who choose safer places to live are more likely to survive.  If one group of people commits genocide against another group of people, that is simply an evolutionary step in getting rid of the less powerful people and making more room for the successful.  So would it be appropriate to call genocide evil?  Most atheists I know would object to genocide on moral grounds, but I don’t really understand those moral grounds.  So I am asking.  I really hope I get some thoughtful answers, because I really do want to understand.