[UPDATE: The young woman who wrote the letter below has responded to my answer of it. You can read that response here.]
This week I received a letter that read:
Hi John!
First of all, I’ve been an avid follower of your work for the past few months, so I’m very excited to write my first letter to you. Compared to all the serious issues that you cover, this one may seem quite trivial. Nevertheless, it’s been nagging me for some time because I can’t fully reconcile it with my beliefs.
Like many other progressive Christians, I have difficulty accepting the story of the Virgin Birth. However, while most focus on its scientific impossibility, I’m preoccupied with its psychological ramifications.
First of all, I acknowledge that I may be projecting my own anxieties – I’m a 23 year old woman and have a profound fear of pregnancy and childbirth. Nevertheless, it seems to me that making a woman have a child is invasive, even abusive. I can’t seem to view pregnancy as anything but degrading, and Mary had to suffer the further indignity of appearing to have lost her virginity before marriage.
I realize that I can’t expect a woman of a different time and culture to share my mentality. I also know that having a child was a sign of God’s favor, and that women didn’t have a choice about having children anyway. Still, why couldn’t God have chosen Mary to be the mother of Jesus once she was married and had children? If Mary felt the shame and self-loathing that I imagine I would have felt in her position, would God have chosen her?
I know that you receive many letters on more pressing concerns, so I understand if this is not a priority. However, I have never heard anyone address this topic. Please share any insights you have with me – it would mean a lot.
Dear young woman who wrote me this:
I imagine you won’t be surprised to hear me say that what first jumps out at me are your difficult feelings about pregnancy. I understand you being afraid (if not “profoundly” afraid) of being pregnant; I get afraid if I have a gas pang. What I’m decidedly uncomfortable with, though, are your words, “I can’t view pregnancy as anything but degrading.”
Degrading is a tough, tough word; I’m going to assume you meant it. So the pertinent question, to me, is, why would you feel that way about pregnancy? What is it about seeing a pregnant woman contentedly holding the hand of her husband that makes you think that woman is in a state of degradation? To such a scene most people’s response is, “Ah, isn’t that sweet? Life is such a precious miracle.”
You, however, think, “Look at that woman’s degradation.”
Surely you understand how deeply problematic—if not something pretty close to alarming—is that response.
I’m not very comfortable saying this, but I can’t help but feel that the real reason you wrote me this letter—the true concern that you have with this matter—has nothing to do with the theological implications of the virgin birth of Jesus. My guess is that what you’re really seeking is help understanding the core cause of your associating pregnancy with degradation. I’m guessing that you’re more aware than you’d care to be of how troublesome is that response, of how surely it points to a problem within you that you desire to have solved.
My guess is that you’ve transferred the feelings of “shame and loathing” that pregnancy evokes in you onto the most famous pregnancy of all: one that didn’t involve sex—or any of the “degradations” that society, most religious traditions, and certainly traditional Christianity so readily—so eagerly—associate with sex.
You don’t think that, in being chosen by God to give birth to the savior of the world, Mary was blessed by God. You think Mary was abused by God. And you think that despite what I’m sure you’ve read, which is the famous Magnificat, or Song of Mary, found at Luke 1:46-55:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
That doesn’t much sound like a woman struggling with “shame and self-loathing,” right? I mean … right? She sounds elated about what’s happened to her. She’s singing about it.
I wouldn’t start singing if I found a sack of gold. I might hum a little. I might whistle a happy tune as I dragged the thing back to my car. But that’s about it.
Anyway, please forgive what I know can only come off here as my intrusive presumptuousness. You didn’t ask for my advice on your relationship to pregnancy, so it’s obnoxious of me to offer it anyway. I’ve only done so in hopes of encouraging you to consider the possibility that it might be a good idea for you to speak with someone about your revulsion to pregnancy, which I think most people would agree is unnatural, if not manifestly unhealthy.
And do let me hasten to be extremely clear about the fact that I am not, in any way at all, suggesting that you, or any woman, should want to be pregnant. That’s hardly something I would say. What I am suggesting is that, if you really do find pregnancy as repulsive and degrading as you say you do, then you should think about talking to someone about that—preferably a trained mental health professional.
I’m also really not saying that you’re crazy, or anything near it. We’re all insane about sex, and just about all things related to it. We should all see a shrink about how tweaked we are about sex. But the one thing relative to sex that pretty much everyone agrees upon is that a pregnant woman is a wonderful, life-affirming, ultra-positive sight. People love pregnant women so much they’re forever touching them. But you have pretty much the exact opposite response. And that, I believe, is a phenomenon worthy of your serious attention.
All right; enough about that.
And now this post is as long as any blog post should be. So tomorrow—well, let me say next time, because already tomorrow is looking pretty darn dense—I’ll talk a bit about why I feel that God, in manifesting himself on earth as Jesus, opted to go with the whole (genius!) Virgin Birth thing.
God bless you, sister. Sorry again if I’ve hurled at you anything like a curve ball. Trust me: I’m on your team. That’s why I’m as honest with you as I feel that your precious trust in me morally obliges me to be.
(For what it’s worth, here’s a post I once wrote about why my wife and I don’t have children. And related to this whole matter is a post I wrote a few years back, Why Must Mary Die a Virgin?)
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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Me too. You give me hope.
I personally don’t see anything particularly wrong with pregnancy – however I have heard some people call the fetus a parasite, and to be honest that seems quite true. Unless you’ve chosen to have a baby, that’s what it would be. Plus, yes Mary was happy she’d get to have God’s child – but where was the choice?I would find it supremely degrading to be told “Oh, btw, you’re having my kid,”. And of course, why didn’t God wait? Was ii so hard for him to wait a few weeks until Mary was married? In a culture like that, there was a very real chance she could have been killed , and at the least ostrasized.
thankk you, francie; i appreciate that
Just want to say I feel so very blessed to have “stumbled” across your site… Thanks for all you do and write about!
Thanks, Calvin. That’s worth a lot, coming from you.
John, for what it’s worth, I thought your response was spot-on!
I liked John’s response. Here’s another take from a different angle: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithforward/2011/12/jesus-mom-was-a-punk/
Rock on.
Mary’s song reflects the enhanced sense of power so many women get from pregnancy. I think some theological sermons have emphasized her sacrifice too much and that increase of power too little. Maybe there’s a theological aspect to your questioner’s fear. I hope she took seriously your recommendation of talking to someone about it.
Did Jesus ever say he was born of a virgin… or was this added later?
Thank you for your response to someone who is in pain and questioning her femininity. I agree with you on what you quoted the Virgin Mary as saying and believe the gift of new life is far greater than the discomfort that accompanies it (this is, of course, my opinion as a man and also believe in freedom of choice).
Just got back from evening out. THANKS, you guys!
F*** them!
In the letter, the woman states (my emphasis addeded via [] & CAPS): “MAKING a woman have a child [against her will] is invasive, even abusive. I can’t seem to view [that kind of] pregnancy as anything but degrading…”
As a pastor, I have come across that view many times, typically by those in feminist circles. The real question is: “Is Mary and active participant in the incarnation of God, or is she just a passive participant?”
That itself is a good question. While the idea that pregnancy in general is degrading is troubling (and of course the writer clarified that she did not intend such a meaning), this particular situation definitely raises the question of whether Mary *really* had a choice. I personally think she did, even though she was chosen, but it makes for interesting discussion.
It does. If God “asked” us to do something, could you say no?
Of course. We do it all the time.
I don’t thing the two compare.
I spoke too soon. We do say no all the time, you’re right.
Awww, John, just tell ‘em to stick it where…awwww, never mind.
I feel that you responded to the writer’s query with empathy and concern. I liked how you simply restated back what she had said, opening the window to shine a light on an underlying issue or fear. Reading her response to yours was beautiful… it often takes an independent observer to point out underlying issues to be explored… something you did with careful, delicate, love.
You know, you never even said that the experience of pregnancy might not be degrading in certain situations, just that if one projects thoughts of degradations on *all* pregnancies there’s a problem. Which there is, from a purely human standpoint- if it was natural to think of pregnancy as degrading there would be a whole lot less humans out there.
One bit I would add to the discussion is that God did not impregnate Mary against her will. In Luke’s account, after the Angel Gabreil speaks to Mary, she says what to me is just a beautiful example of surrender: “Let it be done to me according to your word.” God didn’t intrude against Mary’s free will any more than he would intrude on ours (that is, not at all).
Gotcha. Thank you. (And thanks for all your great comments on my blog. You’re terrific that way.)
i said this on yr blog, but not so much what *I* thought you said, as to what *they* thought you said.
No worries, Cat. You were hardly the only one to respond to what you thought I said, rather than what I actually said. At least you were sane about it. (And, honestly, I knew I’d get bombed for writing on the matter. It’s just … serious trigger territory.)
John, you were awesome. You just shined a big spotlight on a lot more people’s crap than you realized.
Hey, sorry! misspoke, but not taking any exception to any opinions you didn’t have anyway:)
“In the sexuality sense, not like an amoeba.” Love it. LOVE.
It might also be that the young lady may just be asexual as well (in the sexuality sense, not like an amoeba).
FWIW I loved your response and clearly you were very helpful to the young woman who asked the question.
it’s easier to target the straw man that isn’t there–oddly enough–
I’ve blocked (and deleted some comments of) Tina Ison. Sorry I didn’t do it sooner.
Tina, John had helped hundreds of women get out of abusive relationships. You are terribly ignorant and havent a clue about what he’s done. I find it ironic you’d say this after this young woman was so grateful to him – you’re obviously committed to your ego in this conversation which is your problem.
As for unhealthy dialogue, look in the mirror it’s comments like this one that are the root of that. Now you are officially dismissed, you’ve obviously got some serious emotional stuff going on based on how you’ve reframed this dialogue. When we have unresolved issues, we typically turn everyone around us into those people or those events and recreate the anger we have. Maybe that’s what’s going on with you, who knows, but your comments aren’t even rooted in reality so I’m not going to spend anymore of my reality dealing with you. Good luck.
I have to add my 2 cents. While John has satisfactorily helped the person who wrote the letter, and may I say I think his instincts were spot on as far as she was concerned, if it was just about her, it wouldn’t rate a blog post. The bigger questions are fair game for everybody. And they’re very emotionally loaded. So can we all just take a deep breath?
John’s personal reaction to pregnancy – wow, sweet, precious new life – as wonderful as it is, is not by any means the only possible or even normal reaction. And I think one point nobody’s mentioned is that, like homosexuality, a lot of our cultural response to pregnancy has been informed for centuries by the Christian church’s denigration of anything remotely physical, sexual or feminine.
One of the reasons I originally left the Christian church is that I could not get my mind wrapped around “female = bad,” “physical world/body = bad,” “sex= bad” and “only by renouncing the things of the world can we be good, holy people. ” Those viewpoints may or may not represent the majority Christian viewpoint in the present time, but it’s surely the loudest and the longest-running. So John’s instinct – that this letter-writer was hurting – was sound; but her perception of pregnancy as degrading is not peculiar to personal pathology. It’s a product of cultural pathology.
besides, in a purely physical sense, pregnancy IS degrading…..as in, while pregnant, body functions you took for granted – like running, climbing, balancing, lifting or bending over – are severely limited if not completely unavailable. And you run the very real risk of their being permanently disabled. Since my last round of pregancy, I’m looking at potentially never being able to lift, climb or run again, and balance and bending over are pretty problematic too.
but I would do it again if I could. It’s definitely worth the cost.
No one TOLD this woman anything remotely close to this. She self-identified and he responded! Do you understand he difference? And how manipulative and hostile it is to insert such meaning into someone’s mouth? I know you don’t so I just need to stop but I’m so freaked out by the narratives you’ve all literally inserted into the conversation we were allowed into. I hope for this young woman’s sake John doesn’t publish anything else she’s said.
I’m sorry that your last pregnancy physically damaged you so much. I hope that your body surprises you and recovers.
it’s surgically correctable. I’m saving my pennies.
Good. I’m glad.
What you’re saying makes a lot of sense. I hadn’t thought of it the way you and others put it, but then, I’d never heard anyone describe pregnancy using the term “degrading” before, either. But the difference between you and people like Tina and Jamie is that you expressed your disagreement patiently and respectfully, and gave credence to John’s viewpoint. It really is a touchy subject, but I’m glad a lot of us can discuss it civilly.
I’m really getting tired of saying this, but one more time: I didn’t say one single solitary word about my personal reaction to pregnancy. Not. One.
Man, sometimes it’s pain to write so carefully and be read so sloppily. (Although I get why that happens, of course.)
John, if I go back up and parse this piece (for about the 47th time this week), no, you are technically not endorsing “most people’s response,” even if it’s become obvious in this post that “most people’s response” might not be what you said it was. Or that “pretty much everyone” does not, in fact, agree that “a pregnant woman is a wonderful, life-affirming, ultra-positive sight.” I think we all know by now you are not most people, anyway. (note: I have not stated MY personal opinion on the sight of a pregnant woman, either).
But there’s a difference between careful, specific, explicit reading – which I generally do, as do most of your regular readers – and implicit reading, which is easy to do sloppily, and is what “most people” do, especially when they are emotionally involved with an issue. I confess to writing my responses more to the rest of your readers than to you, after following this argument for however long it’s been going on now.
I think the issue with doing so Cat is how it might be impacting the woman who wrote the letter. That’s what bothers me so much about responses that don’t reflect the actual dialogue, it’s human nature to insert ourselves (and our own issues) into things we read. It’s when we take it a step further and actually change the meani or set up straw men and then challenge people like John to defend those straw men that get pretty frustrating to watch. If only because people who write carefully and choose to bring us into the dialogue with those – like this woman- who trust what they see behind that decision to write thoughtfully and carefully – don’t trust people easily. So when any of us overreact to her use of a specific word and enter the dialogue based on what that word means to us instead of her, it often causes someone like this to retreat.
Granted she allowed to make this public and of course, dialogue spins off of specific posts and becomes its own topic. That’s a cool part of the experience. But this got pretty nasty and pretty hostile – toward this young woman and John- very quickly. And neither of them are responsible for that or for what anyone chose to read or interpret that was other than what ether of them actually said.
I took the time to consider the original writer, as well, before I posted any of my responses on this thread. Sometimes it helps ME to know that I’m not as weird as I think I am. But I flubbed when I allowed myself to fall into my own scare story, NOT helpful. Obviously I have my hot-buttons too. But not liking the hostile so much, myself, either.
So, original writer, now you can see that there are PLENTY of people with very, very strong feelings on this subject…in every imaginable direction.
and furthermore, it was in fact mentioned more than once, and in John’s original post, that anything sexuality-related was traditionally degraded by the Church, so my boo-boo there too.
It would seem as though the straw men some set up and demand you acknowledge or defend aren’t going away in their minds anytime soon, I think some stopped responsing to what you actually said a long time ago. But in the spirit of this thread I think you should comment as “Johnny Door- romance novelist”. If people are going to make shit up and say you said it, why not go all the way?
Having now made my very first posting on this web site beneath this story, I’ve now learned a valuable lesson: Never check the box which subscribes me to the post. [grin]
As a testament to the popularity of this site, my inbox is absolutely FILLED with messages notifying me of all the comment postings, here. Oh, I’m not complaining. Again, it’s a cogent commentary on just how popular and taken-seriously is this web site.
My hat’s off to John for having built both it, and its following.
Wow.
_______________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
Yes, I learned the same lesson. So now when I want updates, I just come back to the site.
Welcome aboard, Gregg!
yep, I just realized this, too.
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