{"product_id":"dating-jesus-isbn-9780807010723","title":"Dating Jesus","description":"By the age of twelve, Susan Campbell had been flirting with Jesus for some time, and in her mind, Jesus had been flirting back. Why wouldn't he? She went to his house three times a week, listened to his stories, loudly and lustily sang songs to him. She even professed her love for him through being baptized.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this lovingly told tale, Susan Campbell takes us into the world of Christian fundamentalism—a world where details really, really matter. And she shows us what happened when she finally came to admit that in her faith, women would never be allowed a seat near the throne.\u003ci\u003eOne\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Devil’s in an Air Bubble \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTwo\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I Don’t Want to Preach, But . . . \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThree\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Knocking Doors for Jesus \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eFour\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A Good Christian Woman \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eFive\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Theology of Softball \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eSix\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A Woman’s Role \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eSeven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A Scary God \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eEight\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Reluctant Female\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eNine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Still, Small Voice \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTen\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Water Jugs \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eEleven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jesus Haunts Me, This I Know \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments 207\u003cbr\u003e About My Sources 208Simultaneously wisecracking and scholarly, both heartfelt and hilarious . . . I loved this book! —Wally Lamb, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Hour I First Believed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This fond memoir of growing up a rebellious tomboy in a fundamentalist church that expects women to be pious, subservient and, above all, quiet tells what it feels like to have Jesus as your boyfriend-and what happens when you want to break up with him.\"—\u003ci\u003eMs.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] heartfelt memoir . . . [Campbell's] writing is striking for the compassion with which she views her younger self, a fledgling believer confined in a cage of manmade rules.\"—Jane Ciabattari, \u003ci\u003eMore\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rarely has a genuine feminist emerged from the modern evangelical movement. An exception is Susan Campbell.\"—Hanna Rosin, \u003ci\u003eMother Jones\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A mesmerizing, funny, impressionistic memoir of a spiritual and thoughtful person, one who has spent her life wrestling with religion, the meaning of faith and her feelings for the Divine.\"—\u003ci\u003eHouston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Campbell has both a sense of humor and a knack for religious research . . . [and gives] readers a hook to grab on to as they ponder life's big questions alongside a tomboy theologian.\"—Harry Levins, \u003ci\u003eSt. Louis Post-Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A moving account of closely cinched fundamentalist girlhood . . . Fundamentalism 'broke off in us,' like a sword, seems a poignant metaphor for the injuries suffered. Fortunately for the rest of us, [Campbell's] chosen salve for those wounds is the writing of astute and vivid prose.\"—Valerie Weaver-Zercher, \u003ci\u003eThe Christian Century\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eSusan Campbell's\u003c\/b\u003e writing has been recognized by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors; National Women's Political Caucus; the Sunday Magazine Editors Association, and the Connecticut chapter of Society of Professional Journalists. She was also a member of the Courant's 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning team for breaking news. She is co-author of a travel book, \u003ci\u003eConnecticut Curiosities\u003c\/i\u003e and she lives in Connecticut with her husband.\u003cb\u003eChapter One: \u003c\/b\u003eThe Devil Is in an Air Bubble\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe devil is in an air bubble floating beneath my baptismal robe.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e This is troublesome, because I am trying to do the right\u003cbr\u003e thing—and, incidentally, avoid hellfire. I have walked to the front\u003cbr\u003e of my fundamentalist Christian church this Sunday morning to\u003cbr\u003e profess my love for Jesus and be buried with him in the baptismal\u003cbr\u003e grave. I will rise and walk anew, a new Christian, a good girl—\u003cbr\u003e not sinless, but perfect nevertheless.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But this damn bubble is getting in the way. It is Satan, come\u003cbr\u003e to thwart me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I am a fundamentalist. I know that in order to spend eternity\u003cbr\u003e in heaven with Jesus, I must be immersed completely\u003cbr\u003e in the water, be it in a baptismal font, like this overly large\u003cbr\u003e bathtub-type model at the front of my church, or in the swimming\u003cbr\u003e pool at Green Valley Bible Camp, where I go every summer,\u003cbr\u003e or in a river, or anywhere where the water will cover me completely.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I must be buried, figuratively speaking, because that is\u003cbr\u003e how Jesus did it with his cousin, John the Baptizer, in the river\u003cbr\u003e Jordan.1 It is how I want to do it now. I came to the earth sinless—\u003cbr\u003e not like Catholic babies, who, I’d been told, drag Adam’s original\u003cbr\u003e sin around like a tail. Not me. Had I died at birth, I would have\u003cbr\u003e shot back to God in heaven like a rocket. But I did not die, and the\u003cbr\u003e time I’ve been on earth since my birth I’ve spent accumulating\u003cbr\u003e black blots on my soul, like cigarette burns in a gauze curtain.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And here Satan has floated up in a bubble beneath the thick\u003cbr\u003e white robe, and so I am not, technically speaking, completely immersed.\u003cbr\u003e My soul is encased in my body and my body is encased in\u003cbr\u003e this gown, and a small portion of it has swollen to break the water’s\u003cbr\u003e surface, like a tiny pregnancy, or the beginning of a thought.\u003cbr\u003e My head is under. One hand is clenching my nose shut and the\u003cbr\u003e other is crossed over my chest, half the posture of a corpse in a casket.\u003cbr\u003e But if this dress doesn’t sink with the rest of me, the whole\u003cbr\u003e ceremony will be useless.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I am a fundamentalist. We worry about such things.\u003cbr\u003e A ceremonial joining-together only makes sense. I am thirteen\u003cbr\u003e when I decide to make it official. I’d been flirting with Jesus since\u003cbr\u003e age eight or so, the way a little girl will stand innocently next to\u003cbr\u003e her cutest uncle, will preen and dance for attention with only a\u003cbr\u003e dim idea of the greater weight of her actions. I meant no harm. I\u003cbr\u003e just loved Jesus. He made me feel happy.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In my mind, Jesus had been flirting back, and why wouldn’t\u003cbr\u003e he? Our families were close. I went to his house three times a week,\u003cbr\u003e sat in his living room, listened to his stories, loudly sang songs to\u003cbr\u003e him. Our relationship was inevitable, and it seemed the simplest\u003cbr\u003e thing imaginable to declare my love.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And so on this bright and terrible Sunday morning I nervously slide out of my pew to walk up the aisle during the invitation\u003cbr\u003e song, the tune we sing after the preacher gives his sermon. The invitation\u003cbr\u003e song is a time of relief for those who think the preacher\u003cbr\u003e has gone on too long, and a time of trepidation for the sinners\u003cbr\u003e who are paying attention. Although the song varies depending\u003cbr\u003e on who’s leading the singing, all the invitation songs share a tone\u003cbr\u003e of exhortation firmly grounded in fear, meant to shake a few of\u003cbr\u003e the ungodly loose from the trees. And I am a sinner. I know that\u003cbr\u003e as assuredly as I know Jesus loves me. I am trying to live my life\u003cbr\u003e to meet the impossible ideal of perfection set for me exactly 1,972\u003cbr\u003e years earlier by my boyfriend. The Bible said Don’t lie, but I lie\u003cbr\u003e several times a day. The Bible said Don’t steal, but I copied from\u003cbr\u003e a friend one morning in social studies because I hadn’t taken the\u003cbr\u003e time to do my own homework. The Bible said not to lust, and\u003cbr\u003e while I am not clear what that means exactly, I harbor a deep and\u003cbr\u003e abiding crush on a series of pop culture icons from Bobby Sherman\u003cbr\u003e on—save for Donny Osmond, because he is too Mormon and\u003cbr\u003e I don’t think I could convert him. But Donny is the only one from\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTiger Beat \u003c\/i\u003emagazine for whom I have no tingling feelings. I know,\u003cbr\u003e even though my church would frown on it because none of these\u003cbr\u003e boy-men are members, that if any of them save Donny drove up\u003cbr\u003e in a jacked-up Camaro and honked the horn, I would hop into the\u003cbr\u003e front seat without a look back.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Oh I sinned, all right.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e As I begin to walk to the front pew of the sanctuary at Fourth\u003cbr\u003e and Forest church of Christ, I can hear the giggles and gasps from\u003cbr\u003e my girlfriends left behind. Most of them have already taken the\u003cbr\u003e walk to the front to declare their love for Jesus, but I have dragged\u003cbr\u003e my feet. I know I need to be baptized—it would sure beat spending\u003cbr\u003e eternity in hellfire—but it seems such an awesome step. I am\u003cbr\u003e walking toward the highest church office I can reach as a female—\u003cbr\u003e that of a baptized believer—and for that brief moment, all\u003cbr\u003e eyes are on me. I will be a Christian. I will teach Sunday school\u003cbr\u003e and participate in the odd rite of church dinners, where the mark\u003cbr\u003e of distinction is given to any woman who can assemble an ordinary-\u003cbr\u003e looking cake out of ingredients you wouldn’t expect, like\u003cbr\u003e beer. Or potato chips. I will grow up and marry a deacon, the\u003cbr\u003e worker bees of our church, who will one day grow old—like,\u003cbr\u003e forty or so—and become an elder. I will raise up my children in\u003cbr\u003e the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart\u003cbr\u003e from me.2 I will wear red lipstick and aprons and gather my\u003cbr\u003e grandchildren to my ample lap (all grandmas being fat). And finally,\u003cbr\u003e I will recline in my rose-scented deathbed with a brave,\u003cbr\u003e faint smile as my family gathers around me, and then I will rise\u003cbr\u003e in spirit to my home in glory, leaving behind a blessed bunch\u003cbr\u003e who look and sound and smell like me and who point to my faith\u003cbr\u003e as their ideal. They will, of course, all be Christians, and they will\u003cbr\u003e marry Christians and beget Christians, and not some watereddown\u003cbr\u003e namby-pamby type, either, but fire-breathing and soulgrowing\u003cbr\u003e Christians, members of the church of Christ, saved by\u003cbr\u003e grace and fired with an obstinate belief in the black and white.\u003cbr\u003e Give me that old-time religion! Yes, Lord!3\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It is all laid out for me, both in the Bible and in the talks our\u003cbr\u003e Sunday school teachers give us. I know my future as I know the\u003cbr\u003e St. Louis Cardinals lineup from the tinny transistor I sneak into\u003cbr\u003e my bed on game nights: Bob Gibson, Ted Simmons, Matty Alou,\u003cbr\u003e Lou Brock, José Cruz, and the man who will ultimately betray\u003cbr\u003e my faith in baseball and become a hated Yankee, Joe Torre. Those\u003cbr\u003e Cardinals will win the pennant one day, but I will be a Christian\u003cbr\u003e today.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The sanctuary in which I walk is a high-ceilinged, cavernous\u003cbr\u003e room covered completely—walls and ceiling—in knotty pine that\u003cbr\u003e holds my secret sin. When I am bored—and during three-hour\u003cbr\u003e Sunday-morning services I am often bored—I attempt to count\u003cbr\u003e the knots in the panels behind the preacher. I lose count and start\u003cbr\u003e again, lose count and start again. I feel guilty about that, but I\u003cbr\u003e am sitting through three sermons a week and once I recognize the\u003cbr\u003e preacher’s theme (sin, mercy, salvation), I start counting knots.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The room seats roughly seven hundred souls. I say roughly,\u003cbr\u003e because we never fill it. It was built amid much discussion and\u003cbr\u003e hard feelings at a time when my church was among the fastestgrowing\u003cbr\u003e Christian groups in the country. Of course we would fill\u003cbr\u003e it, we told one another, even if our regular Sunday-morning attendance\u003cbr\u003e hovered around three hundred or so. God would provide.\u003cbr\u003e We just needed to have the right amount of pews. The\u003cbr\u003e interior looks as we imagine the ark of Noah would look—spare,\u003cbr\u003e with not one cross on display. Jesus hung on a real cross. Who\u003cbr\u003e were we to use the emblem of his shame as decor? And why\u003cbr\u003e would we, as girls, wear small golden crosses when the real one\u003cbr\u003e was so much bigger and uglier?4 The pews are padded—another\u003cbr\u003e discussion—and there are no prayer benches, for fear that they\u003cbr\u003e would put us in company with the Catholics. Still, I never once\u003cbr\u003e saw someone drop to his or her knees during public prayer. We\u003cbr\u003e are, one visiting minister derided us, the only group of believers\u003cbr\u003e that sits to sing and stands to pray.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In fact, the building was built on prayer—and a painful\u003cbr\u003e schism. When you believe you are holy and have God on your side,\u003cbr\u003e you easily cross over into being dogmatic. We split over paving\u003cbr\u003e the parking lot. The anti-paving bunch argued that Jesus never\u003cbr\u003e walked on pavement, and that we shouldn’t be so fine-haired as to\u003cbr\u003e worry about muddying our good shoes as we scrambled to our\u003cbr\u003e (padded) pews. And besides, the money could be used for a\u003cbr\u003e greater purpose—namely, saving souls. The grandparents of this\u003cbr\u003e crowd had cheered at the outcome of the Scopes Monkey Trial.\u003cbr\u003e Consider them opponents of creeping and sweeping modernity.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The other bunch—and, oddly, my notoriously hidebound\u003cbr\u003e family sided with them—said that paving a parking lot was right\u003cbr\u003e and good, that it didn’t hurt to have a few creature comforts, and\u003cbr\u003e the anti-paving crowd hadn’t kicked up a fuss over the fancy\u003cbr\u003e new air-conditioning, now, had they? When the church splits, we\u003cbr\u003e stay with the paved group. And when it splits another time over\u003cbr\u003e whether the grape juice of the Lord’s Supper (the communion we\u003cbr\u003e enjoyed every Sunday) should come from one cup, as Jesus may\u003cbr\u003e have shared it, or from tiny shot glasses set into special circular\u003cbr\u003e trays made for such an event, my family again sides with the progressives.\u003cbr\u003e The others we derisively call “one-cuppers,” as damning\u003cbr\u003e a phrase as “dumb-ass hillbilly.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It would be my family’s one concession to change.\u003cbr\u003e Among the literal-minded, schisms are just waiting to surface,\u003cbr\u003e ready to crack open at any moment. Elsewhere, the other\u003cbr\u003e churches of my faith—we had no central hierarchy, opting instead\u003cbr\u003e for home rule by a group of older men, the elders—would\u003cbr\u003e split and split again, over adding a pastoral counseling service,\u003cbr\u003e or a daycare center—more modernity, in other words, but that\u003cbr\u003e was later. For now, we felt the sheep were scattered, and when we\u003cbr\u003e brought them home, they could clatter across pavement to sit in\u003cbr\u003e padded pews and partake in the liquid part of the Lord’s Supper\u003cbr\u003e from tiny shot glasses meant for just such a purpose—and likely\u003cbr\u003e to form a barrier against the common cold as well.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302465491173,"sku":"NP9780807010723","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807010723.jpg?v=1767724746","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/dating-jesus-isbn-9780807010723","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}