Nicole Cliffe : How God Messed Up My Happy Atheist Life

I had no untapped, unanswered yearnings. All was well in the state of Denmark. And then it wasn’t.  Nicole Cliffe/ May 20, 2016

I became a Christian on July 7, 2015, after a very pleasant adult life of firm atheism. I’ve found myself telling “the story” when people ask me about it—slightly tweaked for my audience, of course. When talking to non-theists, I do a lot of shrugging and “Crazy, right? Nothing has changed, though!” When talking to other Christians, it’s more, “Obviously it’s been very beautiful, and I am utterly changed by it.” But the story has gotten a little away from me in the telling.

As an atheist since college, I had already mellowed a bit over the previous two or three years, in the course of running a popular feminist website that publishes thoughtful pieces about religion. Like many atheists (who are generally lovely moral people like my father, who would refuse to enter heaven and instead wait outside with his Miles Davis LPs), I started out snarky and defensive about religion, but eventually came to think it was probably nice for people of faith to have faith. I held to that, even though the idea of a benign deity who created and loved us was obviously nonsense, and all that awaited us beyond the grave was joyful oblivion.

I know that sounds depressing, but I found the idea of life ending after death mildly reassuring in its finality. I had started to meet more people of faith, having moved to Utah from Manhattan, and thought them frequently charming in their sweet delusion. I did not wish to believe. I had no untapped, unanswered yearnings. All was well in the state of Denmark. And then it wasn’t.

What I Already Knew

There are two different starting points to my conversion, and sometimes I omit the first one, because I think it gives people an answer I don’t want them to have. It is a simple story: I was going through a hard time. I was worried about my child. One time I said “Be with me” to an empty room. It was embarrassing. I didn’t know why I said it, or to whom. I brushed it off, I moved on, the situation resolved itself, I didn’t think about it again. I know how people hear that story: Oh, of course, Nicole was struggling and needed a larger framework for her life! That’s part of the truth, but it’s not the whole truth.

The second starting point is usually what I lead with. I was surfing the Internet and came across John Ortberg’s CT obituary for philosopher Dallas Willard. John’s daughters are dear friends, and I have always had a wonderful relationship with their parents, who struck me as sweetly deluded in their evangelical faith, so I clicked on the article.

Somebody once asked Dallas if he believed in total depravity.

“I believe in sufficient depravity,” he responded immediately.

What’s that?

“I believe that every human being is sufficiently depraved that when we get to heaven, no one will be able to say, ‘I merited this.’ ”

A few minutes into reading the piece, I burst into tears. Later that day, I burst into tears again. And the next day. While brushing my teeth, while falling asleep, while in the shower, while feeding my kids, I would burst into tears.

I should say here I am a happy, even-keeled soul. If this were the Middle Ages, I would be in a book under the heading “The Four Humors: Sanguine/Phlegmatic.”

Therefore, it was very unsettling to suddenly feel like a boat being tossed on the waves. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t frightened—I just had too many feelings. I decided to buy a Dallas Willard book to read anthropologically, of course. I read his Hearing God. I cried. I bought Lewis Smedes’s My God and I. I cried. I bought Sara Miles’s Take This Bread. I cried. It was getting out of hand. You just can’t go around crying all the time.

At this point, I reached a crossroads. I sat myself down and said: Okay, Nicole, you have two choices. Option One: you can stop reading books about Jesus. Option Two: you could think with greater intention about why you are overwhelmed by your emotions. It occurred to me that if Option Two proved fruitless, I could always return to Option One. 

So I emailed a friend who is a Christian, and I asked if we could talk about Jesus.

I instantly regretted sending that email and if humanly possible would have clawed it back through the Internet. Technology having failed me, my message reached its recipient. She said she would be very happy to talk to me about Jesus. You probably already know this, but Christians love talking about Jesus.

I spent the few days before our call feeling like an idiot, wondering what on earth I planned to ask her. Do you … like Jesus? What was Jesus’ deal? Why did he ice that fig tree?

And now we reach the part of the story that gets a bit hand-wavy. About an hour before our call, I knew: I believed in God. Worse, I was a Christian. It was the opposite of being punk rock.

Now, if you’ve been following along, you know already. I was crying constantly while thinking about Jesus because I had begun to believe that Jesus really was who he said he was, but for some reason, that idea had honestly not occurred to me. But then it did, as though it always had been true. So when my friend called, I told her, awkwardly, that I wanted to have a relationship with God, and we prayed, and giggled a bit, and cried a bit, and then she sent me a stack of Henri Nouwen books, and here we are today.

Since then, I have been dunked by a pastor in the Pacific Ocean while shivering in a too-small wetsuit. I have sung “Be Thou My Vision” and celebrated Communion on a beach, while weirded-out Californians tiptoed around me. I go to church. I pray. My politics have not changed; the fervency with which I try to live them out has. My husband is bemused by me, but supportive and loving.

No More Chill

I am occasionally asked by other Christians, “What happened during that hour?” I answer that God did not speak to me. Rather, like the protagonist in Memento putting his past together with Polaroids, I figured out what I already knew. What happened during that hour was the natural culmination of my coming to faith: I had been cracked open to the divine, I read books that I would have laughed at before the cracking, and the stars lined up and there was God, and then I knew, and then I said it out loud to a third party, and then I giggled.

I am more undone by love, or kindness, or friendship than I would have thought possible.

This is why apologetics, in my opinion, are hugely unconvincing. (Dallas Willard, for the record, never debated unbelievers.) No one could have in a billion years of their gripping testimony or by showing me a radiant life of good deeds or through song or even the most beautiful of books brought me to Christ. I had to be tapped on the shoulder. I had to be taken to a place where books about God were something I could experience without distance. It was alchemical.

I have been asked if deciding to become a Christian ended my exciting new crying-multiple-times-a-day hobby. The truth is that I continue to cry a lot more than I did before either Be-With-Me-Gate or the Dallas Willard Incident. I am more undone by love, or kindness, or friendship than I would have thought possible. Last night I tried to explain who Henri Nouwen was to some visiting cousins, and they had to bring me Kleenex, which they did sweetly and cautiously, as though I might melt in front of them. This morning I read a piece in Texas Monthly that literally sank me to my knees at how broken this world is, and yet how stubbornly resilient and joyful we can be in the face of that brokenness. I never possessed much chill, to be honest. Now I have none whatsoever.

There are times I feel a bit like a medieval peasant, in that I believe wholly in God now, but don’t always do what he wants, or, like Scarlett O’Hara, put hard conversations with him off until I’ve done the thing I wanted to do. It’s a thrumming backdrop to the rest of my life. My Christian conversion has granted me no simplicity. It has complicated all of my relationships, changed how I feel about money, messed up my public persona, and made me wonder if I should be on Twitter at all.

Obviously, it’s been very beautiful.

Nicole Cliffe is cofounder and coeditor of the website The Toast and lives in Utah.

"What should you do if your son says he’s a girl?" Thoughts on Gender Dysphoria

Gender Dysphoria in the News

It seems you can’t turn on the news today and not see a headline about transgenderism.  It’s not something I would likely preach on, but I realize that sometimes there is some small wisdom in your pastor speaking to the events in the news. So, let me wade into these uncertain waters and see if I can help with this discussion. And, yeah, this is long.

But first, let me start with a little background story. A few years ago a man who was an elder on our Session (and a friend) walked into my office with his wife and said we needed to talk (we pastors know that’s almost always bad news). He told me that most all his life that he knew inside he was really a woman and that he had finally made the decision to transition into presenting as a woman and had legally changed his gender status with the state.

It goes without saying that of all the things I had prepared to help people in my congregation deal with, this was probably last on the list. I was shell-shocked and can’t even really remember what I told him and his deeply conflicted wife.

So I dove into as much literature on the subject as was available for a layman to read. I called and talked to the one Christian professor who has any expertise at all in this area. I’ve kept up with the news. So, while I’m far from an expert, I have read more and thought more about this than most people. So let me launch into a collection of thoughts and observations.

First, and perhaps most important, the people who are dealing with “gender dysphoria” (that is what it’s technically called) are for the most part a bunch of people who are deeply hurting and struggle greatly with life. I don’t believe any of them ask for this and, regardless of how other elements play out, they – and their families – need our compassion. They face a deep inner conflict and most live very unhappy lives.

Second, you need to be aware that there is a spectrum of behaviors that look related, but may not be. Cross-dressers, drag queens, transvestites, female impersonators are often responding to very different internal feeling from those who are gender dysphoric. They should not be lumped together. Nor are the gender dysphoric generally born with elements of two physical sexual identities (known as genital ambiguity or intersex). They tend to be fully biologically either male or female.

Third, in spite of the certainty that seems to be connected to current pronouncements and policies, we actually know very little about gender dysphoria. Even the people who deal with it on a regular basis admit that most of it is a great mystery. So don’t be fooled by people who are now speaking about it with great certainty, we barely understand it.

Fourth, we’re not talking about very many people on a percentage basis. Here is where our lack of knowledge really plays out, because the estimates of how many people are experiencing this vary widely. On the high side, some estimate that about .003 of the population is gender dysphoric. A more standard estimate has been 1 in 30,000; or .00003. The real number is probably somewhere in the middle, but it’s not many people we’re talking about.

Now, let me shift into what is more opinion….

1. When you stand back and look at the issue, how we have suddenly approached the issue seems silly. For a person whose DNA and body is one gender to suddenly and instantly be considered to be the opposite sex simply by saying they are kind of defies logic. Even those who go through the difficult and arduous physical transformations don’t actually change their biological genders; they merely change their bodies’ appearance. To consider Bruce Jenner a woman (indeed, a “woman of the year”) simply because he wears a dress, heavy makeup, a wig, and say he is a woman is a strange idea.

There are also people who see themselves as “gender fluid”, who may feel they are more male or female at various times, in spite of their DNA. The truth is, there is more to gender than feelings.

We read in the very beginning of the Bible: Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Gender and gender differences are an integral part of the created order. Yes, too often societies have used gender differences to oppress women. But to imagine a society where we treat the world as ‘genderless’ is a triumph of political correctness over created order and common sense.

That said, there is no reason why we cannot come to some simple, reasonable, and polite accommodations for those who wish to consider and present themselves as another gender. But, they should not expect everyone else to change their view of common sense reality and normal public accommodation to fit their unusual perspective. There ought to be some reasonable middle ground.

2. It seems that, in spite of all the emotional news stories we see about the six year old boy who knows he’s a girl, it actually seems that the very best thing we can do for children with gender dysphoria is to encourage them to wait until after high school to act on any change in their appearance or bodies.

Dr. Eric Vilain is a professor of human genetics and pediatrics at UCLA and director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology. His article “What should you do if your son says he’s a girl?” is well worth a read if you want an educated, research driven opinion; (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-vilain-transgender-parents-20150521-story.html ). In it, he writes:

“Gender dysphoric children have not usually become transgender adults. For example, the large majority of gender dysphoric boys studied so far have become young men content to remain male. More than 80 percent adjusted by adolescence.”

Another study notes :
“Only 6 to 23 percent of boys and 12 to 27 percent of girls treated in gender clinics showed persistence of their gender dysphoria into adulthood.”  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697020/#!po=45.0000 )

To put it more simply: if a child says they believe they are really the opposite sex inside, give then a good deal of home acceptance, be sure they have psychological support, tell them they need to wait until after high school to begin to take action on it. In these cases, less than 20% will feel the same way by the end of high school.

Imagine the kids who will now will be allowed to ‘transition’ their apparent gender in grade school, taking drugs, possibly undergoing surgeries, who might find that at 18 years old they don’t feel the same way. Dr. Villand ends his article:

“…(lumping) together all therapies, regardless of their motivation, target age and method. Banning all therapists from helping families trying to alleviate children's gender dysphoria would be premature, a triumph of ideology over science.

The president can set a better example by pausing at the limits of our knowledge and encouraging scientists to collect the data we need. Until we have it, let’s be careful about telling the well-meaning parents of gender dysphoric children what to do.”

3. I think that most of the positions I read on the whole transgendered bathroom issue are simply too simple and make sweeping changes to address a very small need. Remember, there are very few gender dysphoric people.

I accept that most people with gender dysphoria who are presenting as the opposite sex are not sexual perverts with want to infiltrate a bathroom for some nefarious purpose. They just want to pee. As such, asking a biological man who dresses and looks very much like a women to walk into the men’s room is asking for all sorts of problems.

That said, opening up all restrooms or locker/changing rooms to anyone of any gender (and make no mistake, this is what these rules do) creates all sorts of problems as other will take advantage of this. Read the comments of this woman who is a survivor of sexual abuse to get a perspective you don’t hear in the news: http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/23/a-rape-survivor-speaks-out-about-transgender-bathrooms/.

Even in schools, it became obvious that in one middle school a biological boy (who is still fully anatomically male) would be allowed to use the girl’s locker room for gym class. This would allow for the circumstances where twelve years old girls could find themselves showering in the same shower room with a biological male. I just can’t imagine how anyone could think this was OK.

Honestly, schools and workplaces have been making quiet, sensitive, and reasonable accommodations for gender dysphoric people for many years and I actually think this sudden attention will tend to make things worse for many of them.

It’s not hard to ask most schools and businesses to make single person bathrooms (like the bathroom in every Starbucks I've ever been in) or changing rooms available and to ask gender dysphoric people to use them. Most schools and businesses have them available already. That’s a reasonable accommodation on both sides.

If the federal guideline was that there should be single person unisex bathrooms available for any students to use, as needed, I think we would not be having this divisive debate. But again, much of this is simply politics over practicality. One group trying to force others to adopt their new worldview of gender and sexuality, brushing aside any unintended consequences as unimportant.

I hope that we can avoid both extremes in this complicated and poorly understood issue. I do know that in our increasingly non-Christian culture that anyone who opposes the new fluid gender mantra will be branded as ignorant and “haters”. We need to be thoughtful and caring, but not fold under pressure.

Perhaps one day we’ll have a better understanding of why someone is fully and completely biologically male or female, but feels their body and their mind don’t agree. Until then, let’s not let ideology get ahead of understanding and lead us to make decisions with unintended negative consequences. Let’s be compassionate, but also practical. And let us not assume that the way God made us doesn’t matter.

Pastor Al Sandalow

Ellensburg Presbyterian