Janel was quoted in the Washington Post over the weekend. The article is below and her thoughts on it are here.
...It also includes some theologically traditionalist Christians.
Janel Bakker, 28, a graduate student at Catholic University who attends Washington Community Fellowship on Capitol Hill, an evangelical church affiliated with the Mennonite denomination, said she grew up in a "relatively conservative religious home" where "the big issue was considered to be abortion."
But Bakker, who has attended several rallies against the Iraq war, said she now regards poverty, peace and the environment as important spiritual issues ignored by the religious right. "The religious right has assumed that capitalism is the way to go and is the most moral way to organize society," Bakker added. "Young people are questioning that."
By Janel Kragt Bakker
Published in Catapult Magazine, July 29, 2005
Sexuality: it provokes within us intense longing, absolute disgust, unrelenting attraction, debilitating dread, indescribable joy, utter repulsion. One does not have to be an expert on the subject to appreciate the power of sex. It is difficult to predict how a person will respond to manifestations of his or others' sexuality--except to say that it most likely will not be apathy or indifference. Human sexual expression can bear the glorious fruits of celebration, joy, intimacy, and worship--or it can spawn the rot of shame, fear, and defilement. It can enhance our humanity, but it can also degrade it.
Published in Catapult Magazine, July 29, 2005 In a cultural milieu where technology has eclipsed relationships, overt yet often vacuous expression of sexuality pervades culture, and sexual pleasure is perceived not only as a right but as the quintessential experience from which to derive meaning, an alternative vision of human sexuality is badly needed. This conviction drives Marva Dawn?s exploration of sexual ethics. Although she is certainly aware that the topic does not lack for attention among contemporary Christian ethicists, Dawn adds her book to the fray convinced that much of the analysis put forth has been reactionary or inadequate.
Janel is interviewed in the latest issue of Sojourners (June 2005), in an article called "Growing up evangelical," by Stacia Brown.
Janel Bakker, a doctoral student at the Catholic University of America, learned a similarly "triumphalist" outlook in her Christian Reformed congregation. Although her childhood church promoted civic engagement, sustained immersion in secular culture occurred infrequently. Consequently, Bakker grew up believing there were two kinds of people: evangelical Christians and everyone else - "the unsaved."
by Janel Kragt Bakker (published in Catapult Magazine, November 2004)
As kids, my siblings and I would play the sadistic—yet lighthearted—Would You Rather... game on long road trips. You know the one: Would you rather freeze to death or burn to death? Would you rather have all of your hair plucked out strand by strand with a tweezers, or descend down a razorblade-laden slide into a pool of alcohol? Would you rather I flick your ear until we get to Grandma's house or breathe in your face until we arrive?
