{"id":1462,"date":"2009-01-21T09:20:29","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T14:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1462"},"modified":"2009-01-21T09:20:29","modified_gmt":"2009-01-21T14:20:29","slug":"your-ink-interview-with-author-of-dating-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/01\/21\/your-ink-interview-with-author-of-dating-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"OFF THE SHELF: Interview with Author of Dating Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"On the heels of Gwen and Tonni’s awesomely informative post-inaugural post on religion<\/a>, I’m thrilled to bring you this Q&A by GWP reader-now-contributor Allison McCarthy, a graduate of Goucher College who was recently accepted into the Master of Professional Writing program at Chatham University.\u00c2\u00a0 Allison’s work has previously been published or is forthcoming in magazines such as The Baltimore Review, JMWW, Girlistic, Scribble, Dark Sky, and The Write-Side Up.\u00c2\u00a0 Winner of the 2007 Maryland Writers Association Short Works Contest, she is currently a features and profiles writer for ColorsNW.\u00c2\u00a0 Here she is!\u00c2\u00a0 -Deborah<\/em><\/p>\n

Susan Campbell, 49, is a journalist for the Hartford Courant, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the U.S. and author of Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl<\/a>\"\".\u00c2\u00a0 The book, published by Beacon Press in January 2009, uses humor, history, and memory to great effect in relating the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s personal evolution of faith and politics.\u00c2\u00a0 She currently lives in Connecticut with her family and sometimes feels mortified that she wrote a memoir, which she says is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vain thing to do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then has to talk about the memoir, thus rendering her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153doubly-vain.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Campbell recently spoke to Girl With Pen about her experiences with writing, feminism, and her ever-contentious relationship with Christianity.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

GWP<\/strong>: How did you come up with the title Dating Jesus<\/em>?\u00c2\u00a0 Were there other working titles attached to this project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: It went for a long time without a title at all \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never been able to write a headline and I suck at titles.\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a lot of great thoughts in the middle of the night, but I woke up laughing because it was almost like I was dating a boyfriend that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like very much.\u00c2\u00a0 The Jesus I was introduced to as a girl wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t very human; he was very judgmental and unhappy, fairly sanitized, and in retrospect he mimicked a lot of the adults around me.\u00c2\u00a0 He wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t very radical at all and this is not a person I would get along with much as a friend, let alone a boyfriend or someone I would worship.\u00c2\u00a0 But I tried to hammer myself into that box, anyway.<\/p>\n

GWP: You include a lot of footnotes, which seems to be very popular among post-modern memoirists.\u00c2\u00a0 What was the significance of this literary device in your novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: As a trained fundamentalist, you have to back up everything you say with Scripture.\u00c2\u00a0 You have to have supporting documentation.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew this was going to be read by people like me who want proof.\u00c2\u00a0 It became a verbal tic and I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quit doing it!\u00c2\u00a0 I thought I stole this technique from a memoir about the family who came up with Sweet and Low.\u00c2\u00a0 The footnotes in that book were often as funny as was what came in the text.\u00c2\u00a0 Originally, my intent was pure, but I found it was great fun to put these irreverent footnotes in.\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think of myself as irreverent, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been told it is, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to stick with that.<\/p>\n

GWP: In the book, you mention the role of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in criticizing the gendered roles of contemporary Christianity.\u00c2\u00a0 What other feminists influenced your eventual shift from fundamentalism?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you currently identify with any communities of feminism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: When I was growing up, the only feminist I knew was Gloria Steinem and I only knew what I read in the media.\u00c2\u00a0 I was a fairly wide reader.\u00c2\u00a0 I eventually met her and tried on her aviator glasses.\u00c2\u00a0 I read Betty Freidan and as a young woman, I thought she made a lot of sense.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew enough at that age not to identify myself as a feminist because it was a dirty word.\u00c2\u00a0 The stereotype is so silly.\u00c2\u00a0 I studied Womanism at Hartford Seminary.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that some critics of mainstream feminists complained that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a movement for white, middle-class women and it overlooks the challenges faced by other demographics.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a valid critique and I think even the early feminists who sprang from the abolitionist movement were women of leisure who had the time and money to devote to this very important cause, but were also looking particularly at their own lives and not necessarily to women on a different socioeconomic rung.\u00c2\u00a0 At this point, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what school of feminism I would say I belong to.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a feminist, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m uniquely aware that the movement as a whole has sometimes not paid enough attention to everybody.\u00c2\u00a0 I think there have been time periods where a lot of people left off the bus.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

GWP: You currently subscribe to, in your words, a “floater” version of religious expression.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you explain your use of this term?<\/strong>
\nSC: Whether or not I meet someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s idea of what is Christian is immaterial to me.\u00c2\u00a0 If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not Christian enough for you, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your problem.\u00c2\u00a0 My own definition of floater is that I believe in the basic premises of Christianity.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the one religion I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m most familiar with and most comfortable.\u00c2\u00a0 On the other hand, it drives me crazy!\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re baptized, sprinkled or skip it altogether.\u00c2\u00a0 I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to look out for people with less, and money spent on elaborate churches could be put to better issues, like homelessness here in Connecticut.\u00c2\u00a0 You tell me how important it is to have your stained glass windows or new altar as opposed to having no room in homeless shelters when the National Armory is being opened to warehouse people as a last-ditch effort!<\/p>\n

GWP: Are Christianity and feminism compatible, in your experience? <\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: Absolutely \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Jesus was more of a radical than most people admit!\u00c2\u00a0 Some of his closest advisors and friends were women.\u00c2\u00a0 But hey, if I was a member of the ruling class, and in some ways I am, I would fight to keep this position as well.\u00c2\u00a0 I understand those who cling to patriarchy and the notion that only men can serve in the clergy.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever little power I have, I want to hang onto, too.\u00c2\u00a0 But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 Both feminism and Christianity are sufficiently large enough to leave a lot of room for interpretation.\u00c2\u00a0 When you try to define something as large as either one, the definition goes on for pages and pages.\u00c2\u00a0 Arguing dogma means stuff doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get done and things don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change because we divide ourselves over minutia: who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a feminist, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Christian, etc.<\/p>\n

GWP: What were your motivations in writing this book?\u00c2\u00a0 How did your previous experience as a journalist affect your progress? <\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: I belonged to a writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s group with Wally Lamb.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scary how nice he is.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so nice and supportive, you never want to read your stuff after Wally has read his!\u00c2\u00a0 I was working on a novel that basically stinks.\u00c2\u00a0 After reading the same chapter over and over, I got so sick of the novel that for a while, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t taking anything to the group.\u00c2\u00a0 One night, I thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to write something.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 I sat down and wrote three pages about my baptism, which became the beginning of this book.\u00c2\u00a0 I have been writing about my feminist upbringing for the Hartford Courant for years, to the point where people were getting sick of it.\u00c2\u00a0 Readers in my group thought this could be a longer essay.\u00c2\u00a0 So I started writing and the essay became a chapter.\u00c2\u00a0 Then it got out of hand and became a book.\u00c2\u00a0 My training as a journalist came in handy.\u00c2\u00a0 I never agonized over my keyboard thinking I had nothing to say.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a joy to write.\u00c2\u00a0 I wrote all day at the paper and came home to write a home.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a tortured artist.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just fun to do!<\/p>\n

GWP: What has the response of readers been to “Dating Jesus” since its publication?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still fairly fresh, so I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gotten a lot of negative responses.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been kind of gratifying because a lot of different religious backgrounds tend to restrict their members from full citizenship from the kingdom of God.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten emails from a wide variety of people, very detailed and personal letters.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re seeing someone else talk about dissatisfaction with their religious upbringing and know they can talk about their own, too.\u00c2\u00a0 I so respect their stories and I want to answer them quickly and fully, even if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not always possible to do.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes guts to email someone you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard of before.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not done it.<\/p>\n

GWP: What current writing projects are you working on now? <\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: Very little!\u00c2\u00a0 Mostly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to keep up a blog on the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website (www.datingjesus.com<\/a>).\u00c2\u00a0 Some days, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m more successful than others.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to start on a biography of an early feminist in Connecticut, Isabella Beecher Hooker.\u00c2\u00a0 Her sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really hard to compete when your sister wrote a book that started a war.\u00c2\u00a0 She was considered the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pretty little sister,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but she really was a woman of substance and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to write about her.\u00c2\u00a0 Other than that, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m keeping up with my columns and my head above water!<\/p>\n

–Allison McCarthy<\/em><\/p>\n

LINKS:<\/p>\n

Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\nwww.datingjesus.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the heels of Gwen and Tonni’s awesomely informative post-inaugural post on religion, I’m thrilled to bring you this Q&A by GWP reader-now-contributor Allison McCarthy, a graduate of Goucher College who was recently accepted into the Master of Professional Writing program at Chatham University.\u00c2\u00a0 Allison’s work has previously been published or is forthcoming in magazines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21109],"tags":[245,42],"class_list":["post-1462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-off-the-shelf","tag-feminism","tag-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}