newjerseynewsroom.com

BY PAM LOBLEY

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NOW THAT'S FUNNY

Rachel Held Evans is a feminist and Christian. She went to a Christian college and even lives in Dayton, Tennessee, the town where the Scopes Trial played out. As woman who is both modern and evangelical Christian, she wondered what her life would be like if her marriage were more traditional.

But then she went farther than that. She got biblical with it.

For a full year, she lived according to some strict and often archaic dictates of the Old and New Testaments. For instance, she slept outside in the yard during her period, since the bible says women who are menstruating are unclean and should sleep outside the house. OK, well, isn’t a Sheraton with room service technically “outside the house?”

She chose a different ‘virtue’ every month to live and explore. She called her husband “master.”

I think Donald Trump’s wife does that.

It all sounds like a reality show – but actually – it’s a book: A Year of Biblical Womanhood. You can go on her website and read all about it. The book comes out October 30.

In an interview with The Guardian, she says she started this project as a reaction to the pressure to live up to an ideal of biblical womanhood.

There’s a pressure for that? To sit on a cushion when you’re menstruating? I guess I missed that one.

Ms. Evans stood by the side of the road with a sign that said “Dan is Awesome” to follow Proverbs’ admonition to praise your husband at the city gates. As she tells the Chattanooga Times Free Press, that felt weird.

No kidding. Couldn’t she just have tweeted it?

Her book has received some glowing reviews, and many of them say the book is really funny, so I’m sure Ms. Evans has a good sense of humor about it all. You would have to if you were going to sit on the roof as a punishment for gossiping. My entire town would have women on their rooftops. And plenty of men, too.

Ms. Evans says that if her book accomplishes anything, she hopes it will be to let people know there isn’t one perfect way to be a woman of faith. I hope so, because I am not growing my hair to my waist. Ms. Evans says the hardest thing of all was not cutting her hair for a year, as stipulated in Corinthians.

I’m with her … I go nuts when my hair gets too long and frizzy. In fact, I can’t stand it when other people’s hair is too long and frizzy. There are some women in my church who really need a good haircut, and a color, too. Why be gray if you don’t have to? They could look so much better if –

Oops. I guess I’ll see you on the rooftop. I’ll be the one with the good haircut.

Pam Lobley writes the “Now That’s Funny” column. Check out her blog: Better Living Through Chaos! Follow her on twitter @plobley.

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