Yes I know its a bit late but I decided to just share some thoughts by others regarding this sad event in US history. After weeks of being unable to come up with a way to adequately  describe my anger and frustration about it all I figure I may as well highlight those who managed to be more articulate in the moment. Click on the titles of the articles below each quote to read the posts in their entirety. (Some of the parts I (as well as the original authors) put in bold because they deserve emphasis).

“A group of about 5 anti-fascists tried to persuade some of us clergy to join them in taking on the White Supremacists by fighting with them, not simply standing our ground in peace. We explained our role and belief in non-violence and ensured they also stayed off premises if they intended to participate in violence. They explained their desire to fight on behalf of all those who cannot, to draw the fight and violence to themselves and take on the White Supremacists and Nazis head on if they had to.

These individuals and groups were far outnumbered and brave in their own way; while I do not advocate violence, and condemn it in all ways, I must acknowledge that these individuals were willing to put themselves in harm’s way, not in protest or for their own interests, but on behalf of all threatened by those yelling their desire to harm or kill Jews, Blacks, Muslims, GBLTQ, liberals, police, anyone in their way, anyone trying to change the order of the world as it is.”

Charlottesville: a first-hand account of racist violence by Deborah Porras

“I can’t fathom the fact that still so many are silent. Still, on this Sunday we see many Christian pastors refusing to take an active stance against the clear violent racism in this nation. I’m sure some won’t speak out because they probably also hold some racist ideology but others, other pastors won’t speak out because they have a fear of losing some of the support of their congregation which has overpowered their desire to follow the ways of Jesus…

You see, there is a right and wrong side when it comes to hate, bigotry, and oppression. There is a right and wrong side when it comes to the deeply ingrained racism that floods our nation. There are not “many sides” there are two, the side of basic humanity and the side against it.”

If We Don’t Want to See another Charlottesville – Silence is Not an Option by Sheri Faye Rosendahl

“Most people know racism when they see it (when people on the passive level see people on the soft level or higher), but just don’t say or do anything about it. But, what if this majority became active? What if we all agreed to, kindly, inform others that we’re not going to let people around us say or do racist things? What if, instead of blaming the president, or Nazis, or the alt-right, we took responsibility for our actions and the people in our own lives?

We must begin to speak up because by being passive and letting racist jokes and statements slide, we are literally building the foundation on which the KKK, Neo Nazi, and White Supremacist’s groups are built at the top of the pyramid. It doesn’t matter if it makes you uncomfortable or if it hurts your relationships, people are literally dying because the masses aren’t speaking up for those without a voice.

It is also easy to just cut off our friends and family who are soft and quiet racists. But, it is our job to stand up when racist ideas are brought up. As white people, we have an audience with our families and white circles that the black community will never have. If we do not start to have these conversations at the lower levels of the pyramid, who will?

So yes, Charlottesville was my fault, and your fault, and the fault of anyone who is not standing up to racism in our daily lives. Please, please, don’t be defensive, but take a moment to attempt to see that silence really is compliance.

I’m making a stand today to no longer sit by and let these things happen. I hope you’ll consider standing with me.”

Charlottesville was my Fault by Josh Bryan

“And here’s where this all applies to the nonsense of there is “fault on both sides” between the nazis and the protestors recently:

It forces those on the Religious Right to do a full reversal from what they say to me every day.

You see, every time they push back on the doctrine of nonviolent enemy love, they quickly go to the same arguments. As they escalate the scenarios they believe proves my position of nonviolence wrong or foolish, they always (and I mean always) end up pulling out the same trump-card, as if it were the Mother of All Rebuttals as to why the way of nonviolence is wrong:

“Oh yeah!? Well what about the Nazis in World War II? Thank God the last generation knew that evil like this can only be stopped with violence.”

I’ve heard the argument a thousand times from a thousand people on the right, right up until recent events where Nazis marched through American streets, injuring and killing people. But then? Well, apparently they now think that opposing Nazis with violence makes one equally wrong.

So here’s my sincere question for my Christian friends on the right trying to call me out for not saying both sides were equally wrong: didn’t you just tell me that you believe in using violence against nazis? 

Don’t lie– we both know you did, and that you did it nearly every time I posted an article on nonviolence.

So why the change?

Why do you believe that violent opposition to Nazis in WWII was not just necessary, but good, but that somehow in today’s world the willingness to use violence to oppose this same evil is now morally equivalent to the evil itself?”

Dear Religious Right: Didin’t You Just Finish Telling Me You Believe in Violence against Nazis? by Benjamin L. Corey

“America has yet to deal with the lessons of our own history. We have never been utterly conquered so that we had to. The lessons of slavery and Jim Crow segregation–all predicated on claims of white supremacy–have yet to be fully learned or even fully acknowledged. Our walls are not made of concrete and barbed wire, but they remain walls. Our churches have sometimes defended those walls, to our everlasting shame.”

Letter from Berlin: The Lessons of History and the Heresy of Racial Superiority by R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

“There is this tendency to want blame the acts of the white supremacists and neo-nazis on Donald Trump, to make him the scapegoat. But that is looking at it completely in reverse. Donald Trump is a product of the same racist system that caused the rally and the subsequent domestic terrorism. He isn’t the first Trump to be associated with racist white supremacist groups. His father was arrested at a KKK rally. David Duke, former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, thanked Donald Trump for ‘condemning leftist terrorists’. Donald and his father was sued in 1973 for systematically discriminating against black people when it came to housing. Racism and the Trumps go way back. It makes absolute sense that he took two days to condemn the white nationalists. It makes even more sense that he went on TV, Tuesday, August 15, and essentially took it all back. He has a base to keep happy. As a lead white supremacist, Matthew Heimbach, said “Our values, and the ones that helped get Trump elected, can’t be compromised on”

Racism in America has been around as long as America has been around. America was founded on the systematic genocide of indigenous people and then built on the backs and births of kidnapped black folks. There is no period in our history that isn’t tainted with the racism and intolerance that caused the death of Heather Heyer on this past Saturday, August 12.”

Unpacking: Charlottesville by Joshua Bull

“You cannot be both a patriotic American and a Confederate. It does not work like that. It has long struck me as odd that the American South, which claims to be more patriotic and genuinely American than the “liberal elites” on the coasts, is dotted with statues of Confederate generals. These generals were traitors.”

You Cannot Be a Patriotic American and a Confederate by Libby Anne

 

Here are some of my various random thoughts and objections to the doctrine of eternal conscious torment (as I was taught growing up). This is not an exhaustive list but highlights of some of my thoughts over the past few years regarding this subject.

Why couldn’t God be bothered to warn Adam and Eve about this terrible place when He warned them not to eat of that one tree?

God is no different than a roman emperor if He crushes his enemies in the end. A roman emperor crushing his enemies under his feet is exactly what (I thought) Jesus came to contradict not eventually become.

Anyone who things God is violent and vengeful and enjoys inflicting pain and suffering on others seriously needs to reconsider whether they’ve made a god in the image of evil men.

Why would I follow a god who is too incompetent or straight up refuses to redeem most of his world?

If God was a sadist how would the world look any different? Actually “evidence” would seem to support this is more likely the case than not if you insist on believing in hell.

Seems strange that God gets to torture people and be worshiped for it (which is what I thought Satan wants for us but won’t get) yet the difference is simply that God has the right to do whatever he wants so that makes it all ok.

So basically even though I’ve heard that Satan is the ‘enemy of our souls’ God is really the one who will hurt more people/souls for far longer than Satan ever could when all is said and done.

And while I might be willing to concede the point that God has the right to do whatever He wants I don’t agree that He can demand I call him good and worship him as such when clearly hatred and wrath supersede all other aspects of his character.

Ultimately if hell is true than eternity will display God’s hatred towards people more than his love.

God doesn’t seem to give us any good choices. Either join Him and be indifferent (even celebrate) his sadism or become a victim of that sadism. Join or be tortured.

Any pain someone suffers in this life pales in comparison to hell. So the pain of things like rape, abuse, and murder isn’t really so bad all things considering. And most likely anyone who has suffered in this way will end up alongside their abuser in hell. In the end more people than not will suffer grave injustice and never see it made right in this life or the next.

What kind of a god creates a world/makes a plan where he is most glorified by eternally tormenting the majority of the people he made?

If the price tag for God’s great plan is pain and suffering in this world and hell in the next for most people then God clearly enjoys hurting people more than loving, redeeming and restoring them and I refuse to believe that anymore.

And just a caveat: I have read my Bible (many times over) as well as various books on this subject over the years. As I’m discovering with many things in life this isn’t as straight forward as many in the Christian community would have you believe.

Some books I’ve read that cover this subject in varying degrees:

Razing Hell by Sharon L. Baker

Raising Hell by Julie Ferwerda

Hell a Final Word by Edward William Fudge

Her Gates Will Never Be Shut by Bradley Jersak

Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahn

Here are some  articles that got me thinking and/or taught me something new over the past few weeks. Inclusion does equal a full endorsement of everything in each article. To read the article in its entirety click on the link beneath each excerpt. Anything in bold is an emphasis made by me.

“This excellent and very true point is expressed via a supposed contrast with theology — as though theology was a subject that might somehow be studied or understood without addressing questions like “What else was going on?” or “What changed and what caused that change?”

…A context-less, “ahistorical” approach to theology makes no more sense than an ahistorical approach to history…
Many Christians have gotten the idea into their heads that their eternal salvation — whether they are destined for Heaven or Hell — is dependent on their having the proper ideas about theology. If one believes the wrong doctrine, one may be damned forever. And thus it is unthinkable and terrifying that one’s understanding of theology might be, in any way, contingent on context, or culture, or any other such accident of personal or national history…

We want our theological pronouncements to be the last word — authoritative pronouncements that can be made with utter certainty and clarity. We don’t want anyone to be able to challenge or question our spiritual and moral authority when we speak our One True and Correct Doctrine, thereby establishing ourselves as the ultimate and final authority.

That authority doesn’t sound quite so authoritative if we allow for the way that our theological ideas, whatever they may be, are shaped by history, by culture, by “what else is going on.”

Theology, history, and context by Fred Clark

“If you do decide to make the break, you have to be spiritually ready. You have to know what’s going to happen. You have to count the cost before saying anything. You have to understand that those who stand with scorned and marginalized people will be scorned and marginalized.

You have to realize that whatever abuse you are taking from evangelical authorities is nothing compared to the abuse that LGBTQ people have taken from pastors, teachers, parents, and “Christian friends” every day of their lives.

“…don’t worry about me, or about the rough week Eugene Peterson had. Do worry about those LGBTQ Christian kids who continue to experience stigma, rejection, and even contempt in their own Christian homes, churches and schools. Worry about what the events of last week taught them.”

When the evangelical establishment comes after you by David Gushee

While people bring many unique experiences to this season, Shifting typically includes:

• beginning to question systems to which we once happily ascribed
• feeling unsettled about particular beliefs and doctrinal tenets
• longing to feel more known and loved by God and others
• experiencing a deep restlessness that something might be missing in our spiritual lives
• wanting to use our passions and gifts but feeling unempowered
• worrying about losing our security and stability if we lean into these scary and unfamiliar feelings
• fearing that we are doing something wrong spiritually…

Shifting: When Things Get Rumbly by Kathy Escobar

“I was raised as a devout, conservative Christian with strong Republican values in the South. It’s a place where being different can not only be unforgiving, but unsafe. I was, and am, an active member of our local church. I used to lead a small ministry teaching Bible study, and I didn’t support or condone those living the LGBTQ lifestyle. That was just part of the Christian makeup I’d been brought up to believe. I knew I’d instill those same principles in my children.

But all of my beliefs and convictions were brought into question when, at 18 months old, Kai began exhibiting very strong female characteristics. From the moment my child was born, everything about Kai was geared toward femininity…

As a Christian mother raising a Christian family, it was a very difficult time for me. I wasn’t ready to give in and allow Kai to transition socially — especially at such a young age. My internal struggle beat me up daily. I felt like I couldn’t go against everything I’d been taught to believe, and yet I also couldn’t let Kai live in such obvious agony. I wasn’t ready to face the fact that my one-and-a-half-year-old child was a girl. That battle lasted for a couple years…

Family members were flat-out asking me if this kid was gay. It made me nervous, and I was constantly worried about what people would think of me, of us and of my parenting...

Everything was: “I’m a princess” and “I’m a girl.” Every time she’d say something like that, I’d get down on her level and firmly say, “No, you’re a boy.” It never worked…

While my biggest personal struggle was the choice to let Kai, now 6, transition, my greatest trial as a woman of faith has been the persecution I’ve received from other Christians. Family members, friends and church members have judged our family and ostracized us to the point that we’ve considered moving. I’m so disappointed in the hatred they call “love the sinner, hate the sin.” You cannot have fresh water and salt water from the same spring. But despite the ignorance and hurtful words of others, I choose to arm myself with knowledge. My child is at the highest risk of suicide and/or being murdered in a hate crime…

There’s never been a moment of doubt or regret after making the choice to let Kai transition. I’ve learned too much about identity and faith in loving my beautiful daughter exactly the way she is.”

I Had 4 Boys — Until One of Them Told Me She Was Really a Girl by Kimberly Shappley, as told to Breanne Randall

“Most murders of American women involve domestic violence, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday.

The CDC analyzed data from 18 states, finding 10,018 female homicides between 2003 and 2014. Over half ― 55 percent ― of cases where circumstances were known involved domestic violence. In 93 percent of those cases, victims were killed by current or former intimate partners: boyfriends, husbands, and lovers. The other 7 percent of victims were female friends, family members, first responders and bystanders who were killed during a domestic incident.

While the facts seem shocking at face value, they’re not surprising or new.

It is already well-established that women in the U.S. are far more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than by any other group of people. As HuffPost previously reported: It’s not strangers, friends or acquaintances who pose the biggest threat to women’s lives. It’s the men they date and marry…”

Who Is Killing American Women? Their Husbands And Boyfriends, CDC Confirms. By Melissa Jeltsen

“Suicide isn’t cowardly.
It’s not weakness.
It isn’t selfish.
It’s born of a hopelessness that can imagine no other way out.
It is a thick, pitch black haze created by powerful personal demons that prevents you from seeing light.

People like to say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and they’re right—but those standing in the darkest places can’t see that from there.

When someone takes their own life, we can view it as a tragedy for their loved ones, as a reason to mourn their leaving, as a squandering of what that life may have one day become, we can even be really angry at the senselessness of the loss.

But we should never use the moment to insult the dead by trying to shame them after they’re gone…

There but for the grace of God go the critics.

May you always be such strangers to the dark.”

Please Stop Calling Suicide Victims “Selfish” or “Weak” by John Pavlovitz

“Do you see how these lies, sometimes borne out of a desire to protect marriage, actually bring about a low view of marriage? By granting, supporting, and even facilitating a biblical divorce, we take a stand to say that we can forgive without being forced to live with people who have shattered us. This protects marriage by allowing the innocent party to leave a relationship that has been broken. By backing biblical divorce, we protect women whom God loves, showing Christ’s love when spouses have not. This protects marriage by refusing to allow sinners to abuse the institution with impunity. By publicly stating that sexual sin and abuse, not wounded spouses, ends marriages, we hold the marriage bed in honor. This protects marriage by creating a holy fear of violating it. By offering biblical divorce, the church affirms that pornography is depravity, and will not be countenanced by Christ’s church. Naming and disciplining sexual sin as the evil it is and offering divorce to the innocent party makes the value of marriage clear as we refuse to see it damaged, abused, or treated lightly.

Developing and maintaining a high view of marriage does a lot. It protects women and children, often the people most hurt by sexual sin. It keeps us from falling into sin ourselves: the higher our view of marriage, the less likely we will be to dabble in something so devastating. And a high view of marriage honors the One who created it for our good and His glory—the One who promises to judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral.”

A High View of Marriage Includes Divorce by Rebecca VanDoodewaard

 

contains language and discussion of rape and abuse

This (misogyny) is something that stood out to me again as I watched and read some things that made me realize how much disrespect and hatred is still directed towards women often in subtle ways. This is done by men and women and can sometimes come from people you would least expect to see or hear it from. (Also just to be clear I am fully aware that men are abused and victimized but that is not the point of this particular post.)

First example: I started watching the Netflix series that was popular a few months back called The Crown. It is about Queen Elizabeth II and the time in her life when she was about to marry and became queen of England. Towards the beginning of the first episode we see her father, who struggles with a stutter, saying a rhyme which includes the word cunt. It is supposed to be a joke but seems unfortunate considering the rest of the time we are to believe that he loves his wife and daughters dearly. Not that men can’t say hurtful things and not still love women but it just struck me that making even that small joke shows how disrespectful even the “good” men can be without even realizing what they are doing.

Second example: This story about a teacher being raped while overseas is prefaced by her stating there were conversations leading up to the assault that indicated one of the men who raped her had little to no respect for women. She states she considered herself a feminist who understood men are solely responsible if they make the choice to abuse a woman. But even the red flags in these seemingly harmless conversations and attitudes were shrugged off by this woman because… well men objectify and look down on women so often its barely worth registering most the time never mind making any kind of deal out of it.

Third example: Another show I started watching goes over the cold case murder of a nun in Maryland back in 1969. Shortly after this woman went missing so did another (not a nun). And people started worrying about who was killing women in the town. And the sad fact is women disappearing and getting murdered these days is yet another part of life in US culture that this barely even phases people anymore.

Many books have been written covering the specific abuse and mistreatment women face simply for being women. Just a couple examples include Half the Sky and Scars Across Humanity. These and many other books I’ve read show the uniquely evil way women are hurt (usually by men) in ways and numbers that aren’t even comparable to men. Some of the many ways women are abused and objectified in generally greater numbers than men include: rape (including pedophilia and used as a tool for war), domestic violence, female genital mutilation, honor killings/rape, death in childbirth, infanticide and gender selective abortions, child marriage, sex trafficking, pornography, stripping, ect. This doesn’t include the “lesser” problems like street harassment or policing what women wear from a hijab to yoga pants and so many other debates that are made around what women can and cannot do simple because they are female. Added to all this are the various ways women are objectified in the media and talked about in ways that are far more superficial than the way men are generally discussed or presented. Also on my way to writing this I came across this article outlining things women in the US couldn’t do as recently as the 1950’s and 60’s. These include things like opening a bank account by themselves and running in the Boston Marathon.

Obviously a single blog post isn’t going to summarize all that is wrong in this world when it comes to the mistreatment of women but I’m spending time writing some of these things all down for the simple reason that some people want to believe that sexism and misogyny are a thing of the past or not as big a deal as they once were. This of course is usually said by men or women who haven’t been hurt by the things I listed above or been significantly confronted with it in their life experiences.

Years of working as a crime victims advocate, teaching girls (taken out of abusive homes and who were at risk of being trafficked by their own families) at a shelter as well as my own personal education about the many issues surrounding gender based violence has made me very angry yet also very tired of people that just don’t seem to care or think misogyny is something worth eradicating or addressing in their own lives.

All this to say that while we can see some progress is being made in better treatment of women there is still so much that goes by unnoticed in the world simply because we don’t even realize its there.

 

Here are some things I read over the last couple of weeks that made me think. Inclusion does not equal a full endorsement of everything in each post. To read each post in its entirety click on the title beneath each excerpt.

“But if I’m honest, Donald Trump’s behavior is the public repudiation and total exposure of my own sin. Every time he tweets impulsively, every time he lies, every time he revels in his own grandiosity, he is doing things that I have done and continue to do. So if I respond to Donald Trump’s demise like a Christian, it would be with my own repentance.”

How should Christians respond to the demise of Donald Trump?  by Morgan Guyton

“Relief and development work, or “charity” more generally, was condoned only if it was explicitly subservient to the proclamation of the gospel — a means to that end and not something regarded or conducted as an end in itself…

It seems to me that this Great Commission objection has waned in the 21st century. I would count that as a positive development, except that I fear it has simply been replaced by something else that’s even worse… Today they seem to demonstrate that same instinct, but it’s no longer proclamation evangelism that they worry may be undermined — it’s opposition to legal abortion.

It means that white evangelicals may be permitted, conditionally, to consider some other, tangential causes — “creation care,” or “racial reconciliation,” or “human trafficking,” or whatever you like — but only to the extent that these things do not distract from the absolute, paramount duty white evangelicals have to support the election of Republicans to every branch and every level of government in the hopes that they will eventually pack the Supreme Court with enough anti-abortion justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.

That’s a starkly blunt way of putting it, but that is the essence of the objection. All those other causes, you see, may be laudable and commendable in and of themselves, but they’re all also vaguely liberal-seeming. And it’s dangerous to permit ourselves to have too much sympathy for liberal-ish causes because that might undermine our resolve to vote for the kind of anti-liberals we need to support in order to fulfill our paramount obligation of criminalizing abortion…

It seems like the instinctual white evangelical response of “Maybe, but it mustn’t be allowed to distract us from our pre-eminent duty to proclaim the gospel” has largely been replaced with “Maybe, but it mustn’t be allowed to distract us from our pre-eminent duty to be ‘pro-life.’”

Such a monumental shift seems like something worth noticing.

Soap, soup, and support for Supreme Court nominees who will overturn Roe v. Wade  by Fred Clark

“When I asked her why she became an atheist, she said, “I started reading the Bible.”

We Christians often tell people that if they would only read the Bible, they would come to see that God is real and that He loves them. We hear testimony after testimony about how drug addicts and hookers were considering suicide but somehow got a Bible and started reading it and ended up giving their life to Christ.

I am not in any way denying such accounts or stories.

But I think it is also time to admit that while many people decided to follow Jesus as a result of reading the Bible, there are many others who turned away from God after reading the Bible.

Part of this, I am convinced, is because we Christians have said that the entire Bible is the Word of God, but then we ignore, gloss over, conveniently forget, or are simply dishonest about some of the more troubling portions of Scripture.”

11 Bible Verses That Turn Christians Into Atheists  by Jeremy Myers.

“…We’re obviously still battling against several issues today, but seeing the things my mother and grandmother were forced to endure has really opened my eyes. I mean, I always knew things were different back in the day, but I can’t believe how long it took for a wife to not be legally classified as “subordinate” to her husband — much less, how difficult it was for a single gal to get her own bank account and credit card.”

11 Ordinary Things Women Weren’t Allowed To Do In The ’50s And ’60s by Jess Catcher

“I taught American history for a while and it often felt as if we were looking at a constant flow of outrageous bigotry by the hands of white American Christians. They held themselves as superior in their entitled sense of manifest destiny, the deep belief that white Christians were sent by God to convert and civilize the “savage” world of the “other.” From the mass genocide of Native Americans, to slavery, to constant restrictions of various groups of immigrants, to turning our backs on the Jewish people fleeing genocide, to turning our backs on the Syrian people fleeing genocide – this Christian nation holds the clear belief that race, nationality, religion, and far more determine how people deserve to be treated – their worthiness of our love. It shouldn’t be surprising that our level of empathy and concern tends to decrease drastically as skin tone darkens..”

The Racist God of America by Sheri Faye Rosendahl

“I have never cared for Kathy Griffin’s comedy. I never thought she was funny. I never thought she was a very good actress. And I wasn’t surprised when she posted photos depicting a simulated beheading of the current president. Frankly it seems in line with her brand of humor. I was shocked to hear all the outrage coming from people who have spent the past eight years bemoaning the idea of political correctness. These people have complained about how no one can take a joke anymore. Well Kathy Griffin is a comedian. She made a joke. It wasn’t funny. It was politically incorrect and offensive, but that’s exactly what a lot of people claim to want…

It is particularly ironic that our current president took time to let us know his feelings were hurt and that his youngest child was upset. Does he imagine that his years-long invective against Obama wasn’t harmful to Sasha and Malia? Do only his children matter?

The same people who are condemning Griffin recently cheered on and elected to Congress a Montana man who physically assaulted a reporter at a campaign rally. These are the same people who do not speak up and condemn the actions and speech of the murderer on the train in Portland. They don’t speak up when someone leaves a noose in the African American exhibit at the Smithsonian. They don’t speak up when someone spray paints racist graffiti on LeBron James’s house or vandalizes yet another Jewish cemetery. And they damn sure didn’t speak up when protestors were burning Obama in effigy after the 2008 election.”

You Said This Was What You Wanted By Tiffany Quay Tyson