To say what we believe about something is only the first step. It does not necessarily tell us what to do with that belief in the face of those who think differently.
– J.R. Kirk

(Today also happens to be the day that the US president put out a second executive order banning certain international travelers from coming into the country and halting all refugee migration into the US for 120 days. The first blog excerpt I quote was written after his first order along these same lines back in January).

In all fairness I’m not referring to the whole church when it comes to these mixed messages. That’s the difficult thing about talking about an entity like the church. Its too easy to lump everyone together and act as if everyone is equally guilty. I realize that is rarely the case but I want to share some quotes from a couple blogs I came across that made some excellent points about the hypocrisy between what the church has said in the past and what it is doing now. The writer of the first blog I came across is Abby Norman. Here are the points that particularly stood out to me (its not long and you can read the entire post at the link under this excerpt):

“Many who sent me to my knees, weeping on behalf of the 10/40 window are complicit in sending those same people to die in the very places we begged God for access to.
The muslim people that we knew only God could reach are in our airports, and the church is complicit in turning them away. You asked me to give my life. You told me it would be worth it eternally, and now you cry SAFETY FIRST to mostly women and children who are desperately looking for safety.

The same church that told me that people were dying eternally damned because no one was willing to risk their life to tell these people about Jesus, is the same church that is telling me it isn’t safe for these women and children to be in our neighborhoods. I thought following Jesus was worth the risk.

You wonder why the millenials, even those raised in your churches, are exiting your pews en masse. It isn’t because we didn’t believe what you were saying. It is because we did. We believed you. You said, go do something dangerous for God and we said YES! But when it was your turn to welcome these people you said it was too  dangerous. We still want a Jesus who is worth following no matter the cost.

The evangelical church told us that souls were on the line, that eternal life was at stake. But the evangelical church was willing to elect a president who staked his claim on banning muslims. The church voted for that. You with your big T Truth and your make Godly choices, you decided that refugee banning was worth it…

I am asking: What do you really believe? If you really believe that anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus Christ as their savior is eternally damned, wouldn’t you demand that any muslim who wants to can come in? Wouldn’t it be worth whatever risk there may be for the chance to introduce this muslim to Jesus?  This is what you told me. I believed it. My question now is, do you?”

Evangelical Church: In the wake of banning refugees, what do you believe?

And it so happened as I made plans to post this I came across another blogger (Fred Clark over at Slacktavist) noticing the same problem Abby did. He made this point in a blog entitled “How did a ‘heart for missions’ lead to contempt?”:

“The most modest claim about the effect of prayer usually says something like prayer may not change God’s mind, but it changes us. It teaches us that praying for others is a good way to train ourselves to love those neighbors as we love ourselves.

That seems reasonable. It makes sense that years of prayer on behalf of other people would, if nothing else, form habits of concern and care on the part of those doing the praying. But here we have a powerful counter-example. The very same people who have spent years praying for those within the 10/40 window now seem to regard those people with exceptional contempt.

That suggests either that prayer doesn’t work the way we thought it did, or else that all those people have somehow been praying wrong. (Or, perhaps, both.)”

So where did things start going wrong when it came to the church, prayer and caring for those in the 10/40 window? Or maybe we only wanted God to answer in such a way that it didn’t disturb our personal comfort and delusions that we can make ourselves safe?

As someone who grew up in a Christian family, attended church all my life, attended Christian colleges for both of my degrees and who lived overseas for 4 years mainly to be on the mission field these points make me uncomfortable and I hope it has the same effect on any Christian (particularly American) reading this.

I have made choices and sought after God most of my life because I was taught and believe that Jesus is worth following anywhere and worth any “sacrifice.” So why am I witnessing so many Christians acting like following Jesus’ example is now just an optional commitment when it comes to welcoming the foreigner and loving your neighbor?

Does anyone really think others (Christians or not) aren’t noticing the hypocrisy? There is a very disturbing message being communicated here. A message that is in direct contradiction to what I learned, read and heard most of my life from the Church.(In case you haven’t heard the Church is supposed to be known for its love).

Somewhere along the way many of us got lost or don’t have a very healthy view of love. We really need to stop obsessing over ourselves and get back to caring sacrificially for others especially those not like us. (That’s kind of a key point, I was told, in calling oneself a Christian).

Is loving, giving and sharing sacrificially like Christ only for those ‘special’ Christians aka missionaries? Despite the Church often making the mistake of holding missionaries up as super Christians the answer is undeniably no. Jesus called all His people to love. Neighbors or enemies…either category doesn’t leave any space for exceptions. So I to would like to pose my own questions and ask: When did we start having a problem with God answering our prayers and when is the church going to get back to actually practicing what it preaches?

(I realize some might make the point that what Christians believe and what our governments choose to do won’t necessarily align. However as long as most Americans are going to claim they are Christian I’m going to expect them to know what’s in their Bible, what Jesus taught, and to follow Him. In my not so humble opinion this would look like not supporting policies that are clearly hurting others and which also is in violation of God’s expectations of us).

Here are some blogs and articles I came across this week that made me think. Inclusion does not mean full endorsement. Anything in bold is an emphasis made by me.

“The most important command Jesus specifically gave was to Love your neighbor–this command was put on the same level as Love God. What does Love your neighbor look like? It looks like finding a beat up, half-dead member of ISIS on the side of the road, stopping, taking him in, bandaging his wounds, and spending your own money to care for him. Knowing he is your biggest enemy and showing him Love anyway.”

Not Your White Jesus by Sheri Faye Rosendahl

“Augustine didn’t believe in literal creationism. Heretic.

Galileo thought the earth revolved around the Sun. Dumb heretic.

C.S. Lewis may have believed people of other religions could find Jesus without knowing it. Both dumb. Both heretics…

But I’m not concerned with the validity of these heresy claims so much as the joy from which they are shouted. Move over baseball, because exposing heresy has become America’s new favorite pastime…

Pride explains almost all human behavior…

When we label someone a heretic, we are implying that we aren’t. By claiming someone’s theology isn’t correct, we are claiming ours is. It’s a roundabout way of elevating ourselves in relation to one another.

In turn, refraining from heresy labeling is to say we might be wrong about some things. We are admitting other people have solid points that demand to be considered. As we are naturally prideful, no one really wants to do this. So, we dismiss them as heretics.

The easiest way to elevate ourselves is not to build ourselves up. The easiest way is to tear others down…

We can’t just accept any assertion about God as fact. I agree. But truth is hard to write down when it’s incarnate. It’s easy to cry heresy when truth is a sort of celestial constitution by which we all measure our beliefs. It’s not so easy when Truth is a person…

I’m not proposing we stop thinking about God. It’s actually the opposite. We have to engage with foreign and challenging views of God honestly and humbly for the sake of our spirituality, knowing God isn’t defined by what we believe in our three-pound brains. We have to realize this isn’t a competition, and evolving views of God don’t disqualify us from knowing Him.

We shouldn’t be afraid of material like The Shack, or anything else deemed heretical by some. After all, it’s only after we engage with and consider these challenges that we can then accept or reject their ideas. But we must do so knowing pride drives our innate motivations.”

4 Bad Reasons Christians Call Each Other ‘Heretics’ By Peter Northcutt

“…That’s what Jesus is saying. “The poor will always be with you” because you are disobedient, hardhearted, exploitative and devious. The presence of poverty is not some inevitable law of the universe, it’s the consequence of sin — your sin, the sin of the wealthy, not the sin of the poor. The fact that the poor are with us is a rebuke. It is evidence of our guilt and failure and wicked thinking….

This is the argument we hear 99.9 percent of the time we hear anyone reciting those words from Jesus. It’s an anti-biblical, anti-Christ argument. It’s biblically illiterate, stupid and cruel. It is used, always, to harm and to deny help to others.”

Ignorant jerks abusing ‘the poor will always be with you’ will always be with you
by Fred Clark

“You folks don’t — and can’t — understand us because you’re fundamentally unlike us. The premise is that city folk know nothing about small-town folk, and yet that somehow small-town folk know everything about city folk…

And yet they assume that the same thing doesn’t apply to them — that they are able to speak with certainty about the values and character of those people over there, the ones who live under those city lights, without ever taking a ride around those places and getting to know those people…

His talk about “the importance of family” was his attempt to explain why the congregants in his white evangelical church in Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump.***
But that’s not accurate. They did not vote Trump because they love their families and because they value hard work. They did so because they wanted and needed to believe that other people — those people — do not love their families and do not value hard work. They wanted and needed to believe that loving their families and valuing hard work makes them exceptional — better, more deserving, more entitled, and wholly distinct from those people over there who don’t love and value those things.”

‘Where I come from’ we claim universal generalities as our peculiar virtues  by Fred Clark

“Leslie’s life served no other obvious purpose, he did not contribute to society or serve his community and he possessed no redeeming qualities besides quick whited [sic] sarcasm which was amusing during his sober days,” it reads. “With Leslie’s passing he will be missed only for what he never did; being a loving husband, father and good friend…”

“Leslie’s passing proves that evil does in fact die,” the obituary said, “and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all.”

‘Evil’ Man’s Family Gives Him the Obit He Deserved by Lauren Evans

“The reason I am sharing this is because people think it is funny to laugh at people with disabilities. You cannot see my disabilities but they are there and they are real. So next time you see photos making fun of people just remember you know nothing about these people or the struggles they face every day. It is never just harmless fun to laugh at someone.”

What You Should Know If You Laughed at This Viral Photo of Me by Jennifer Wilkinson

“We are doing everyone a disservice when we act like this is an issue about where someone gets to pee. This is a fight to rigidly enforce patriarchal gender roles and a gender binary while erasing those who don’t conform to it. It’s about making every person who doesn’t fit into that gender binary think about the fact that society doesn’t acknowledge us or respect who we are. It’s about creating a demonized and pathologized image of transgender people so that society will accept discrimination against them, even arguing that it’s for our own good.

This isn’t a transgender issue. This isn’t even an LGBTQ issue. This is an issue that affects all of us. It’s not about where some kid gets to pee; it’s about you being assigned a gender role and ensuring there are reprisals against those who dare to push back against them.”

The real issues behind this attack on Transgender rightsThe real issues behind this attack on Transgender rights by Sasha Fox

 

 

 

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. – Hermann Hesse

Here are some things I read this week that made me think. Inclusion does not equal endorsement. Caution: Some of these posts contain language (and possibly even ideas) that some could find offensive. Also anything in bold is something I emphasized. Click on the title beneath each quote to read the entire post.

“What this means, is that saying God is in control, while doing little or nothing to alter the planet in any meaningful way is spiritual rebellion. It is a willing abdication of our calling to be makers of peace here. It expects that God will clean up whatever horrible mess we make—and that our prayers alone will serve as the sole request form.

I don’t believe this is true and it isn’t Biblical. I don’t believe Jesus spent three years imploring people to love their neighbors as themselves, to feed the poor, to protect the vulnerable, to love our enemies, and to bind up wounds of strangers—if God had already written the script and we’re all just playing the whole thing out in flesh and blood without getting to improvise and change lines.

And this all matters, because if we are indeed free to choose and responsible for our choices, and these decisions make tangible ripples in the world that alter the planet in realtime—then we had better get to work, Christians.

And that means far more than prayer and platitudes.”

Christian, Stop Telling Me God is in Control by John Pavolitz

“Security may at times require secrecy,” he added, “but embarrassment or political sensitivity never should. Facts regarding the number of airstrikes and their civilian toll should always be disclosed promptly and faithfully so the public, aided by human rights workers and journalists, can scrutinize military operations being conducted in their name.”

The U.S. military’s stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong. Thousands have gone unreported By: Andrew deGrandpre and Shawn Snow

“…There is no refuge in saying that someone else was your spiritual covering and therefore it’s not your fault if their umbrella isn’t big enough to allow you to spread out to your full potential.

That type of blame-shifting is as old as Adam and Eve answering God’s questions about eating the forbidden fruit…

It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. A woman who pleads the excuse of a small husbandly umbrella is looking to the wrong place for her spiritual authority. Jesus is the only source of authority for carrying out all God has given you to do, and he is all the covering you need to reach it fully.

Women, don’t let anyone tell you that you need a husband whose vision is greater than yours in order to reach your spiritual potential. All you need is to follow wherever Jesus leads you, for his vision is great indeed.”

Spiritual Umbrellas and the Oppression of Women by Tim Fall

“But something clicked in me when we got to Canaan. All of a sudden, the appalling injustice of the whole storyline came crashing down on me. I became physically ill listening to our teacher rationalize why it was okay for the Hebrews to rob the Canaanites of their land through violent conquest. Retributive justice, he said, comes from God one way or another, and they had it coming.

For my Sunday School teacher, this was an object lesson in anticipation of the future judgment of the whole world which God would one day execute on the Day of Judgment…

William Lane Craig famously argued that God was acting in mercy when he commanded the execution of those children because they would have grown up to be something awful, like child-sacrificers (Killing babies to appease a god? Anybody besides me see the irony there?) Craig went on to theorize that this was okay because these children would have gone directly to heaven when they died since they had not yet reached the age of accountability (still waiting to hear which Bible verse teaches that, btw)…

In the end it was a belief in Hell which enabled our Sunday School teacher to accept this story at face value because, as he reasoned, if God’s just gonna punish everyone who disobeys him someday anyway, then this mere physical destruction pales in comparison. He had a good point. In the end, the doctrine of Hell justifies absolutely any injustice we could imagine.

Another great irony is that these same people have a habit of telling people like me that ethics without (their specific) God leads to moral relativism. But when I survey atheists I can’t find any who believe you can morally justify the kind of ethnic cleansing this story represents. I’ve never had one even try. They seem unanimous.* But then if I put five Christians in a room and ask them the same question, I will likely get five different answers even though they’re all working from the same religious text.

So which worldview really leads more to relativism?..

I will continue to do my best to foster constructive dialogue with all of my believing friends and family who are willing to have rational discussions with me about their beliefs. But do not expect me to be cool with this one, because I won’t.”

I Drew the Line at Canaan by Neil Carter

“Taken into custody alive, after shooting three people. It’s amazing how white killers are somehow always taken alive, but Black people selling loose cigarettes or pulled over for a traffic violation or running away from police out of fear so often end up dead.”

This is Terrorism by Melissa McEwan

“Parents told their kids, “I wish you had never been born” and even “I wish you were dead.” One week eight young people died by suicide. One night a young girl slept in the snow because her parents told her to leave at bedtime. One Christmas a young teen found himself with a suitcase and no place to go…

And why? Because of the misplaced belief that God hates queer people. That queer people are not born that way, that they need to change or face the consequences of their sin. The still burgeoning field of “reparative therapy” attests to that, with thousands of people to this day subjected to terrifying experiences, including physical punishment, all trying to win God’s (and parental) love.”

Glitter Is Serious Business: The Story Behind Glitter Ash Wednesday by Marian Edmonds-Allen

“There’s a way Christians could rebuild the cultural power they used to have. It’s simple, really. They just need to use their power for good. Help refugees. Support the poor. Fight for civil rights…

You know: Do all the things that everyone knows Christianity no longer represents.

I won’t hold my breath. If the first month of this administration is any indication of what Christians do when given power, they’re living up to every stereotype their critics have of them. We were right all along.

And we’ll keep fighting until they lose whatever awful influence they have left.”

Despite Having All the Power, Conservative Christians Are Still Pretending To Be Persecuted by Hemant Mehta

 

“What I’m always mystified by, is one: how we evangelicals/christians think we can have (or demand) a laundry list of special privileges/exemptions etc, yet we are a minority who claim to follow a faith/religion that is so at odds (or should be) with the society we live in – yet we expect to carry on as before, unmolested in anyway whatsoever? That’s illogical. That’s never happened before in the history of humankind – yet we act as if it’s our right to be otherwise! If we have any understanding of church history or Scriptures we should know better…and be a lot more grateful about what we do have and less complaining about the few annoyances that come our way…

Second: How we think we can keep getting away with over-hyping and misrepresenting/mischaracterizing (and nearly lying sometimes – a la “death panels”) situations like this and not pay a price? When you cry wolf or in this case “persecution” over and over again; when in relative terms compared to real persecution; it is anything but persecution… Then how do we expect to be taken seriously, EVER!”

source

I’ve been seeing more and more articles, blogs, and social media posts about how people have become more and more uncivilized towards each other. Christians vs. Non-believers, Christians vs. Christians, Democrat vs. Republican, Independent vs. the rest of the system…. my points here will focus on Christians.

Many people are calling for others to stop vilifying and hating those who disagree with them. “We need to stop seeing those on the ‘other’ side of any issue as evil” is something I’ve seen come up often in these past months. I think this is a good point (although bigotry does deserve to be called out). When having discussions with people othering doesn’t usually get anywhere and rarely if ever convinces people to see things from another perspective.

The problem for Christians is that good and evil are the terms we’ve been told to use in how we look at ourselves and the world. Most of the culture war mentality of the 80s and 90s were about fighting evil. This included labeling people we saw as such (sexual deviants and baby killers were a couple descriptors I remember hearing growing up). But now that people want to judge what Christians are doing (in terms of who or what they supported this past election cycle) we hear cries to stop judging and hating. Umm…. which is it? Do only Christians get to pass judgment? Does no one outside our bubble get to hold us accountable for the consequences of our actions?

One problem I’ve consistently seen in (myself) as well as fellow Christians is the idea that since we are right (so we believe) about who we’ve put our faith in that really makes us wiser (and lets be honest… better) than anyone outside our group. And since we hold to our beliefs sincerely (religiously and politically) no one has a right to judge us for them. Except we act like no one else came to their belief system sincerely but we apparently have the right to force our ‘way’ (via laws, ect.) on to those poor ignorant fools who just don’t know any better.

[Here’s a thought church… try actually listening to and engaging with those outside your bubble. I’m trying to do this and while I don’t agree with everything I come across that doesn’t mean I’m not learning something or trying to take seriously how others see me and my fellow Christians.]

Christians help set up the framework of evil vs. good in our country/culture and now that others view some of our choices as potentially being evil we can’t handle being given a taste of the medicine we’ve been insisting others take.

I understand no one lives up to the standards they claim to believe 100%. Yet when those who don’t claim the title Christian can see the obvious discrepancy between what we claim to believe and how we behave we might try considering that we’ve lost the plot (aka the gospel). And maybe we should try practicing  some humility towards those unlike us instead of digging in our heels and refusing to even consider if some of our critics have valid points.

By all means hold to your convictions just stop acting like you and yours are the only group on the planet who has that right. And consider that when someone tells you that what you are saying or doing to them is hurtful you are in fact doing harm regardless of your intentions.

I realize this may get tricky for people who believe the gospel and its truth will be seen as hurtful to those who don’t believe it (though unfortunately some Christians seem to view being offensive and hurtful as something to be proud of and proof that they’re doing something right). But somewhere along the way I think the sick twisting together of nationalism and Christianity has become something that no longer resembles the gospel. And yet we still keep pushing our ideas and conclusions of how we think God wants us to take over the planet via the passing into law of our religious beliefs that we forgot we are supposed to go out and do as Jesus did.

Help, serve, love and get to know those different than you so that so that the church gains back a reputation of doing all these things from a place of genuine care. And if you find you can’t empathize with anyone outside your bubble and belief system consider why that is and whether you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere.

All this to say I totally agree that Christians as well as all Americans no matter their convictions should seek to be civilized in how we engage anyone about the situations of our day. But also try remembering (Christians) that we’ve played a significant part in pushing our country toward incivility.

These are some of the posts I’ve read over the week that made me think and/or taught me something I wasn’t aware of before. Inclusion does not mean full endorsement. (Anything in bold is  something I emphasized)

“In Americanized Christianity we use Christian as a noun when originally, Christian was more of an adjective. It wasn’t so much about something you were, but was more about something you were doing. You were actively living out the teachings of Jesus, and this was easily observable– either you agreed with Jesus and did what he taught, or you didn’t…

…of course, some will ask rightly, “is it your job to decide who is or is not a Christian?”
Since Christian has come to mean something different in Americanized Christianity, these objections are totally valid. Since we are operating in a culture where Christian is a noun, and where anyone can secretly be one regardless of what they think about what Jesus said, I don’t know who is that type of Christian and who isn’t…

But to me, there are only two types of Christian, and the second one– an adjective instead of a noun, is observable. It doesn’t require the ability to judge the individual heart. It is not something that can only be done by a gate-keeper as if they have any power anyway. It is simply the act of returning Christian to an adjective, and being honest in that it does not apply to people don’t want to do what Jesus said to do…”

There’s Only Two Types Of “Christian” (And You Should Be Able To Tell The Difference) by Dr. Benjamin L Corey

“Every time there is a discussion about the role of women in church leadership, someone throws out this verse: I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
1 Timothy 2:12 (NIV)

They usually expect this verse to be a discussion ender. It’s very clear. The Bible says, without any uncertainty, that women are not to teach men, and they are not to have authority over men. They must be quiet. The end.

If your entire Bible is only 1 Timothy 2:12, then this would be correct. However, there are 65 other books in the Bible, and over 30,000 other verses…

There are many other verses and stories of strong women who spoke up, who had authority, who were leaders, whose prayers and words are given the authority of scripture, and who were anything but quiet.

So the next time someone throws out 1 Timothy 2:12, remind them to read the whole Bible.

So You Know One Verse. But Have You Read Your Whole Bible? by Kelly Ladd Bishop

“It’s not that they have been harassed by a rogue police officer — the mistreatment that captures headlines. It’s the thousand other ways they are made to feel criminalized, less than, invisible.

A hotel employee ignored their family at the front desk, only to help a white customer in line behind them. Was he racist, or did he just overlook them? A white guy at the airport rolled over Frances’ foot with his suitcase and refused to apologize. Was he racist, or simply rude? Kids at school joked that their son and other black students looked like a gang. When will it end?

This is the gulf in America that people of color feel every day. Whites live on one side, largely unaware it even exists. Families like the Waterses live on the other, exhausted by racial questions intrinsic in each day, each hour, each minute.”

A black Dallas family ‘did everything America said we should’ but still endures racism daily by Sarah Mervosh

“I know right now why so many of you will feel compelled to make me understand that I’m not talking about you here before you will consider reading further…

We have died for walking with a certain swagger, for reaching for our wallets, for asking for help, for speaking with the wrong tone, for giving a menacing look, for playing our music too loud, for not walking away, for walking away, for marching in peace…

People of color have been begging you to see what you are doing and why. We’ve been begging you to see what you came from and the true legacy you have inherited…

Find yourselves white people. Find yourselves so that you can know what whiteness is. Find yourselves so that you can determine what you want whiteness to be. Find yourselves so that you can stop your loved ones from voting for a definition of whiteness that you no longer want to subscribe to. Find yourselves so that racism no longer surprises you. Find yourselves so that maybe I can try writing fiction for a change.

Find yourselves so that next time you offer up the “white perspective,” you might actually say something that surprises me…

White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves by Ijeoma Oluo

I do not know if or how advocates of a gender revolution would sort out this tension. But perhaps, from a Christian perspective, both Richards and Nef are onto something. Nef is right that a nuanced approach to gender must avoid naïve gender essentialism, where we mistake culturally specific gender expressions for the essence of what it means to be male or female. (Blue is for boys! Pink is for girls!) But Richards is also correct that a strict social constructivism (which sees gender as nothing more than a social construct) misses the way gender seems to be inscribed into the core of who we are…

If this is true, then Christians need to be able to listen patiently and sort through the complicated medical, relational, and theological questions related to intersex and transgender persons. For making something of those gender identities is a communal project that requires the church body to be engaged…”

How Should Christians Navigate the Gender Revolution? by Branson Parler

“First of all, white men will seize upon this to add to their pitifully thin file of actual cases of false allegations, to throw about whenever one of their white faves is accused, screeching that false allegations happen all the time. And yet, at the same time, the allegations will be forgotten, because if false, they do not neatly justify the hysteria against Muslims and refugees. The racist genie is out of the bottle, and all that will be remembered is that brown men did some mass sexual assaults. The specifics, and the fact this may not be true, will be forgotten. White men are capable of holding these two conflicting beliefs simultaneously: they have proved they are capable of believing at the same time that all women are liars, and all Muslims are rapists…”

If the New Year sexual assaults were made up, it reveals ugly truths about what white men believe by stavvers

Ending child marriage should be simple….

Consider Sherry Johnson of Florida, who said she was raped repeatedly as a child and was pregnant by 11, at which time her mother forced her to marry her 20-year-old rapist under Florida’s pregnancy exception in the 1970s.

Additionally, teenage mothers who marry and divorce are more likely to experience economic deprivation and instability than those who do not. If the father wants to co-parent, he can establish paternity and provide insurance and other benefits to the baby without getting married.

Legislators should remember that pregnant teenage girls are at increased risk of forced marriage. They need more protection, not less.”

Why can 12-year-olds still get married in the United States? by Fraidy Reiss

But the Desiring God article about the dangers of superbowl ads doesn’t say anything about sexism at all…

They don’t care what the commercial is actually about. They don’t care whether it presents a healthy view of sexuality where everyone respects each other, or a view where women are public property and don’t make their own choices about sex. In their way of thinking, all that matters is that the ad includes an image of a sexy woman. They don’t look at how other people in the ad treat her; instead, it’s the sexy woman herself who is intrinsically dangerous. Her body is dangerous, and good Christians must not look.”

BREAKING NEWS: Purity Culture Adherents Completely Miss the Point by perfectnumber628 over at Tell Me Why the World is Weird

“And we will keep coming back—because Samir deserves more than our admiration and praise. He deserves a chance at a normal life. He deserves to be happy, whole, and safe.

He deserves a chance to walk normally to school, to play soccer with his friends, and to be back on his feet, standing tall and caring his family…

Because when you look at Samir, you see more than a boy who was traumatized by ISIS. You see a boy who defied hate, who stood up for his grandmother, who deserves to be just a boy again.”

See Beyond Trauma: Meet the Boy Who Stood Up To ISIS by Matthew Willingham

“Confirmation bias happens when we preselect for our attention only those data which support the beliefs we had before we even began our quest to find the truth. As long as we can find quick and easy ways to dismiss and ignore all data which contradict our preconceived ideas, we will find that the remaining “evidence” perfectly supports whatever we thought from the very beginning…

These are the games Christians play, and in order to illustrate what I mean by that I’ll highlight three common claims of the Christian religion and explain the rationalizations that kick in to ensure their confirmation and avoid their falsification…

Does the failure of these promises necessarily mean that all religion is false or that gods cannot exist? No, it doesn’t… And more to the point of this post, the mental gymnastics we put ourselves through to avoid losing faith in them should tell us something about our own lack of objectivity in the matter. We clearly have something to lose, and it clouds our judgment. If we learn nothing else from this, we can at least learn to recognize the games we play.”

Making Your Faith Impossible to Disprove by Neil Carter

“Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than evil. One can protest against evil; it can be unmasked and, if need be, prevented by force. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction, as it makes people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against folly we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use; facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved — indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied, in fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated more cautiously than a scoundrel; we shall never again try to convince a fool by reason, for it is both useless and dangerous.

If we are to deal adequately with folly, we must understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is a moral rather than an intellectual defect. There are people who are mentally agile but foolish, and people who are mentally slow but very far from foolish — a discovery that we make to our surprise as a result of particular situations. We thus get the impression that folly is likely to be, not a congenital defect, but one that is acquired in certain circumstances where people make fools of themselves or allow others to make fools of them. We notice further that this defect is less common in the unsociable and solitary than in individuals or groups that are inclined or condemned to sociability. It seems, then, that folly is a sociological rather than a psychological problem, and that it is a special form of the operation of historical circumstances: on people, a psychological by-product of definite external factors.

If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of humanity; indeed, this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law: the power of some needs the folly of the others. It is not that certain human capacities, intellectual capacities for instance, become stunted or destroyed, but rather that the upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming impression that people are deprived of their independent judgment, and — more or less unconsciously — give up trying to assess the new state of affairs for themselves. The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead us into thinking that they are independent. One feels in fact, when talking to them, that one is dealing, not with the person themselves, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of them. They are under a spell, they are blinded, their very nature is being misused and exploited. Having thus become a passive instrument, the fool will be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. Here lies the danger of diabolical exploitation that can do irreparable damage to human beings.

But at this point it is quite clear, too, that folly can be overcome, not by instruction, but only by an act of liberation; and so we have come to terms with the fact that in the great majority of cases inward liberation must be preceded by outward liberation, and that until that has taken place, we may as well abandon all attempts to convince the fool. In this state of affairs we have to realize why it is no use our trying to find out what “the people” really think, and why the question is so superfluous for the person who thinks and acts responsibly — but always given these particular circumstances. The Bible’s words that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10) tell us that a person’s inward liberation to live a responsible life before God is the only real cure for folly.

But there is some consolation in these thoughts on folly: they in no way justify us in thinking that most people are fools in all circumstances. What will really matter is whether those in power expect more from people’s folly than from their wisdom and independence of mind.”

Came across this excerpt over at Slacktivist but the source is Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison (anything in bold is something I emphasized).

I have recently read the book A God Who Hates by Wafa Sultan but even before reading it I have often thought about the title since hearing about it and it left me with the uncomfortable thought that many (even most?) religions teach that God hates including unfortunately Christianity.

As one blogger I read puts it many Christians believe in a might makes right God. Yet I don’t see that being what Jesus modeled or what God really claims to be about despite my issues with various passages in the Bible that could be used to make the case for that view.

Fact is I can sometimes understand the pull to be an atheist if the alternative is to believe in a hateful god. I mention this just because I sometimes do wonder what’s the point of believing in any god since they all seem to be very picky and are only interested in “saving” their own while happily torturing the rest who didn’t get things figured out in time.

And the sad thing is most Christians are so use to rationalizing the disturbing aspects they’ve been taught about God they don’t realize they are in a similar mindset to other religions out there. Take Islamic terrorists for example. We wonder how they can believe in a God who needs (or straight up orders) terrorist acts to be done in His name not realizing how much those outside our faith see our beliefs in the same way.

Even with claims of Him being loving in this life we don’t bother pretending He will be loving to most people in the next. But thats ok because thats just the justice/wrathful side of God coming out (so the reasoning goes). But how ‘loving’ can He really be if He has chosen to pour out His wrath and judgement on the majority of those He made? Say you have a parent with five kids and he beats three of those children regularly to the point of bruising, bleeding and broken bones. Does he get to call himself loving because he spared two of his children from abuse?

I recently read of a man who could no longer believe in hell after seeing a video of ISIS burning a man alive. Yet most Christians have made peace with the idea that God will torture most of humanity (in a way similar to this) for all of eternity.

Many Christians will simply state that the God of the Bible is a certain way (translation: their personal/theological/denominational understanding) and we must not make Him into whatever we want (into our image so to speak).

But the more I’ve thought about this and considered many of the attitudes and beliefs of Christians I know (including myself here) the more I’m realizing we are already guilty of doing this. Take hell for example. Look at our world with its love of violence and dare I say revenge (particularly in areas of justice) and you’re going to tell me Christians acceptance and sometimes even boastful attitude of certain people “getting whats coming” in hell isn’t a reflection of bloodthirsty, violence loving sinners?

I often think of this quote by Anne Lamott.

” You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

And most Christians have made God in our own image to some degree.

But lets just say for the sake of argument that you really do think that the most objective understanding of God leads to seeing Him as being fine with eternally burning the vast majority of people He created. And lets also say that He can do whatever He want for the simple reason that He is God.

Seems like God is wasting a lot of lives (in regards to potential in this life as we’ll as the next) to prove some sick point about being in charge. As one writer put it we seem to believe in a two faced god.

And yes I’ve read and heard the arguments about freewill, predestination, His sovereignty and the like but it still hasn’t helped me get this idea out of my head: that God, even the one in three persons, hates more than He loves. And this is why I think I will always have questions and doubts.