This Week In Cool Stuff: 06/30/12

-Jason Wert says that it's time for America to get intolerant. Now, before you jump to conclusions, read it first. Trust me, it's not what you think!

-Terry Smith gave us not one but two awesome blog posts this week: I Am Not A Free Man and The Idolatry of the Pursuit of Happiness. Seriously, check this guy out!

-Peter Rollins shows how focusing too much on Jesus' ethics can easily lead to legalism.

-Alise Wright explains why, despite being horribly written, Fifty Shades of Grey is so popular:

We’ve grown weary of the story that has us as mere observers of our sexuality, we want to be full participants. We want to know that it’s okay to want to orgasm every time (or, you know, more). We want to know that it’s okay to have physical desires that aren’t just about intimacy or romance. We want to know that we have power over our own sexuality. We want to know that it’s okay to want to fuck.

I tried reading Fifty Shades of Grey once, but couldn't get past the first two pages. It's basically Twilight for grown-ups.

-And finally, normally I hate both dubstep and Pentecostalism, but when put together it's pretty funny!

Fragile Faith - A Guest Post by Sarah Moon

Last week I wrote a guest post for my friend Sarah Moon. Today she returns the favor. Enjoy!


When I started blogging a couple of years ago, it was because I had questions, and no one wanted me to ask them, and I wondered, “why?” Why were my fellow Christians so afraid of the questions I was asking?

At first I thought it was me. I thought I was startling people with my questions because they were afraid I had “gone off the deep end.: When I saw the looks of shock, dropped jaws, when I heard the stutters and then the scrambles to provide me with pat answers, I thought I was doing something wrong.

But now I know better.

Those Christians weren’t afraid for me. They were afraid for themselves.

See, Christian culture (at least, the parts of it that are afraid of questions) has fragile faith and it’s our own fault. We hide our faith away in a sterilized environment, sheltered from all the “diseases” of the world. We think this will make it strong, but in actuality, it makes our faith sickly and vulnerable. Questions become threats that could wipe out its existence.

We use trite phrases like, “love the sinner, hate the sin,” or, “God’s ways are not man’s ways,” or “The Bible is clear…” to shut down conversations.

We cling to fallacies and derailing techniques, using them as weapons against anything we perceive to be intruding on our beliefs.

 We paint those who question as weak in the faith, as bitter rebels who are trying to pick fruitless arguments, or even as messengers of Satan sent to destroy us.

It’s because we’ve sheltered our faith so much that it is weak and we are afraid that if we let the questions in, our faith will shatter. And you know what? We’re probably right.

If our faith is at the point where it is not truly living, but a vegetable that can’t survive without a constant connection to the things that we’ve always “known” to be true, maybe it’s time to pull the plug. Maybe it’s time to let our sickly faith die in peace.

If we are so afraid of questions that we can’t help people who need our help and love people who need our love, then our faith isn’t really alive anymore anyway.

But, as I learned when I finally let questions into my life, sometimes when you let your faith die, you find it again. Sometimes, when your fragile faith crumbles away, you dust away the debris and find a small remnant of life and strength that you forgot was there.

Sometimes your faith has to die so that it can live.

This Week In Cool Stuff: 06/23/12

-Probably the biggest news this week in the religion blogosphere is that atheist blogger Leah Libresco of Unequally Yoked is now a Catholic.

-The second biggest news was another Mars Hill refugee tells her story on Matthew Paul Turner's blog. But since I vowed never to speak of You-Know-Who anymore, we can just skip right past this.

-Also on Turner's blog, he shares sixteen truths he has learned about fatherhood.

-Over at Provoketive Magazine, my friend Terry Smith writes about The Van, where he collects clothes for the homeless.

-Amy Julia Becker at Thin Places writes about giving her children enough room to explore their faith, even if they walk away from it. Excerpt:

My goal is not to dictate what they believe or to think that if we do it right they will conform to our desires. I just want to lay out a net for them, in hopes that later in life, when they discover suffering or betrayal or heartache, they will have a safe place to fall. When they find themselves in need, when they find themselves in pain, when they feel that their life is falling part, I pray that they will land in the arms of a God who has and does and will love them. Who is their shelter. Who knows their name.

-I wasn't the only one to write a guest post for Sarah Moon this week. Her boyfriend Abe writes about how he has a wonderful father, even if he is an atheist.

-Over at Huffington Post, Emily Timbol explains why she won't be going to her high school reunion:

Most importantly, though, I have no desire to relive my high school days. Not because they were especially painful or hard, but unlike the "cool" kids planning the reunion, these were hardly my glory days. For them, what was four years of fun was for me, four years of discovery. Learning what it meant to accept that I'd never be "the hot girl" or the "cool girl," but the "smart" girl (and occasionally the "funny" girl). I'm grateful for that period of self-acceptance now, but those aren't the types of memories one wants to hash out over a fruit and cheese plate.

Can We All Get Along?

Last night I was just about to put in a Doctor Who DVD when a documentary on Vh1 called Uprising: Hip-Hop and the LA Riots caught my eye. I had seen bits and pieces of news footage of the Rodney King beating and the riots, so I knew about it. However, I never knew the details until last night.

And I’m still processing it.

The documentary takes the viewer behind the news footage and shows footage shot by the people that were there. It’s hard to watch because it’s so brutal. Not just with the graphic violence, but also all of the anger and frustration coming out of the community. After the Rodney King verdict, non-violent resistance was the last thing on their minds!

Now I was only nine years old when the riots happened, and it was all on the opposite side of the country. But I wonder what I would do if something like that happened near me. Would I try to encourage the community to protest nonviolently? What can you say when, instead of beating swords into plowshares, people are sharpening them?

One thing that stood out to me is that, according to the documentary, the media couldn’t understand why the reaction was so violent. I don’t know why, because it seems pretty easy to me: violence begets violence. One party hits another party, then the second party retaliates, and it keeps going back and forth until the end of time. Somebody’s gotta break the cycle, or else we’re gonna blow ourselves up!

Will we ever have another riot like the one in LA twenty years ago? I hope not, but it’s possible. Can we prevent another riot? Perhaps, but it’s going to take a lot for work. Breaking a world-wide violent cycle that’s been going on since the beginning doesn’t just happen overnight! But hopefully someday we can all get along.

Why I Believe (By Someone Who Shouldn't) -- Guest Post Over At Sarah Moon's Blog

Today I have the privilege of writing a guest post for my friend Sarah Moon.

It's called "Why I Believe (By Someone Who Shouldn't)" and you can find it here.

This Week In Cool Stuff: 06/16/12

Sorry this is late. I need a better way to manage my time.

Anyway, here are this week's cool links:

-Drew Tatusko ask what a white, privileged male should do in the face of injustice:

I no longer see myself having a unique role with those in the LGBT community, people of color, the economically disadvantaged, women, and others. I used to think that I had a unique role because I had something to say. Much of what I had to say was out of pure self-centeredness. I wanted attention. I had the arrogance to believe that I was entitled to be heard among those who our society has done its best to silence mainly from direct actions taken by men who share much of my own social standing. Some of my friends call this “terminal uniqueness.”

 -Bo Sanders at Homebrewed Christianity explains why we need to believe in a different story if we want to save the world:

Because christian humans live by the wrong narrative, we behave as a cancer on the planet. In increasing size and exponential growth we consume at greater and greater levels, consuming the very body that gives host to our existence. At some point, the cancer ends up compromising the functions (organs) that give life to the organism in which it lives. Death ensues. We are not worried about because we think Jesus is coming back soon – it is the end times after all (a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I saw one).

 -And finally, over at the Huffington Post, new research suggests that homosexuality in men occurs more in bigger families than smaller ones:

For several years, studies led by Andrea Camperio Ciani at the University of Padova in Italy and others have found that mothers and maternal aunts of gay men tend to have significantly more offspring than the maternal relatives of straight men. The results show strong support for the "balancing selection hypothesis," which is fast becoming the accepted theory of the genetic basis of male homosexuality.

The theory holds that the same genetic factors that induce gayness in males also promote fecundity (high reproductive success) in those males' female maternal relatives. Through this trade-off, the maternal relatives' "gay man genes," though they aren't expressed as such, tend to get passed to future generations in spite of their tendency to make their male inheritors gay.

Dear American Church: We Need To Talk

(Photo found at Barbsnow.net)

Dear American Church,

Hi, how are you? It's been a while since we last talked. How's Vacation Bible School coming along? This will be my first year volunteering, so I'm excited!

Listen, uh, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but we need to talk.

It's no secret that you're not doing so well these days. It seems like everyday I read a new story about how more and more young people are leaving you. In fact, if I can be frank, I've come pretty close to doing the same. I feel like you just can't keep up, and you don't know what to do with yourself.

That's why I'm writing you this letter. I think you can do better. You just need some help figuring out how.

Now this is just one person's opinion, so don't take my word as gospel (forgive the pun). But I figure since I am technically a part of you, my opinion's just as valid as the next person's.

First, let me tell you what I don't need from you:

1. I don't need any more fancy-schmancy-mega-church-big-stage-full-scale-production worship services. I know you thought they made you look hip and cool for the young people, but honestly they make you look stupid. If I wanted to see a big production, I would go see a movie.

2. I don't need any more rigid doctrine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-doctrine or anything like that. But too much doctrine takes all the mystery and discovery out of the Gospel. That stuff might work for the Calvinists, but to me it's just putting God in a tiny box.

Now here's what I do need: God's love.

That's the whole reason why I haven't left you. I've seen God's love shine in you and through you many times, so I know that you have the ability to show God's love to the world. You just have trouble expressing that love.

And unfortunately I can't give you a list of things to do in order to let God's love shine through you. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out how to let God's love shine through me! So maybe we can work on it together. What do you say?

Your friend,

Travis

This Week In Cool Stuff: 06/09/12

-As I wrote last week, Rachel Held Evans is hosting a Week of Mutuality synchroblog, which focuses on egalitarianism in the Church. There were a lot of good blog posts, so it was hard to pick which ones to include for this week. But for starters, here is Rachel's husband Dan talking about how they share the household roles. Excerpt:

When I’m working on a film project, who’s taking the supporting role and feeding everyone? Rachel. When I took a year to buy, renovate and sell an investment property, who supported me throughout? Rachel. When Rachel’s working to finish a writing project by deadline, who’s supporting her by keeping the house clean and the laundry done? Me. Our life decisions are made in tandem. We’re the ones leading our lives. We aren't battling over who's leading who.

-Likewise, Sarah Moon says it's time to reclaim complementarianism from patriarchy.

-The Huffington Post lists the ten books every American needs to read. (I've only read two.)

-Speaking of which, my friend Emily Timbol writes her first HuffPo article!

-Derek Webb recently teamed up with his co-producer Josh Moore and Autumn Film lead singer Latifah Phillips for a new music project called SOLA-MI. You can download their soundtrack to the upcoming movie Nexus for free on their website. If you like Webb's electronic stuff, you should check it out!

-And finally, one of my all-time favorite books The Perks of Being a Wallflower is being made into a movie, and judging by the trailer it's going to be awesome!

Jesus In Drag, Gentleman's Agreement, and Privilege (Oh My!)

Timothy Kurek recently released the trailer for his upcoming memoir, Jesus in Drag. In it, Kurek, a straight man, identifies himself as gay in order to experience first-hand what it's like to be a second-class citizen.

Think of it has an LGBT version of the Gregory Peck film Gentleman's Agreement, where Peck's character, a Gentile journalist, identifies himself as Jewish in order to expose antisemitism in America.

And if I can be honest with you, I have mixed feelings about this. In fact, I have mixed feelings about the whole idea of some one with privilege identifying him/herself as someone under-privileged.

Now before I begin, I want to make two things clear:

1). This is NOT a personal attack on Tim. He's one of my Facebook friends, and he seems like a cool guy, even though I've never had a one-on-one conversation with him.

2). "Privilege" does NOT always mean you deliberately participate in injustice. In fact, most of the time, we inadvertently participate in global injustice. As Americans, we live on land that technically belongs to some one else.

3). When I say "privilege," I mean that with the way this world operates, some people have an unfair advantage over others because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. In fact, people who are under-privileged in some areas are privileged in others. For example, as a bisexual man I cannot hold my boyfriend's hand in public without the possibility of being attacked. However, as a white man I will never look suspicious in a hoodie. As a male, I'll never know what it's like to have people shout crude things to me as I walk down the street. As a cisgender man, I can use a public men's room without any discomfort (unless it's really stinky).

Now that we got all that out of the way, let's get back to my original point.

Tim makes a good point in this video: you can never know a person unless you've walked a mile in his/her shoes. And if this experience opened Tim's eyes and inspired him to work along side of the LGBTQ community for justice, then that's awesome! Lord knows we need all the help we can get.

And yet, when the experiment was all over, Tim was able to go back to identifying himself as straight. At the end of Gentleman's Agreement, Peck's character was able to identify himself as a Gentile again. At the end of Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin was able to take off the make up and identify himself as white again. I, on the other hand, am unable to return to any sort of "normal" life. I don't really know how else to explain it. I just feel uncomfortable with the idea of a privileged person being able to temporarily identify him/herself as someone without privilege. Perhaps one of my friends can help me put words to this uneasy feeling.

So now I turn it over to you, dear reader.

What do you think? Do you think social experiments like Jesus In Drag and Black Like Me work? Or do they only make things worse?

Revolutionary Subordination #mutuality2012

This is my contribution to my friend Rachel Held Evans' One in Christ: A Week in Mutuality synchroblog.

I have to be honest: I have a love/hate relationship with Paul. I know it's cliched, but it's true. When he writes about how we are saved by grace and not be religious duties, I'm all gung-ho. Ditto on the whole "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female" thing. But when he gets to homosexuality and gender roles . . . well, you get the idea.

In chapter nine of The Politics of Jesus, however, John Howard Yoder explains how the biblical household precepts--or the Haustafeln--are actually pretty radical.

Many scholars believe that the Haustafeln in Colossians 3:18-4:10 and Ephesians 5:21-6:9 actually comes from Stoicism, a Hellenistic school of Greek philosophy. It was the early Church's way of determining how to apply Jesus' teachings to the home. That would explain why the New Testament suddenly goes from Jesus' radical teachings to a domesticated pro-status quo message.

Yoder, however, doesn't buy that theory, because there are several noticeable differences between Stoicism and the biblical text. I don't have time to go into all the differences, so for this blog entry I'll focus on the two main points (or at least what I believe are the two main points):

1). Stoicism's household rules are aimed at the dominant party alone, while the Bible addresses the subjects first before the dominant. Look at Ephesians again. Notice how it addresses wives before husbands, or slaves before masters?

2). Not only does it call the subjects to be subordinate, but also the dominant party. The Bible not only gives instructions to wives, slaves, and children, but also calls for husbands, slave masters, and parents to love their subjects.

So what does this mean? Well, as Yoder writes:

[Jesus'] motto of revolutionary subordination, of willing servanthood in the place of domination, enables the person in a subordinate position in society to accept and live within the status without resentment, at the same time that it calls upon the person in the superordinate position to forsake or renounce all domineering use of their status (186).

In other words, there is no longer a dominant partner and a subordinate subject in any human relationship. Both parties serve one another.

I know that I've written about this before countless times, so I'm sure I sound like a parrot. But I feel like a lot of Christians still just don't get it. The Christian life is about loving people the way Jesus loves us. And how does he loves us? He "gave himself up for us" (Ephesians 5:2). Therefore, all of us--men and women--are equally called to give ourselves up for others. Key word: equally.

This Week In Cool Stuff: 06/02/12

-The Daily Beast has a map of all the recent cannibalism/possible zombie apocalypse related news stories. I think it's time for one big collective, "Oh sh*t!"

-Christian Zabriskie at Huffington Post spells out the biggest threat to public libraries:

Google has not killed the library and ebooks won't do it either. The biggest threat to the public library in American culture is limited hours. In the new budget reality if libraries are forced to dramatically decrease their hours then they will be drastically reduced in their ability to serve their public. 

-I don't always read The Friendly Atheist, but this week Hemant Mehta did give some good advice to high school graduates.

-Matthew Paul Turner calls out evangelical leaders for not speaking up about the recent tide of anti-gay hate speech in the Church.

-And finally, Rachel Held Evans announced the launch of One in Christ week on her blog, starting on June 4th.