The Friday Five: 08/31/12

Okay, so I'm trying a new thing. I'm re-branding This Week In Cool Stuff as The Friday Five. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

So here are my favorite 5 stories/blog posts/crazy crap from the past week:

1. Jessica Bowman talks about her struggle with giving herself grace. Excerpt:

Sometimes I think I’m just beginning to understand the truth that God loves me and to understand the depth and compassion of that love.  I tentatively take the tired and canned phrases of grace and love off the shelf of my theology and shake out the contents to examine them more closely, hold them up to the light.

Boy, do I need help with that one!

2. Kathy Escobar shares five nonviolent ways to help win the war on women. I would post an excerpt, but you're gonna have to check it out for yourself!

3. Nathan Bransford explains the publishing process using GIFs. HI-larious!

4. Shay Kearns shares why he is still a Christian. Excerpt:

I believe that there is something life giving in the Christian story. There are themes of liberation and justice throughout the Scripture, there is a story of a God who is intimately involved with God’s own creation.

There is the incarnation. The story of God becoming human: the story that tells us both our bodies and our spirits have worth and are holy.

I find meaning in Jesus a man who was so wholly in touch with his own divinity and so wholly human. He teaches me that I can find the spirit of God in myself. I believe that Jesus tells us something important about God and what God is like.

(This story is actually from last week, but since I didn't share it last week, I'm sharing it this week.)

5. Finally, Rachel Held Evans gives us "Confessions of an Accidental Feminist:"

It wasn’t a formal feminist education that taught me to be frustrated with gender stereotypes. It was all the women’s Bible studies that focused on domesticity, motherhood, sweetness, and submission, and that thrust upon me flower-speckled books that turned Proverbs 31 into a job description befitting June Cleaver rather than a poem of celebration befitting an ancient Near Eastern royal wife.

It wasn’t a formal feminist education that taught me about rape culture. It was the preachers and evangelists who insinuated that girls who dressed immodestly were “asking for it.” And it wasn’t a formal feminist education that taught me about victim-shaming. It was the response of evangelical leaders who,  when confronted by abuse survivors about troubling language regarding submission and sex, dismissed their concerns as silly, chastising them as “bedwetting feminists,” stirring up division.

So there you have it. My top five stories of the week. Got any you'd like to share?

The August Break: The Kirk Cameron of the '70s

Recently the Friends of the Library put a bunch of their booksale stuff out in my library's lobby as freebies for the public. The freebies included several vinyl LPs, and while browsing through them I found this little gem from Anita Bryant, the Kirk Cameron of the '70s.

The August Break: Moth

Yes, I know I didn't do a This Week In Cool Stuff post last weekend. In fact, I'm not even sure what I'm going to blog about this week! College will do that do you.

I'm sure I'll think of something, though. In the meantime, here's a picture of a cool moth I saw hanging on the wall.

Brief Thoughts On Being Almost 30 - A Video Post

My Official Response to Todd Adkins

I didn't want to say anything at first. Not because I condone Rep. Adkins' "legitimate rape" comments, but because I didn't want to give him more attention than he needs. Nevertheless, I can no longer keep quiet.

So here's what I have to say in response to Adkins:

The August Break: Gersberms!

Gersberms, mah fravrit berks!

This Week In Cool Stuff: 08/18/12

I don't have much to offer this week, unfortunately. But what I do have is pretty cool, I think:

-Emily Timbol shares how Christian homophobia makes her ashamed to be a Christian. She's not the only one!

-She also explains over at Huffington Post how American Christians can't really play the "persecuted" card.

Two awesome posts in one week? That's my girl!

-Amy at A Chase After Wind gives libraries a shout out in The Death of the Book.

In Which I Admit That I Can Be A Real Bastard

(Image from the movie Vanilla Sky.)

Most people who know me think I'm a really sweet guy who cares about other people's feelings. Most of the time that's true. I try to be considerate of others and where they are coming from. I try to choose my words carefully so I won't piss anyone off.

But can I be honest with you? I can be a real bastard sometimes.

For example, this week I had a falling out with a blogging friend, to whom I will refer as simply NC. When I first started reading NC's stuff, I loved her vulnerability and honesty. But as time progressed and I drifted further away from evangelical Christianity, NC's conservative-leaning and often-controversial blog posts got under my skin. This past I found myself telling nearly everyone online how horrible she is, how she represents everything wrong with religion nowadays, etc. Naturally, she was hurt. And part of me liked the fact that she was hurt. I felt avenged for all the pain and spiritual abuse I endured in the past.

But today I realized, "Wait a minute . . . this isn't exactly very Christian of me, is it? In fact, I'm basically doing the same thing all the discernment bloggers and Internet trolls do? How can I praise God's name and condemn NC all in the same breath?"

Anyone who knows me knows I struggle a lot with anger. I always did, even as a child. I used to fly into a rage at the drop of a proverbial dime, and break whatever inanimate object I could get my hands on. Fortunately I've calmed down quite a bit since childhood. But it's still a struggle. Instead of breaking inanimate objects, I now break people's hearts.

I never could grasp the whole "in your anger do not sin" thing. When I'm angry, all I do is sin!


I don't want to deny my feelings, though. Yes, I am angry about a lot of the spiritual abuse I've encountered in the past. But I don't want to spiritually abuse others in the healing process.

How do you manage to be anger without hurting anyone?

*UPDATE 08/18/12: I just sent a few DMs to NC on Twitter apologizing if I came off as more judgmental than assertive ('cause I have a hard time deciphering the difference), and that in this evolutionary stage of my faith a lot of stuff triggers me. So I'm at peace with the whole situation now.

(Un)Organized Religion

(Photo taken my moi, thank you very much.)

 

No doubt most of you remember the "I Hate Religion But Love Jesus" video from a few months back. Most people thought it created a false dichotomy, since Christianity technically is a religion. But I think the video did make a point, because whenever I read about Jesus, and then look at the Church, I think, "What the fuck happened??????"

And the funny part is a lot of the people who claim to "hate religion but love Jesus" eventually end up embracing all the negative aspects of organized religion: dogmatism, hierarchy, patriarchy, fundamentalism, condescending holier-than-thou attitudes, etc.

I've been seeing this a lot lately. For example, there's this one blogger I know (whose name I won't say) whose blog seems to be leaning more towards fundamentalism every day. She used to be very open on her blog about her brokenness and shortcomings. Yet nowadays her blog seems to have an "I'm right, you're wrong, get used to it" vibe. It reminds me way too much of Amanda's family, so I had to stop reading her blog.

Maybe instead of organized religion, we need unorganized religion. We need a religion where . . .

 

. . . we can be open about our shortcomings and failures. 

 

. . . we can be honest about our doubts. confusion, and, yes, anger towards God without having to put on a facade. 

 

. . . love is God's primordial nature, and not just one of God's many aspects. 

 

. . . there is no "us vs. them." There's only "us," period.

 

. . . our beliefs have enough room to evolve

What do you think? Is unorganized religion the answer?

In Which I Take Up Tony Jones' Challenge And Blog About God

A week or so ago, Tony Jones issued a challenge to all progressive bloggers: write a blog post about who/what God is. Sounds simple enough, except for one little thing--God's way too big to describe with our limited language. Nevertheless, here is my attempt.

First, let me start by saying what God is NOT.

God does NOT look like the picture above.

God does NOT hate you, as some Seattle pastor might tell you.

God is NOT the kind of God you have to wind up on Sunday. (And yes, I stole that from a Jethro Tull song!)

God is NOT the kind of God you have to wear a mask around.

Now that we got all that out of the way, let's go back to Tony's original challenge. And I think Orthodox priest Father James Bernstein sums it up perfectly:

First of all: God is love—even before He creates; His love is not just an expression of His will towards creation, or simply an attribute, but rather God loves by nature—because of who He is. Love is intrinsic to His Unknowable Essence.

But how is it that One God, who is perfect and lacks nothing, can be love, when love necessitates a relation to another? The issue of whom God loves before the creation of the universe is resolved in Trinitarian Orthodoxy. God is understood to be not an absolute unity or monad, but a composite unity, a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each Person of the Blessed Trinity is fully divine and for eternity loves the other two. The Trinity is an eternal union of love, existing before the creation of the universe.

This understanding of what God’s love is differs from the predominant non-Orthodox Christian understanding, which tends to see love as a created attribute of God and not essential to His Being or essence. For the Orthodox biblical Christian, God’s love is uncreated. Love, more than any other quality—more than justice, mercy, knowledge, or power—uniquely communicates to us something essential of who God is.

So in other words, love isn't just another one of God's many attributes. God's primordial nature itself is love. And for some reason, a lot of evangelicals forget this. For many evangelicals, God's love comes second to God's holiness and sovereignty. Yes, believe that God is holy, but if God's holiness trumps God's love, then it isn't really love, is it? In order for God to be holy, God's primordial nature has to be love.

How's that, Tony?

(I should point out that I found Fr. Bernstein's quote from Tony's ebook A Better Atonement.)

This Week In Cool Stuff: 08/11/12

Unlike last week, this week's TWICS will have NO mention of A Certain Chicken Chain Restaurant!

-Over at ProBlogger, Anne-Sophie Reinhardt explains how a poor self-perception will kill your blog.

-In "duh, obvious!" news, pop singer and Freddy Mercury wannabe Mika finally comes out of the closet.

-Over at NPR, readers pick their top 100 favorite teen novels. Pros: "Harry Potter," "The Hunger Games," and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." Cons: "Twilight" and "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist."

-In "uh, what?" news, country and gospel singer Randy Travis (no relation to me, of course) was arrested this week for DUI . . . in the nude.

-And finally, Suzannah Paul explains how Christians often use the grace card to silence abuse survivors. Powerful stuff, man!

Travis, the Very Worst Feminist

About seven years ago, my all-time favorite movie was Garden State. I felt like I was Andrew Largeman, Zach Braff's character. I was the emotionally numb twenty-something waiting for life to begin. I was the one waiting for a quirky girl like Sam to come and rescue me from my doldrums. "Finally," I thought, "somebody gets me!"

Seven years later, Amanda and I watched the movie together, and throughout the entire movie I kept thinking, "Man, Sam is such a Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope!"

I mean, I still like Garden State. Just not without discernment, thanks to feminism.

That's the thing about feminism. Once you find out just how male-dominated and heteronormative our society is, you can't look at things the same way again. You realize how many of your favorite movies portray women as either damsels in distress (Disney, I'm talking to you!), prize goals for successful men, or merely helpmates for male protagonists. Not to mention that most of your favorite movies will no doubt fail the Bechdel Test.

And if you're as self-conscious and sensitive as I am, chances are this new information will generate two reactions:

1. Extreme Guilt: "I'm such a horrible person! I'm the worst human being in the world! Now I have to do penance to atone for my patriarchal sins."

2. Extreme Defensiveness: "I'm not a bad person! I'm not one of those people! I don't hate women! I don't make rape jokes! I don't go to strip clubs! Stop judging me!"

Unfortunately, neither response helps anything. Change has to come from a happy medium. So instead of my beating myself up about what I'm doing wrong, I try to let each new piece of information become a learning experience that hopefully will help me grow as a person.

Doubly Blessed - Guest Post on The Good Men Project

The first time I knew something was different about me was when I got a funny feeling while watching Burt Ward as Robin on the old Batman show. There was just something about those little green shorts and his boyish face that made me root for him more than Batman. But I didn’t think anything of it at the time, since I was only four years old.

It wasn’t until I met Anthony in high school that those old feelings came back. He was one of cool kids who dressed in all black, wore eyeliner, listened to Marilyn Manson, and smoked cigarettes in the bathroom. At first we were just friends, but the more I got to know him, the more I looked at him differently than any other guy friend. And that’s when I finally found a name for my feelings: bisexuality.

* * *

Read the rest here!

The August Break: Homebrewed Represent!

Seriously, give the Homebrewed Christianity podcast a listen!

The August Break: Bow Ties Are Cool!

So I'm trying out this thing called The August Break where bloggers post pictures in their blog for the entire month of August. Technically you're supposed to post a picture every day, but I don't think I'm that much of a photographer, so I'll just do it whenever I feel like it.

Anyway, here's today's picture. I found it in the staff parking lot this morning.

Looks very Fifty Shades of Grey, doesn't it?

This Week In Cool Stuff: The Chick-Fil-A Edition

Okay, so I'm sick of hearing about Chick-Fil-A all the time just as much as anyone else. But if this whole debacle has taught us anything (besides the fact that fast food has no business sticking its nose in the same-sex marriage debate), it's that we need to do a better job having a conversation about LGBT rights. So for today's This Week In Cool Stuff, I propose a dialogue featuring several of my favorite blog posts and articles about Chick-Fil-A. Hopefully readers from both sides will have a better understanding of each other.

-First, we have Alise Wright explains that it's not the simple fact that Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-Fil-A, doesn't believe in gay marriage that is so controversial. It's the fact that he has donated money to the Family Research Council, which is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

-Then we have Jonathan Merritt, who, in his now-infamous Atlantic article, questions whether or not boycotting Chick-Fil-A will make things worse for our already-divided nation.

-As the debate grew, Rachel Held Evans offered some words of peace to both sides.

-Sarah Moon asked the pro-Chick-Fil-A side, "Why not also outlaw drunkenness and alcoholism?

-Kimberly Knight shares the pain she felt, as a lesbian, seeing so many show up for Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day.

-Gene Anderson reminds readers that while he is a strong ally for the LGBT community, we've got bigger fish to fry than Chick-Fil-A.

-And finally, as a nice mental break from all of this kerfuffle, here's a picture of a kitten:

The One Thing I Still Believe

(Image found at Janus Head.)

Long time readers no doubt that I've reexamining a lot of my previously held beliefs for the past two years. Christianity, it turns out, is not a set of stagnant beliefs, to quote Doug Pagitt. But there is one belief that I still cling on to. A lot of people think I'm a fool for hanging onto this belief, but no amount of deconstruction can make me shake my belief in . . .


Dialogue.

Not long ago, everyone was talking about the need for peaceful dialogue. After years of fighting and shouting at each other, we realized that we weren't getting anywhere, so we tried dialogue instead. And it worked for the most part. For the first time ever, it seemed like liberals and conservatives could peacefully coexist with each other.

And then, somewhere along the line, we went back to shouting at each other. I guess dialogue got boring after a while.

Now I've been known to get into a few flame wars from time to time, so technically I should be the last person in the world to talk about dialogue. But do you want to know a secret? I really don't like fighting. It sounds strange, but it's true. I don't want to lose my cool and tell someone to kiss my ass. Flame wars depress me. They leave me emotionally drained and sad. If I could, I'd snap my fingers and have everyone see past their differences and see each other as human beings.

But it's not that easy. Dialogue takes time. It takes practice.

I wish I could give everyone a list of ways to keep dialogue alive and peaceful, but I can't. I'm still trying to figure it out myself!

But I do have a few suggestions:

1). Don't automatically assume everything about the other person. Listen to his/her story first. Nine out of then times, you'll find out that your assumptions were wrong!

2). Don't try to engage in dialogue with someone who doesn't want to listen. If he/she just wants to make you look like a fool, shake the dust off your feel and let him/her be.

3). Dialogue does NOT mean automatically agreeing with the other person. You and the other person may find some common ground, but that does NOT mean you have to agree with everything he/she says.

Any other suggestions?