I’ve avoided nearly all hot-button cultural and political topics around here for many years now. And I don’t write screeds about how terrible other people’s theology or morality is. Yet, somehow, the overwhelming majority of people who have responded to my writing are not, shall we say, politically conservative. I used to be conservative, but reading the bible has a funny way of changing that, … Continue reading In Which I Own the Libraturd Title
Sticky post
Sometimes people come to me and say, “Rebecca, you are amazing, wise, funny and smell like flowers and lemon Pledge. Why are you not recognized as the wonder you are by all of humanity near and far?” To which I can only answer, “this is a great mystery to me as well.” The other questions I get asked a lot are: “has everyone lost their … Continue reading Why Have Lunatics Taken Over?
There’s a popular stereotype which says that people who worry about the homeless, racism, poverty and other social ills have soft hearts and squishy heads. Those who do not share their concerns will often accuse them of abandoning logic for emotionalism. Because emotions are for silly women, queers and other people not to be taken seriously, of course. However, my friend Sonya (hi, Sonya!) recently … Continue reading So Much For Soft Hearted and Squishy Headed
Sticky post
Back when I was pregnant with my oldest son, I wound up without a place to live. The counselor at the crisis pregnancy center which was helping me navigate this time reluctantly referred me to a homeless shelter/half-way house for single moms as a last resort. She didn’t come right out and say it, but my sense was that she was none too impressed with … Continue reading The Least Have the Answers
Just for fun, how about I start off the week by pissing everyone off? And what better way to piss everyone off than by talking politics? Specifically abortion and politics. And even more specifically abortion, politics and the faithless Christian response to both. Now there’s a recipe for upsetting everyone! See – we’re having fun already! Almost since Roe v Wade was handed down 40 … Continue reading The Surprising Way Abortion Really is Destroying the Country
Perhaps it’s inevitable, but the older I get, the more radical I seem to be becoming. It all comes from thinking that Jesus really meant all those crazy things he said and, you know, actually wants us to do them. I mean a lot of effort has gone into trying to put the Jesus stamp of approval on the comfortable American dream and a lot of people are happy with the result. But the red letters are still there in the bible. And all it takes is to try to follow a few of them for a person to be changed and their American dream to be upended – or for them to end up with a really screwed up life if you’d rather see it that way. I’m not sure exactly why we are so convinced that a good and comfortable life is what we get when we follow in the footsteps of a man who was tortured, killed, betrayed, abandoned and mocked. It’s a bit of a disconnect to be sure. But then again, who wants a screwed up life? Better to just sign up for your “get out of hell free” card and sit tight ’till you kick the bucket, I suppose.
But anyways, what I was saying – or meant to be saying – was that I’ve become more of a radical as I’ve gotten older. And part of being a radical is that you’re prone to being rather unrealistic. Like maybe you embrace pacifism. Or you decide that you shouldn’t have sex with anyone you’re not in a permanent, covenant relationship with. Or you’re going to take what you need to exist on from your paycheck and turn the rest over to people in need. Or you’re going to forgive and be in relationship with the man who murdered your daughter. Being a radical makes you a bit of a lunatic, really. Continue reading “The Christian’s Role in Society”
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” – 1 Timothy 4:3-4
As a general rule I do my best to adhere to the policy that one ought to promote what one loves rather than bashing what one opposes. But today, I feel the need to warn y’all about the ear ticklers. “Have their ears tickled” was something of an idiom in ancient Rome which meant that a person was listening for things which were pleasing to them rather than the truth. What people looking to have their ears tickled really had a preference for were ideas which were new or novel. Paul warned young Timothy that the day would come when ear ticklers would be all the rage in Christian circles. And people being people, the accusation of tickling ears has probably been thrown around among Christians who disagree with each other ever since.
Now, I must be upfront and let y’all know that I have myself been accused of being an ear tickler on more than one occasion. If you can believe it. And I’ve noticed that whenever I’ve encountered someone warning about ear ticklers, the underlying assumption is always that ear tickling starts with rejecting a wrathful, condemning, harsh God. For some reason these people seem to be under the impression that it is a common problem that human beings would desire a nice, squishy God whose motto is “I’m OK, you’re OK.” Only I’ve yet to see any evidence of any such thing. Just the opposite, in fact. Continue reading “About Those Tickled Ears”
Let me be clear up-front: I do not support a right to abortion on demand. In fact, if I were made ruler of the universe, I would make abortions enormously difficult to get. Because I’m a mean and cruel woman. No, not really – I’m actually very kind and empathetic. But I am in agreement with Mother Theresa: “it is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live”. I don’t think abortion is an answer to what is really a societal failure. I don’t only oppose abortion from a pro-life perspective. I think abortion is bad for women, worse for relations between men and women and displays a level of animosity towards women as they are – people whose bodies can start new life – which is evil and vile. If we have a society where the normal functioning of a woman’s body regularly ruins women’s lives, we’re doing it wrong. And abortion doesn’t do anything to fix that – it simply enables it. Nearly 60% of abortions are influenced by pressure from fathers, husbands, boyfriends or others with power in a woman’s life. That’s not empowering. Nor has ready access to abortion resulted in a world where people who shouldn’t have children don’t as abortion proponents used to argue. Far from it. And yet . . . the issue of abortion has nothing to do with how I vote.
Yes Democrats not only support abortion rights, but celebrate them the way most of us celebrate Grandpa’s 90th birthday. But despite using the abortion issue to garner votes for the last 30 or 40 years, Republicans haven’t and won’t do anything to stop abortion either. Sure, they’ll fiddle around the edges and I’d much rather live in a country where doctors don’t deliver a baby up to its neck before suctioning its brains, crushing its head and completing delivery. But show me one child who is alive today because we banned “intact dilation and extraction”. It’s a symbolic victory at best. The reality is that for all their rhetoric, the Republicans have shown no more willingness to do something about Roe v Wade than their Democratic opponents. If anything, I can at least give the Democrats credit for being honest about their support of abortion as birth control. But voting for someone simply because they claim to be pro-life does nothing what-so-ever to advance pro-life policies. It’s just giving my vote to the person who has set their dog-whistle to the right pitch.
Another reason abortion isn’t a factor in my voting is that abortion is only marginally a legal issue. 1.2 million women have abortions each year. By some estimates, one in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Including a good number of women who are Christian, pro-lifers. That’s a social problem. You don’t fix social problems with laws. Social problems get fixed with people. Continue reading “Why I don’t consider abortion when voting”
So, are you sick of the arguments yet? You know the arguments – Romney vs Obama. “Job Creators” vs Inequality. Creationism vs Evolution. Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life. Old Fashioned vs New Fangled. Text Speak vs Grammar Nazi’s. Toilet Seat Up vs Toilet Seat Down. Whatever it is, if we can figure out two ways of looking at an issue to divide ourselves into, we do it. And then we argue and argue and argue. We refine our arguments and wonder what the hell is wrong with the people who don’t agree with us. But aren’t you sick of it?
I remember years ago an older, wiser friend told me, “arguments don’t work. You never change someone’s mind through arguments.” At the time I was a bit flabbergasted. If we didn’t argue, how would the other person know they were wrong? And if we can’t get everyone pretty much on board, how do we keep the world from going to hell in a hand basket? I mean, what was the alternative?
Of course, today we have reams of research and endless gigabytes of internet conversations to prove that what my friend told me was true: arguments don’t work. They rarely change anyone’s mind. And I think all but the most die-hard believers are starting to get sick of them.
So what is the alternative to argument? Do we just agree to disagree – you have your opinions and I’ll have mine? And what about truth? Aren’t some things just true and shouldn’t we stand up for and advocate for them? If we can’t argue and persuade our way into some consensus about what’s true how can we function together to get anything done? The live and let live concept sounds fine until we need policies to get the economy going or fix serious social problems. Then what? Continue reading ““What is truth?””
I like to say that I grew up in the “Easy Listening” phase of American Roman Catholicism. We sang “On Eagle’s Wings” with a guitar accompanist and hung felt banners around the sanctuary. My cousins attended a church that had alter girls and interpretive dancers. An opera singer who attended our church was sometimes allowed to lead songs and children regularly got smacked in the back of the head for giggling when she stretched to hit really high, screechy notes. Which was better than when her nightclub singer daughter sang and made us all feel like we should go home and shower after watching her squirm around singing about God and love in breathy tones.
Some of my sisters feel strongly that they were damaged by being forced to attend mass each week at this retro-grade institution. But honestly, my memory is of sermons that could basically be summed up as, “kids, listen to your parents and don’t fight with your siblings. And every one needs to stop trying to run each other over in the parking lot after mass.” For me it was about as benign an introduction to Christianity as you could hope for.
Which isn’t to say that it was entirely content free. Like all good Catholic kiddies, I attended catechism classes every Wednesday night for an hour all through grade school. I have an amazing capacity to completely tune out anything that doesn’t catch my interest, so I don’t have any idea what we did each week. But what I do recall is having to memorize things. We memorized prayers like the Our Father, the Nicene Creed and the prayer for confession. We memorized the 10 commandments, the beatitudes and the various works of mercy. It is entirely possible that we actually talked about what these things we were memorizing meant, but again, I wasn’t really paying attention.
The end result was that I couldn’t have told you why Jesus lived and died, but I did know that he told us to love each other and serve those in need. And as much as I love me some good theology, I’d say I got a better religious education than other kids who could explain penal substitution and use “Roman’s Road” to explain (their version of) the gospel. Continue reading “Most Christian’s Opinions Aren’t Worth Two Dead Flies – But That Can Change”
The Upside Down World 