“We don’t want anyone getting arrested or lashing out in anger. It is your job to keep people calm.” These are the words that a local clergy person shared with me before I traveled to West Florissant Ave. to participate in demonstrations in Ferguson. Throughout the night, clergy consistently congratulated each other that everything seemed to be going according to plan. On multiple occasions, I heard clergy shout down a young person for getting too angry or confrontational. I grew... Read more
I think what’s made Ben’s blog “blow-up” [in a good way] is 1) how incredibly relatable he is and 2) how he addresses heated topics with such a pastoral care. The thing that has surprised me the most about Ben is that he’s a Gordon-Conwell Theological student, and as someone who has an entirely family of men in which has attended Gordon College and/or Gordon-Conwell this was disheartening to hear… but Ben is refreshingly progressive unlike the institution [Gordon-Conwell] which is historically, and quite strongly, affiliated with the conservative... Read more
I’m not sure if religion is the opiate of the masses but I’m convinced that indifference is the opiate to the privileged. It’s the overwhelming discomfortability found in an acknowledgement of our complicity to the oppressed persons reality. To numb ourselves of this pain we willfully ingest this opiate and use it as a coping mechanism escaping to an alternate reality but at the cost of becoming the epitome of indifference and apathy. I’m lead to believe that after years of the westernized church ingesting... Read more
These days there are very few people I engage with on the topic of race that have revealed themselves to be outright ignorant. Last year 90% of the white evangelicals I knew unfriended me after I outed a group of pastor’s for not letting blacks into their bible study. I say that because it was like a blessing in disguise protecting me from having to interact with them on issues they’ll inevitably be insensitive towards. But, although I do not converse with bigots if we lived... Read more
There’s a Martin Luther King Jr. quote being passed around on the internet that reads, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” Alongside this quote I’m seeing other’s post pictures or videos of blacks “looting” in Ferguson, MO. This is seemingly a means of depicting them as if they are the issue. I think that ignorance is just as much of an opiate to the privileged as indifference is. What us privileged folk fail to see is the fact that... Read more
It’s always a pleasure to be on the John and Kathy Show as we might not agree on everything I love the fact that 1) they’re willing to engage on challenging topics and 2) there’s a humility to the both of them, not to sound cheesy but you can tell that they genuinely care about people and benefitting others. On this episode we talked about “The Pastor’s Salary: Should Pastors Make 500k?” Here’s the full length unedited version of their... Read more
Exorcism Ruined by Phone Call… I think this is set up or satire maybe – I honestly don’t know, maybe this is really a pastor getting busted, but the point is made with other money hungry pentecostal types scams like this actually go down (e.g. Benny Hinn) But on the serious side of things my question is this: “If Christian exorcisms, healing, or other so-called miracles are real why are there no videos of them?” Is it not a little bit suspicious that there are... Read more
As someone who tweets on topics having to do with faith, religion, justice, and theology and how they intersect with our way of living, I tend to get a lot of people accusing me of “overgeneralizing.” I don’t know about you, but when it’s on such personal topics dealing with the intersection of race and Christianity it too often feels like accusing someone of overgeneralizing is not only missing the point but successfully showing the person you don’t care about them. Don’t get me wrong there... Read more
I don’t have the strength to perpetually pretend as if I’m someone I’m not. Some say this is courageous but it feels like more of a weakness. Like most, I want to fit in and I want to be liked. The thing is, growing up in white evangelicalism I didn’t fit in, everything including the way I looked to the experiences I had were different. I tried really hard to pretend and warp into who everyone wanted me to be.... Read more
I went back to church this week. It’s been close to a year since I’ve been able to go to church on Sundays. But this week, I went. I probably shouldn’t call it going back, actually, because it was somewhere I’d never been before. But isn’t that sort of how it always is with faith? It’s new and old, mine and ours, holy and plain, all at the same time. It’s comfortable but constantly vulnerable. These rituals are fresh and so old. I’d... Read more
Andy Gill
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