Always Interesting...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My essay \u201cChristian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things\u201d on Patheos certainly sparked a lot of interest, views, and social shares.\u00a0 I don\u2019t normally\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Always Interesting...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My essay \u201cChristian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things\u201d on Patheos certainly sparked a lot of interest, views, and social shares.\u00a0 I don\u2019t normally\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Divergence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-08-02T23:21:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@darrelllackey1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/\",\"name\":\"Always Interesting...\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-08-02T23:21:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-02T23:21:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/d88a32b8d4b5f40fbd6ccbfce4e0f813\"},\"description\":\"My essay \u201cChristian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things\u201d on Patheos certainly sparked a lot of interest, views, and social shares.\u00a0 I don\u2019t normally\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Always Interesting…\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\",\"name\":\"Divergence\",\"description\":\"Commentary Regarding Fundamentalism - Evangelicalism\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/d88a32b8d4b5f40fbd6ccbfce4e0f813\",\"name\":\"Darrell Lackey\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/333bbffd8a9f931197abc00b19242031?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/333bbffd8a9f931197abc00b19242031?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Darrell Lackey\"},\"description\":\"Darrell Lackey has served as a lead pastor and currently works in the private sector. 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{"id":199,"date":"2017-08-02T23:21:13","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T23:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/divergence.blog\/?p=199"},"modified":"2017-08-02T23:21:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-02T23:21:13","slug":"always-interesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2017\/08\/02\/always-interesting\/","title":{"rendered":"Always Interesting…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

My essay \u201cChristian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things<\/a>\u201d on Patheos certainly sparked a lot of interest, views, and social shares.\u00a0 I don\u2019t normally respond to the comment section on Patheos as it usually ends up being counter-productive (from what I can tell when other authors have done so) and can end up in a time-wasting back-and-forth.\u00a0 And, frankly, I just don\u2019t have the time to respond when there are over 800 comments.\u00a0 So, I like to let my words on Patheos stand for themselves and let the conversation\/comments go where it will without my responding (I am much more free to respond here on my own blog and will try to do so for most my posts).\u00a0 I\u2019m certainly aware people will sometimes like, dislike, love, hate, be indifferent to, or misunderstand my writing.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

Still, in this space, I\u2019m going to take the time and respond to the two most significant misunderstandings I see in the comment section to that essay since it has now been viewed and shared by so many.<\/p>\n

The first misunderstanding had to do with this paragraph:<\/p>\n

If you become upset when you see people smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, but you are less upset when you see people over-eating, knowing the health effects of such, or wasting food, knowing that people go to bed hungry every night: You are upset about the wrong things.<\/em><\/p>\n

Several of those commenting thought I was shaming or criticizing people who are over-weight or struggle in that area.\u00a0 I was not.\u00a0 What I was trying to communicate there had nothing to do with being over-weight, fat, or weight issues at all.\u00a0 In fact, what I note in that paragraph would apply to skinny people, slightly over-weight people, or any weight, body-shape, one cares to name.\u00a0 Some of you will note that in the same essay published here on my blog, I inserted the word \u201cgluttony.\u201d\u00a0 My point was that (regardless of weight or body size\/shape), one has no business eating to excess (gluttony) or wasting food, when people go hungry each night, while at the same time being more upset with people who smoke or drink alcohol.\u00a0 And obviously I didn\u2019t mean people who drink and drive\u2014I meant simply what I wrote\u2014people who drink alcohol.\u00a0 This misunderstanding is a classic example of \u201creading into\u201d rather than taking the writer at his word.<\/p>\n

Just to be clear: That paragraph\/passage had nothing to do with shaming or criticizing people who are obese, over-weight, or struggle with weight issues.\u00a0 Gluttony is a human sin problem, not a physical\/weight problem. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The second misunderstanding is the idea the main point of the essay was to criticize fundamentalist Christians who don\u2019t do enough about poverty or starving children.\u00a0 This misunderstanding is just a reading comprehension issue I think.\u00a0 To think that is what I was doing is to totally misunderstand the essay.\u00a0 The essay had nothing to do with that idea.\u00a0 Zero.\u00a0 I really want to believe those people didn\u2019t read the entire essay and that is the only way, I would hope, one could come away with such a mistaken reading.\u00a0 The essay has nothing to do with the fundamentalist Christian response to poverty or starving children beyond moving us to the main point (and Campolo does it brilliantly), which is, making us think about what it is we should truly be upset about over and above the things we are commonly told we should be upset about\u2014from Christian fundamentalists.<\/p>\n

So, I hope that clears things up a bit and speaks to those two misunderstandings.<\/p>\n

I should also note that many others who commented, in response to the noted misunderstandings, very nicely made the same points I do above, and for that, I am grateful.\u00a0 I think the great majority understood the point of the essay and that gives me some satisfaction, knowing as well, there is always room to improve as a communicator.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"