{"id":475,"date":"2012-11-07T16:13:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T23:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drybones\/?p=475"},"modified":"2015-04-03T16:36:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T22:36:08","slug":"learning-to-talk-like-tina-fey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drybones\/2012\/11\/learning-to-talk-like-tina-fey\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Talk Like Tina Fey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Today I read a review of Rachel Held Evans\u2019 A Year of Biblical Womanhood,<\/em> her account of spending a year trying to \u201ctake all of the Bible\u2019s instructions for women as literally as possible.\u201d This has her end up calling her husband \u201cmaster,\u201d keeping her mouth shut in church, and staying in a pup tent during her period. I have not read the book. All this I learn from the back cover.<\/p>\n

I did read the review, though Pastor Guyton, the reviewer, has also not read the book. His article is called \u201cWhy Al Mohler Doesn\u2019t Get Rachel Held Evans<\/a>.\u201d Apparently Guyton does<\/em> get Evans, even though he hasn\u2019t<\/em> read the book. Al Mohler (president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), who has<\/em> apparently read the book, does not <\/em>get her. So there\u2019s lots of ignorance about Evans\u2019 book going around\u2014ignorance and opinions. (They do seem to go hand in hand.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve now said all I can say about Evans\u2019 book, my ignorance and my opinions converging into a dribble. But something in Guyton\u2019s comments caught my eye, particularly in light of my long foray into Trinitarian history and spirituality this year.<\/p>\n

Guyton writes this: \u201cChristians today who want to share the Gospel with any credibility in postmodern culture must learn how to talk like Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, et al.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a big viewer of these celebrities, but my limited experience (see comments above re: ignorance and opinions) has revealed them to be, in turn: clever, shrewd, flippant, crass, hilarious, derisive, vulgar, and completely, always irreverent. Correct me if I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n

Learning to talk like Tina Fey\u2026 How do you really do that, if you want to explore the sacred in a way that leads to transformation? Curiosity and cleverness may lend themselves to absurdity, but desperation never does. Evans\u2019 book may or may not be a gentle poke at the silliness of literal biblical interpretations, but whatever it is, it is not a serious examination of \u201cbiblical womanhood.\u201d Whatever that<\/em> means.<\/p>\n

Guyton tells us Mohler is offended by Evans\u2019 book, and he spends some time speculating that Mohler\u2019s criticisms come from a chronic inability to understand postmodern irony; he further hypothesizes that such \u201ctone deafness\u201d is derived from the fear of losing a Pleasantville version of Christianity. Many evangelicals, he asserts, wallow in Fifties Nostalgia, and long for the picket fence Christianity of former years. Those evangelicals are never going to be able to articulate a message of the gospel that speaks to the postmodern world. In which we all live. Except, apparently, in our imaginations. Where those of us who do not understand Fey-speak want to wear beehives and saddle shoes.<\/p>\n

If we want to be relevant, articulate, and meaningful, we had better get hip. Sassy. Brazen.<\/p>\n

I remember my dad once saying that if he had had a British accent, he would have been a famous preacher. I can fake the accent (badly), but I\u2019ll never be able to do the Fey thing. I do believe, however, that there are seasons in all of our lives when we will want to turn off the show and speak quietly and gently, with humor and authenticity, about the grace and truth that come to us in Jesus Christ. And it has nothing to do with the 1950s.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I read a review of Rachel Held Evans\u2019 A Year of Biblical Womanhood, her account of spending a year trying to \u201ctake all of the Bible\u2019s instructions for women as literally as possible.\u201d This has her end up calling her husband \u201cmaster,\u201d keeping her mouth shut in church, and staying in a pup tent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLearning to Talk Like Tina Fey<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I read a review of Rachel Held Evans\u2019 A Year of Biblical Womanhood, her account of spending a year trying to \u201ctake all of the Bible\u2019s instructions\" \/>\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\/drybones\/2012\/11\/learning-to-talk-like-tina-fey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Learning to Talk Like Tina Fey\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today I read a review of Rachel Held Evans\u2019 A Year of Biblical Womanhood, her account of spending a year trying to \u201ctake all of the Bible\u2019s instructions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drybones\/2012\/11\/learning-to-talk-like-tina-fey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dry Bones\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-07T23:13:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-03T22:36:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"K. 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