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{"id":4955,"date":"2016-08-24T07:56:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T11:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/preventingrace\/?p=4955"},"modified":"2016-08-24T07:56:06","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T11:56:06","slug":"in-defense-of-simcha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/preventingrace\/2016\/08\/24\/in-defense-of-simcha\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Simcha"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Not being Roman Catholic, I have no business weighing in on the horrifying (to me) news that Simcha Fisher was this week fired<\/a> from her job at the National Catholic Register. But hey, this is the Internet, so I will anyway.<\/p>\n

First, I don\u2019t have anything to say about the firing of Mark Shea because I have never read him and don\u2019t know what the issues are.<\/p>\n

Second, oh my word! Simcha has been my main stay since the first moment I began to read blogs at all. Her writing, through all these years\u2013and yes you should go read her archives<\/a> from I Have to Sit Down, and read her book<\/a>\u2013gave me hope that having a lot of children was probably worth it, and life didn\u2019t have to be either dull or stupid. The breezy, funny, cutting writing is what makes any kind of life on the Internet worth living.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to my main, if third, point. And that is that I\u2019m grossed out by the alarming broader cultural trend of tribalistic mob-ism and even more sickened that it is making its way, particularly this political season, into the Christian sphere.<\/p>\n

Ever since the foul invention of Twitter we\u2019ve been meandering down this path. You might wake up one morning, in this fair and great land, and have your coffee, and click through the news, and then go off to work, and in the course of your day you might have some kind of thought or opinion that you decide to share with the world. So you say it, right there, online, for all the world to see. And that\u2019s good, see, because human beings communicate and come closer to each other with the use of language. But now, because we\u2019re sinners I guess, and because democracy means having the right kinds<\/i> of speech codes and thoughts and feelings, that little tweet you fling out there had better be the right kind, it better reflect the thoughts and feelings of the prevailing power groups of the day, whoever they are, or guess what, your life has to be over. So in the last couple of years, we\u2019ve had the utter destruction of some notable public lives because they didn\u2019t say and believe the right things. That Mozilla guy, and poor Paula Dean. And lots of others. If you Say the Wrong Thing then Nuts to you.<\/p>\n

This should be alarming for everyone, but particularly for anybody who uses Language. Oh yeah, right, that\u2019s Everybody.<\/p>\n

But see how this foul trend has been creeping into the Christian sphere. The example that leaps to mind for me is the Gospel Coalition\u2019s removal of that dunderheaded Listicle\u2013twenty five ways to be ok with your white daughter marrying a black man. Sure, we all thought she needed more sensitivity training, but taking it down was a bad idea because what happens the next time someone gets mad, and which someone?<\/p>\n

And now that we have Trump, wheeeee. This is going to be great, isn\u2019t it. If you say something nasty about Trump, to some Christians, you might as well pack it in. Except see, both<\/i> candidates are awful, and we should be in a wide open space where everything is fair game.<\/p>\n

The prudish picking up of the skirts and skittering away to faint on your properly appointed ikea fainting couch needs to Go Away. Did someone say something that you disagreed with and you didn\u2019t like it? You should just try to deal. Don\u2019t find a safe space. Don\u2019t rev up your outrage engine so the needle is popping off. Don\u2019t start wildly signaling your virtue and goodness on Facebook and Twitter. Rather than all that, take a deep breath, pause, thank God that we can use words and even use them badly, and go for a walk or something, read a different website.<\/p>\n

I recently asked for suggestions about what I could write about, since I\u2019ve hit a dry spell, and a friend on Facebook said why not Women\u2019s Ordination. And I wanted to say, but didn\u2019t, \u201cbecause I\u2019m a coward.\u201d But I have reason to be a coward because I do not have Approved Thoughts and Feelings about women in ministry. I will deeply anger both right and left and I\u2019m pretty sure that some of those people won\u2019t be able to deal and will rip me to shreds. Do I want to do that to myself? Or do I want to keep trundling around talking about the contents of my cupboards? I think the answer has been pretty obvious up to this moment.<\/p>\n

So, I hope you\u2019ll join me in praying for Simcha, and her family, and for our spineless culture that can\u2019t deal with the minor-est outrage. And maybe go hug someone you hate today, and decide to just forgive them and let them go free, even though they disagree with you.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"