• Apologies for the delay in this week’s Nicolae installment. I picked up a couple of extra nights at the Big Box this week, but I’m hoping to get that posted on Thursday.
• Friday morning the ground around here was covered with what looked like Dippin’ Dots or little styrofoam beads — like someone had ripped open a giant beanbag chair and dumped it over Chester County. There’s a name for that, of course — graupel, or “soft hail.” Weird and kinda cool.
• Dianna E. Anderson offers an encouraging and promising report from the Gay Christian Network conference.
• And, speaking of, I ust got this in the mail: Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity, by Dianna E. Anderson. Looking forward to reading this.
• Amethyst Marie is enjoying Agent Carter. Me too.
• Jamelle Bouie has some smart observations on the purpose and function of a movie like Selma versus the purpose and function of a documentary about the same events: “It’s wrong to treat nonfiction films — even biopics — as documentaries. Instead, it’s better to look at deviations from established history or known facts as creative choices — license in pursuit of art. As viewers, we should be less concerned with fact-checking and more interested in understanding the choices.”
The sound you hear following that is hundreds of biblical studies professors bursting into applause.
• “Erotic Liberty” is, alas, not what it sounds like — it’s not a new reality series from Cinemax exposing the sordid post-curfew nightlife of Jerry Falwell’s flagship fundamentalist university in Virginia. It is, instead, the latest attempt by Southern Baptist Archbishop Al Mohler to create a new anti-gay buzzword. Mohler offers this new buzzword as a trial balloon in a semi-coherent, dishonest column in which he pretends that Atlanta’s ex-fire chief was fired for quoting the Bible rather than for religious harassment — proselytizing on the job and using the power of his office to coerce subordinates into agreeing with his religious views.
If ex-chief Cochran were a devout Muslim who had been distributing his Islamic book to his subordinates, or a Pagan who had been distributing his Pagan tract, or an atheist, or a Scientologist, or a “New Ager,” or anything other than a conservative evangelical culture warrior, then Mohler would be shouting the exact opposite of what he’s shouting in that column.
• And speaking of hypocritically disingenuous, anti-gay princes of the church who love to listen to the sound of their own voices … “It’s an obstinate majesty you have, dear Cardinal,” Mary Valle writes in her capacity as president of the Cardinal Burke Superfan Club.
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