With the rejection of Syrian refugees becoming an ugly political issue for Republican presidential candidates, and with those same candidates campaigning in and around Elkader, Iowa, it seems like a good time to revisit the story of the man that city is named after. This story has something to teach all of us about protecting and sheltering refugees. It's something those candidates desperately need to learn. Read more
Advent hymns aren't about angels on high singing gloria in excelsis. They're more about whatever those shepherds were singing before the angels interrupted. Advent songs are about waiting for that interruption -- longing for it even if we're not really sure what it is we're waiting and longing for. Read more
But this church-y interest has relatively little influence within or over white evangelicalism as a whole. Its concerns are usually drowned out by the far-louder voices from the much larger platforms of the direct-mail fundraising industry and the donor-devoted institutions. And both of those factions are inextricably linked to Republican politics and thus, in 2015, to being predominantly and almost exclusively white. Read more
Today is the birthday of Samuel Clemens and the Feast Day of St. Huckleberry. We celebrate that occasion around here by re-reading this. If you want to know what I believe about conversion, salvation, and what it means to be "born again," and what ought to happen after that, this will show you. It's all right here, whole hog. Read more
"When a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married, and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. But if her father refuses to give her to him, he shall pay an amount equal to the bride-price for virgins." Read more
Every once in a while, some disturbed person absorbs the language and logic of white evangelicalism's Satanic baby-killer fantasies and, not realizing it's all a disingenuous game, acts on it. "Pro-life" evangelicals are then forced to condemn that person's actions in an awkward dance that forces them to admit, at least implicitly, that they do not take their own words and arguments seriously. Read more
Restocking the shelves at the Big Box doesn't fully occupy one's mind, giving me plenty of time to meditate on the meaning of the songs being piped in on the store's music service. Maybe too much time. Herein I ponder if there is any way to redeem the lyrics to the BeeGees' "More Than a Woman" and attempt to identify the shifting antecedents in the Little River Band's "Lonesome Loser." Read more
We could just file this under Bad Writing, but it's more than that. The self-centered, sociopathic lack of empathy displayed by Rayford and Buck is held up as model behavior. By implicit example, and sometimes more explicitly, this book is trying to teach its readers that Other People do not matter. Read more
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for commenting here -- for sharing jokes and encouragement, kitten pics, and the insights and criticisms that help me learn and keep me honest. Thank you for sharing, liking, retweeting and linking. Thank you for reading ebooks and posting reviews. Thank you for donating to the tip jar. Thank you for sticking up for one another, for bearing one another's burdens, rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn. Read more
The National Association of Evangelicals invites you to bow down and worship the "highest authority." No, not God, silly. The Bible -- the "highest authority" before which even White Jesus must kneel in submission. Read more
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