"Talk to me like I'm stupid," Ta-Nehisi Coates says when he asks his readers about things he doesn't understand. Let me borrow that here. Explain this stuff the way you would to someone who can't be assumed to know any of the lingo or the basic ideas involved. Explain it the way you would if you were asked to do so between innings for the fans at a ball game. Or explain it they way you would to a room full of clever junior high students. Read more
For Jennifer LeClaire and for Charisma, sexual abuse in the church and in religious institutions are due to a particular demonic spirit named Jezebel. Literally. Therefore, for LeClaire and for Charisma, the best response to such abuse is spiritual warfare, prayer and exorcism. Read more
They shared a first name, and they were both ordained ministers, but other than that they were polar opposites. They present us with two very different possibilities -- two choices, two options we all have. We can think of them as Fred and Anti-Fred. Read more
I haven't wasted nearly as much time as I'd like to #mcconnelling. "A few choice New York words." Fundamentalists are low church, so don't include wine, incense or vestments in your fundie jokes please. When "mainstream" evangelicals don't call out extremists like Scott Lively, then it's no surprise that such extremists get treated as representatives of mainstream evangelicalism. Read more
Yesterday I did not know that St. Paul and the Broken Bones existed. Today I do. Today is a better day than yesterday. Read more
"Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." Read more
Without stubborn, persistent anger, Tamara Rice says, the sex-abuse scandals at fundamentalist institutions will likely just go away and nothing will change. But we don't have to let that happen. Read more
IFB churches and schools like Pensacola Christian College have tried to withdraw from the world and from "worldliness." They have created a bubble within which they can be sheltered from any "unclean thing" and from the worldly whispers of the world. Within that bubble, they could control the media and the message, insulating and isolating themselves from all outside voices. That used to work pretty well. Read more
The process can begin by creating the kind of community where members feel safe to have an honest, open conversation. That means being a place where anyone can ask questions without the fear that even just asking will get you in trouble. It means being a place where people can challenge and question even the received wisdom of the Required Official Stance on Homosexuality. Read more
Pensacola's response is not unusual. We've seen many other institutions bare their fangs in that very same defensive crouch. We've seen it from dioceses and politicians and football programs. And in almost every case where we've seen this kind of response we've later learned that not only were all the allegations being denied true, but they were only the tip of the iceberg. Read more
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