Moving quickly to resolve this unfortunate situation

Last updated on: September 14, 2012 at 9:10 am By Fred Clark

• Sometimes “fact-checking” political claims involves research. Sometimes it just involves remembering. 2008 wasn’t that long ago. • Fact-checking David Barton is sometimes like “sword drills” from Sunday school. Just look up the Bible verses and you’ll see that they don’t say what he says they say. • Paul Krugman stares down Paul Ryan. Krugman “Blinks”. Geek worlds collide. • Mrs. Dushku is keeping the Faith. • U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., is like a Republican Cory Booker. Well done,... Read more

Musical mendacity

Last updated on: September 14, 2012 at 1:15 am By Fred Clark

It’s time to stop pretending things are real “Another Good Lie,” Mark Heard “Asking Me Lies,” The Replacements “Counterfeit King,” Randy Stonehill “He Lied About Death,” Stars “Hips Don’t Lie,” Shakira (feat. Wyclef Jean) “How Much I Lied,” Elvis Costello “The Lie and How We Told It,” Yo La Tengo “Lie to Me,” Tom Waits “Lisa Lies,” After Eleven “Perfidia,” Glenn Miller “Tell Me a Lie,” Griffin House “Terrible Lie,” Nine Inch Nails “That Was a Lie,” Sharleen Spiteri “Ticket... Read more

But if homosexuality isn’t ‘objectively immoral,’ then Anything Goes …

Last updated on: September 13, 2012 at 1:57 pm By Fred Clark

One of the most common and most popular objections that arises whenever anyone acknowledges that homosexuality is not “objectively immoral” is the argument that somehow this means that “anything goes.” “If we start affirming then all of morality goes right out the window. If we don’t say that gayness is objectively immoral, then the world has gone mad today and good’s bad today and black’s white today and day’s night today …” Et cetera. I do not understand this argument.... Read more

Smart people saying smart things

Last updated on: September 12, 2012 at 11:57 pm By Fred Clark

Jeremiah Goulka: “Joining the Reality-Based Community” My old Republican worldview was flawed because it was based upon a small and particularly rosy sliver of reality. To preserve that worldview, I had to believe that people had morally earned their “just” desserts, and I had to ignore those whining liberals who tried to point out that the world didn’t actually work that way. I think this shows why Republicans put so much effort into “creat[ing] our own reality,” into fostering distrust... Read more

Costly discipleship in the discount bin

Last updated on: September 12, 2012 at 9:11 pm By Fred Clark

The latest poll from Southern Baptist-related LifeWay Research includes one self-reported response that strikes me as dubious. The poll found that “higher levels of Bible engagement were correlated to six actions,” including: Making a decision to obey or follow God with an awareness that choosing to do so might be costly. (63% of churchgoers say they have at least once in the last six months.) “Costly” is, of course, a rather squishy term. It might refer to great cost, or... Read more

Just don’t throw it at me

Last updated on: September 12, 2012 at 4:08 pm By Fred Clark

“Hostility doesn’t begin when we encounter the other. It begins when we’re gathered together among us.” “The oldest trick in the fundamentalist playbook is to mobilize violence against some insult to the faith.” “There’s not much question about the mutual support society that’s long operated between Muslim-haters and radical Islamists who share a vast stake in escalated hostilities.” “This image — a Buddhist monk riding on the back of a Catholic priest’s bike — has stuck with me.” “Crass, undignified... Read more

What if I’m wrong about the clobber verses?

Last updated on: September 12, 2012 at 11:34 am By Fred Clark

Excellent question. “What if you’re wrong?” is always an excellent question and I’m grateful to my inquisitors and critics for making sure I never forget it. Even if I don’t always enjoy the tone of their full expression of this question, I thank them for the helpful reminder that I always might be wrong. That’s the constructive aspect of this challenge, which comes up every time I discuss this topic of LGBT people and the church or make an argument... Read more

The clobber verses vs. ‘the only thing that counts’

Last updated on: September 11, 2012 at 3:46 pm By Fred Clark

I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves! For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” — Galatians 5:12-14 So, yes, the anti-gay clobber verses are there, in the Bible. Open the Christian scriptures and, if you know where to look,... Read more

But what about all those anti-gay clobber verses?

Last updated on: September 11, 2012 at 12:35 pm By Fred Clark

“I do not believe that homosexuality is objectively immoral,” I wrote the other day. Again. This horrifies many of my fellow evangelicals — not solely because they are anti-gay, but largely because they are pro-Bible. That notion of “objective immorality” is tied up with the need or desire to turn to the Bible for “objective” standards of morality — for rules. If we cannot turn to the Bible for objective rules, then we’re left without a rulebook, and how can... Read more

‘The visible symbol of aspiration and faith’

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 7:45 pm By Fred Clark

“110 Stories” by John M. Ford. This should be read at least once a year. A snippet: Hands rise to heaven as asbestos falls. The air is yellow, hideously thick. A photo, private once, on fifty walls. A candle in a teacup on a brick. And so should this: E.B. White, “Here Is New York,” 1948. The subtlest change in New York is something that people don’t speak much about but that is in everyone’s mind. The city, for the... Read more

Which book of the Bible is known as the 'Book of Wisdom'?