So, OK, the starred-to-read-later folder in my RSS reader is now overflowing with posts and articles and breaking news items that broke months<\/em> ago. Time to clear that out.<\/p>\n The following items may not be hot off the presses, but they may still be of interest \u2026<\/p>\n \u2022 It\u2019s a matter of trust: \u201cEven abortion foes will help friends who choose to end a pregnancy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n They will do this because they know their friends and appreciate that their friends have good, legitimate reasons for their decision. But they want to criminalize that same decision, preventing other people from making it because they do not know those other people and they have chosen to believe that those other people, unlike their friend, must be making their decision based on the worst imaginable motives.<\/p>\n Anti-abortionism is always, always based on bearing false witness against thy neighbor. It is not a position one can arrive at unless one is willing \u2014 and eager \u2014 to presume the very worst about people you otherwise know nothing about.<\/p>\n \u2022 Michel Martin\u2019s NPR segment on \u201cThe Road To Overturning Roe v. Wade<\/a>,\u201d is best read \u2014 or heard \u2014 at NPR\u2019s site, rather than at this summary from Baptist Global News, \u201cKristin Du Mez explains white evangelicals and abortion on NPR show; Ed Young preaches Mother\u2019s Day sermon on abortion<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But I do need to highlight one piece from that BGN item, near the end, in discussing Texas mega-church pastor Ed Young\u2019s abortion-is-worse-than-the-Holocaust diatribe framing himself as the heroic Van Helsing who, alone, stands against the Satanic baby-killers.<\/p>\n Mark Wingfield \u2014 commendably \u2014 fact-checks Young\u2019s most outrageous claims, but in doing so he also shows us why fact-checking alone is insufficient when dealing with \u201cpro-life\u201d fantasists like Young. When Young claims that legal abortion is \u201cgenocide against Blacks,\u201d Wingfield treats this as a face-value claim of Young\u2019s actual, good-faith belief. It\u2019s not that.<\/p>\n This is not a thing that Ed Young or his white parishioners have actually managed to convince themselves is true. It is a mantra they recite, like The One Line They Quote From King\u2019s \u201cDream\u201d Speech, to reassure themselves that Someone Else is the real racists and so, therefore, we could not possibly be on the side of racism, even as we support racist candidates and policies, seek to destroy post-Brown public education, oppose non-white immigration, and preach whole sermons based on the claim that anti-racism and equal justice are an attack on the foundations of their own faith and identity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whenever you encounter this \u201clegal abortion is the real racism\u201d nonsense, you\u2019re not dealing with a good-faith assertion or some simple misunderstanding. You\u2019re not even dealing with someone who\u2019s talking to you<\/em>. They\u2019re talking to themselves, reciting the mantra they hope will silence the nagging voice of their own conscience. Pay no more attention or respect than you would to anyone else you meet who stands, arms wrapped around their sides, gently rocking and murmuring, \u201cBut I can\u2019t<\/em> be the bad guy, I can\u2019t, I can\u2019t, I can\u2019t<\/em> \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cPete Enns Ruins Leviticus<\/a>.\u201d Really though, this podcast episode involves Dr. Enns defending Leviticus from getting ruined by misuse or ignorance. It\u2019s still Leviticus \u2014 still dense and detailed and levitical \u2014 but it\u2019s far more interesting than the impression you may have gotten from some arbitrary clobber-texter or from that one time you resolved to read the whole Bible straight through and got bogged down in this book.<\/p>\n \u2022 David Swartz reflects on \u201cA Tragic Anniversary: The Politics of Jesus Turns Fifty<\/a>.\u201d Like me, I suspect Swartz still has a once-beloved copy of John Howard Yoder\u2019s book somewhere filled with underlining and highlighting and handwritten notes in the margins wrestling with the profound, challenging, life- and faith-changing arguments it contains. And, like me, I suspect that Swartz hasn\u2019t been able to bring himself to touch that book in a long time.<\/p>\n What does it mean that this author turned out to be a monster? The shallow and the self-absorbed flee from this difficult question, turning to shiny distractions like discussions of \u201ccancel culture\u201d and \u201creputation.\u201d But Swartz recognizes that\u2019s not the crucial point here. This is: \u201cYoder\u2019s communitarian ethic of peace failed spectacularly in real life as his local congregation, his seminary employer, and his denomination failed to keep Yoder in check. Decades later, an investigation revealed that over 100 women experienced unwanted violations at conferences, classrooms, retreats, homes, apartments, offices, and parking lots. That Yoder himself could violate an ethic of peace is troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n Compartmentalizing Yoder\u2019s crimes as \u201cpersonal failings\u201d or \u201chypocrisy\u201d is insufficient. Here we have a book that we once believed contained necessary and vitally important insights. But we have since learned that it also very likely contains pernicious, toxic thinking. What do we do with a book that very possibly offers both something we need and something that we need to avoid? Swartz doesn\u2019t know either, but he\u2019s at least asking some of the right questions.<\/p>\n \u2022 Charles McCrary on \u201cThe Supreme Court and the Strange Politics of the \u2018Sincere Believer\u2019<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n The advent of the \u201csincerity test\u201d in the 1940s\u2014according to which courts do not consider whether a claimant\u2019s statements are true, just whether they really believe them\u2014has led to a\u00a0strange and complicated\u00a0politics of sincerity. More and more believers have passed the test, as more and more beliefs have been considered religious. And courts do not subject those beliefs to a test of orthodoxy. One\u2019s beliefs do not have to line up with those of their religious leader or organization. It\u2019s a radically individual standard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2022 Step One of the plan to revitalize sales of the Choco Taco seems to be going well<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 At the time, I wasn\u2019t sure what to make of Mark Heard\u2019s 1987 reinvention as the one-man-band IDEoLA. His one album under that name was a jarring, very \u201980s departure from his earlier acoustic troubadour style, and it seemed like maybe he was better at the old thing than at this new thing. But if that was the break he needed to become the songwriter who went on to produce his final three albums \u2014 Dry Bones Dance, Second Hand,<\/em> and Satellite Sky<\/em> \u2014 then it was worth it.<\/p>\n Oddly, Olivia Newton-John wound up recording a song from that IDEoLA album, \u201cHow to Grow Up Big and Strong<\/a>,\u201d the lyrics of which supplies the title for this post. It\u2019s not my favorite Mark Heard song, nor my favorite Olivia Newton-John recording. I wish she\u2019d recorded more of his stuff. \u201cHouse of Broken Dreams<\/a>,\u201d maybe, or \u201cLove Is Not the Only Thing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But sadly they\u2019re both gone now, so let\u2019s remember both of them with this (which Heard also produced):<\/p>\n