Bringing up topics like intersectionality and everything that entails can with kids can be uncomfortable. Especially when you come from a fundie background where those kinds of things aren’t talked about at all. There’s no line for to follow for where the boundaries are. What’s appropriate and what’s not. Do I really show them this video that highlights sexism? But we make the road by walking. So I just dove head first into this with my teens yesterday. We... Read more
“God is the God of woman every bit as fiercely as God is the God of man.” ~ Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior I have learned to become very wary of celebrity Christian voices, because so often those who speak on behalf of God, those with power, have spoken words of God dripping with the toxicity of hypocrisy, exclusion, and oppression. And yet, my spirituality yearns for nourishment, to be fed by voices who will be gentle with me, who... Read more
The American Church is facing a child abuse epidemic. This epidemic transcends denominational and theological boundaries. While Catholics continue to be rocked by tragedies, and Catholic priests fight against expanding legal protections to survivors, Protestants are little better. In fact, according to GRACE’s Boz Tchividjian, Protestants are “worse” than Catholics when it comes to how they respond to clergy sexual abuse. But the Church has begun to wake up. More and more Christians realize just how important it is to... Read more
As I continue to work on my Raising Children Unfundamentalist book project, concocting antidotes for the toxicity of bad religion, among the most potent ingredients found in my brew is that of imagination. I have decided that what makes fundamentalism so vile is not that it perpetuates bigotry and hate, or the way it lacks authenticity by covering life with a veneer of false piety, or even how it erects (white) man-made boundaries to determine who’s in and who’s out. No,... Read more
I have an estranged parent who was emotionally abusive to me growing up, and still is when they get the chance. I was talking to someone (a Christian) the other day about it and they said something along the lines of ‘we just need to reach out in love’, that that will heal the relationship; i.e. we both have to do our parts and meet halfway. Which means that we both have the same distance to walk – as if... Read more
I said “crap” the other day and my children lost their “crap.” “You said the C-word, Mom!” They simultaneously chant and sneered at me. I rolled my eyes and cursed some more internally at how judge-y these children of mine have become. I know it’s because they are taught not to swear at school, and developmentally they are still young moral police who view things in black and white. (I know, crap isn’t even that bad, you see what I’m... Read more
Image: Pixabay It’s easy to make comparisons while parenting. Our translation of the Bible is better than their translation. Hymns are better than choruses. The Contemporary service is better than the Traditional one. Our version of baptism is better than theirs. Our church is larger than theirs. Our denomination is better than theirs. Our theology is better than theirs. We attend more church, tithe more, volunteer more, read more scripture, pray longer, and worship more than them. You are nicer... Read more
Many important curriculums on race, racism, slavery, and the Black Lives Matter movement already exist. A few examples can be found here, here, and here. Unfundamentalist Parenting’s own Caris Adel has also made a homeschool curriculum on Courageous Black Lives. I think it is really important for the classical, Great Books world to also engage contemporary issues of race and racism as well as a contemporary movement like Black Lives Matter. So the goal of the following curriculum, intended to... Read more
Image: Pixabay A lot of progressive Christians, those of us who grew up “on fire for Jesus” of the evangelical vein, are today drawn to the mystic, contemplative writings of the popular Catholic priest, author and speaker, Richard Rohr. Tired of culture wars, petty infighting, and the exclusionary nature of evangelicalism, many of us revel in the wise teachings of Rohr, who spends the bulk of his energies teaching compassionately on the larger, deeper questions of human life. We crave... Read more
We were sitting in a Starbucks in London, my sister-in-law, her two young kids, and I, not even talking. We were just sitting there, with our coffee and muffins, settling into our breakfast, when this woman comes up to us and says, “You’re obviously American,” and starts talking to us. How? What? Why? How did we look obviously American? What does that even look like? I mean, I fully understand it when the 3-year-old is being….a 3-year-old. There... Read more
Unfundamentalist Parenting
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