Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Guest Author

An Illusion of Freedom

by Christy Wood in Christian Spirituality

Growing up in a Christian cult (Bill Gothard, of IBLP and ATI), I’ve had plenty of experience with legalism. Formulas abounded in my world–if you do such and such, then you are guaranteed this fabulous result, but woe to you if you don’t. Rules, standards, commitments, all these kinds of things supposedly made you a better Christian and more likely to have God’s blessing on your life. “Godly” people acted this way, dressed that way, and avoided these things, etc. Performance, outward show, controlled behavior, fear, and anxiety…I’m excessively familiar with all of this.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to be in a cult to experience legalism. There is plenty of it spread throughout “mainstream” Christianity. How exciting.

Many Christians will tell you that they aren’t legalistic (even though they are following a specific code of behavior) because they aren’t trying to earn their way to heaven. However, if you ask why they do good things, you will find that they are still trying to earn something: blessings, God’s pleasure, or maybe just the image of a “Good Christian.”

I truly believe the Christian community is starting to wake up. There are a good handful of us talking about legalism, exposing it, reacting to it. I love this! But we cannot confuse rebellion against legalism with actual freedom that comes through grace.

I’ve seen it and I’ve been there. We hate legalism, we realize how stupid it is, and we reject it and embrace things that we’ve always been told were wrong.… [Read more…] about An Illusion of Freedom

The Love of My Refugee Friend

by Sheri Faye Rosendahl in Current Events

This guest post is by Sheri Faye Rosendahl.

American Christians, those who support the refugee ban, I have a friend I would like you to meet.

Let me tell you about my dear friend. He happens to be a refugee in the Middle East where he and his beautiful family live in an incredibly old refugee camp that looks more like cement apartment complexes than the camps you see on the news. Kind of like a unique sort of small neighborhood.

And, oh yeah, the camp is partially surrounded by a massive, internationally-deemed-illegal, wall that cuts through their country’s land. 

Now, this is not your “normal wall.” It hovers over the camp, twenty-six feet of concrete intimidation. The wall is complete with security cameras, motion control sensors, and multiple watch towers staffed 24/7 with the finest snipers. It feels as if you are in an open air prison. So maybe unique is the wrong word, it is more like a small neighborhood you might see in a bad, chilling, sci-fi movie.

Another fun (and by fun, I mean terrifying) fact about where my friend lives: there are often night raids that can occur at any given moment. What exactly is a night raid? Well, soldiers from the neighboring country (you know those sniper guys and some of their friends who are often posted up on their wall tower) storm in with their big guns, fingers always clasping the trigger, search random houses, and make arrests, often of young boys.

Sometimes, the streets are filled with tear gas and… [Read more…] about The Love of My Refugee Friend

Answered Prayer

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

This guest post is by Jill Crainshaw.

Dr. William Barber, II, is a hero. He wrote an op-ed this week following the National Prayer Breakfast. I have continued to think about his essay and about the powerful words he quoted from Frederick Douglass (1818-1895): “I prayed for freedom for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

****************************

“These times we’re living in
call for courageous people,”
the preacher said that day.
I am not brave.
Never have been.

Bravery is something to be
read about in storybooks
where quixotic heroes
ride out on prancing
stallions to do battle,
sabers flashing in
magnificent sunlight.

Bravery is something to be
prayed for in church
where harsh living
daylights must first pass
by saintly stained-glass
sentinels of bygone years
before being transmuted
into the kinder, gentler
beams that caress Sunday
morning’s bowed heads.

Isn’t it?

Or maybe we should
pray for freedom,
like Frederick Douglass did,
walking in faith
until our legs are braver
than our thoughts.

So, in this present cloud
of unknowing, being not
brave, we resolve, if
we can find the honesty
to do it, to live on
as best we can,
stringing together each
momentary breath
like pearls of hope to
place with the gentleness
of a lover around our
fear to name its wounds
as our own and journey on
not in spite of
but with it.

For out there, where the
times we’re living in
call for courageous people,
the groaning ground that
soaked up the… [Read more…] about Answered Prayer

Mercy Is Not Enough

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues

The Hebrew prophets proclaimed over and over again the need for justice in the land. Micah was very clear about what he considered essential: “O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness [to do mercy], and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8). Isaiah says, “Seek justice,” and then he immediately enumerates some specifics of what that involved in his day and time: “Rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:17).

Seeking justice meant standing with and advocating for the most vulnerable in society. That included at least three primary groups in ancient Israel: widows, orphans, and aliens (foreigners, immigrants, undocumented persons). The prophets railed against Israel’s leaders and the people at large when they prided themselves in being faithful to their religious rituals and practices, but neglected justice.

Unfortunately, many Christians in more conservative, evangelical traditions such as churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, Pentecostal groups, the Church of God, the Church of Christ, etc, and some of the more conservative churches within mainline denominations, have never been challenged to consider all the biblical texts dealing with justice. They think justice means that a person gets what he or she deserves or they interpret it as satisfying some demand of the law. They have never been taught the concept of restorative justice that pervades the prophetic tradition… [Read more…] about Mercy Is Not Enough

An Open Letter to My Fellow Christians

by Matthew Distefano in Christian Issues

Dear Family (Christians and otherwise),

I’ll begin by saying that I love you. I truly do. All of you, even those who slander me and spread gossip, threatening me with the very fires of hell itself, are my brothers and sisters in Christ. For if not by the grace of the almighty God, the one Jesus called Abba, none of us would be here. So I write this to you as a member of the family we call humanity, and as one who understands that we all need grace in the most abundant of ways.

As a family, we are at a crossroads. Call it a time of apocalypse (Greek for “an unveiling”). No matter what we think of the current sociopolitical situation, whether we endorse the present administration or bemoan it, we cannot deny the gravity of the state we find ourselves in. As a nation, and indeed a world, we are divided. In more ways than not! Political party lines, divided. Religious lines, divided. Racial lines, divided. Cultural lines, divided. And while division, or rather, differentiation, is not necessarily a bad thing, what we are experiencing is a crisis in which our divisiveness is being driven purely by fear of the other, where anything and anyone that doesn’t fit into our current myopic worldview is met with violent denunciation, rather than being driven by an acknowledgement of our differentiation, and a growing empathy and understanding of it.

Our message, more often than not, is “be afraid, be very afraid.”

Because of this, there will come a time when we will have to… [Read more…] about An Open Letter to My Fellow Christians

Why "God Is Sovereign" Is Not Enough (And What You Can Do Instead)

by Holly Love in Christian Issues, Current Events

I’m in an interesting place right now. Things are going really well for me personally, and for my immediate family, in most areas.

It’s the outside world I’m worried about. It seems like it’s going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, literally being dismantled before my eyes, and that I have no power to help or do anything to prevent the collapse.

I’m speaking, of course, about the catastrophe that began with the presidential inauguration last Friday, and also about a work situation that I can’t be too specific about. Both of these situations are out of my control, and both are hurting people I care about. And that hurts me, very much.

I have had some iteration of the phrase, “Don’t worry, God is sovereign,” thrown at me twice in the last 24 hours, by two different people, in response to each of these issues.

Situation 1: Yesterday, in a conversation about the work issue, a person in a position of power who is not directly affected by the situation told a group that basically all we could do was pray and have faith that God has “got this.”

Situation 2: Today at school, one of my fifth graders, who has been continuously worried since November 8th about his parents being deported, was literally crying so hard he couldn’t breathe or speak. I knew that he had had trouble sleeping as we got closer and closer to the inauguration, and he said that he had been having terrible nightmares about what would happen once DJT became president. I am… [Read more…] about Why "God Is Sovereign" Is Not Enough (And What You Can Do Instead)

Inauguration Day, the Women's March and the Lonely in Between

by Sarah Anderson in Current Events

With all that’s happened in the turning tides of the political climate in Washington, D.C., I find a misquote—of an original Albert Einstein quote—to be appropriate:

“Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler.”

It’s obvious we live in a divisive time. But lately I’ve started to wonder if we live in an oversimplified one as well. I wonder if our heightened emotions have mistakenly led us to believe things were much more straightforward than they are. We feel so passionately about so much. And the louder our voices get, the deeper our convictions go. We are certain unity is possible. (If only the other side who could begin to see things our way.)

It’s simple.

But it’s not. For me, at least. And feeling this way has led to me feeling isolated in a way I didn’t expect. Because I am not sure my beliefs can be as neatly packaged as each party narrative would have me believe. As a result, it feels like I don’t belong anywhere.

I align myself with some of the ideals, both the Inauguration, January 20th, and the Women’s March, January 21st, represented. And feel undoubtedly uncomfortable with others. Meaning the most radical and controversial place to be, and as a result, the most lonely position to take these days, is that which acknowledges the intricacy in all of it. That refuses to call simple what is not simple.

A few years ago I made a theological change. Where before my starting point in the story of… [Read more…] about Inauguration Day, the Women's March and the Lonely in Between

The "Alternative Facts" of Fundamentalist Religion

by Chuck Queen in Current Events, Fundamentalism

I see a clear parallel between fundamentalist religion and Kellyanne Conway’s defense of an obvious falsehood about the crowd size at the presidential inauguration. White House press secretary Sean Spicer, in a five-minute statement where he refused to take questions, argued that the number that had gathered to witness the inauguration this year “was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”

Anyone with half-a-brain knows that is not true. The crowds at President Trump’s inauguration paled in comparison to the huge swell of people at President Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Nevertheless, Conway defended Spicer, calling his words to the press a statement of “alternative facts.”

It is remarkable how gullible this administration considers the electorate to be. I find it interesting because of the way this approach resembles and reflects fundamentalist religion. Fundamentalist religion, Christian or otherwise, feeds and grows on the gullibility of people to believe what they want to believe. It thrives on the propagation of beliefs that defy logic, reason, science, and common sense, but somehow appeal to our lower instincts and passions.

For example, consider how many Christians believe that the biblical account of the ark (we have got a big one here in Kentucky supported by tax dollars) and Noah’s flood is actually a historical, factual account. The actual logistics of this is impossible (it denies science) and the… [Read more…] about The "Alternative Facts" of Fundamentalist Religion

I Was Wrong About Homosexuality

by Alex Camire in LGBT

I had a friend in high school. He was the closest friend I had who wasn’t a congregant at my church, and I didn’t have many friends outside of the church. We kept in contact after high school and hung out from time to time. About a year or two after high school, he said that he wanted to get together with me—there was something he wanted to tell me. We got coffee, and he ended up coming out to me, telling me that he was gay. I was the last person on his list of people he wanted to tell in person.

I grew up in a conservative Christian culture that was staunchly opposed to homosexuality. It’s hard to say that without bringing to mind an image of a bunch of angry protestors holding up signs saying “God Hates [gays].” We weren’t hostile zealots like that; we just had a particular belief like most Christians do when it comes to this topic. My friend knew I was of the conservative Christian tribe, which is why he had saved me for last. As close as we were, he was aware that this would affect our friendship.

How gracious can you be to someone while standing firm in the belief that their orientation is a sin? That’s how I was to my recollection. I wasn’t incensed or abrasive, I even pointed out that I wasn’t the type of Christian to ever stand with the signs that said God hated him (as if that would make me look better). When asked what my beliefs were about him being gay, I made all the standard arguments there were, while being as kind and respectful as I could. And at some… [Read more…] about I Was Wrong About Homosexuality

Confessions of a Doubting Christian

by Emma Higgs in Christian Spirituality

Some days I find it really hard to believe in God.

I sit in church surrounded by the familiar, friendly faces, perusing the notice sheet as the worship band finish their sound check with a chorus of “10,000 Reasons,” and I’m convinced we’ve made it all up.

We’re kidding ourselves, aren’t we? It’s obviously just wishful thinking. A fairy story. A diversion from reality, far too good to be true.

The questions rage, unfiltered, through my mind.

“If there is a God, why would he answer our prayers about the weather for the summer youth camp whilst ignoring the cries of a Syrian mother begging for her three young children to be spared?”

“Even if there is a God who answers prayer, how likely is it that we predominantly white, middle class Baptists in 21st century Britain have him/her all figured out?”

“Isn’t it perfectly possible that all our ‘spiritual’ experiences and answers to prayer can be explained away by psychology and neuroscience?”

I look around at other people in the congregation and wonder, is it just me? Or are there others who have these same doubts but are too afraid to admit it?

It seems to me that people are walking out of church and losing their faith altogether because they are never given space to ask the tough questions. When their worldview expands and the “truth” they were taught in Sunday School stops making sense, the church responds by praying for their poor, backsliding souls and offering easy answers and carefully selected Bible verses.

We have a… [Read more…] about Confessions of a Doubting Christian