Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

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The moment when, I, a moderate Christian, was a misunderstood Muslim

by Kristin Reed Klade in Islam

From the outside, it looked like any old interfaith dinner. Religiously moderate people of various faith traditions smiling and getting to know each other, a picturesque panel of four faith leaders smiling on a stage, ready with speeches about unity and love–the works.

That night turned out to be a bit different for me, though. This time I was experiencing it as part of the minority.

As a Lutheran seminary student from Chicago, I was attending a conference of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), learning about how emerging Jewish and Christian leaders could work to become allies with American Muslims in their fight for equality, and against hate and Islamophobia.

I got a little nervous when I read in the program that a pastor from a large evangelical church in Fort Worth (my beloved hometown) was going to address the crowd. Being from North Texas, I am well aware of typical megachurch theology, with its emphasis on evangelism and conversion. So I was unsure about how the pastor was going to come across to a room of mostly Muslims. I was certainly willing to give him a chance, though. Maybe he’s different, I thought.

He started off by recognizing the Christian obligation to love and protect our Muslim neighbors, and furthermore to be in relationship with them, to know them on a deeper level. But as he went on I began to grow uncomfortable. He spoke about the importance of being “real” with each other in interfaith dialogue. He praised his Muslim friend for being… [Read more…] about The moment when, I, a moderate Christian, was a misunderstood Muslim

Some Classic Lessons from a Film Classic

by Chuck Queen in Fundamentalism, Movie Reviews

The Shawshank Redemption came out 20 years ago today and remains at the top of my all-time great movies list. It is punctuated with great lines and saturated with rich spiritual symbolism.

The warden, Samuel Norton, functions as an icon of toxic Christianity. The warden presents himself as a socially respectable, church-going, Bible-quoting Christian. It becomes clear, however, from the moment he appears in the story that his Christianity is in name only. His faith has holes in it larger than the one Andy Dufresne chiseled through his cell wall.

When Andy and the other new prisoners are first introduced to the warden and prison life, the warden’s self-righteousness dominates the scene. When one of the prisoners asks, “When do we eat?” the warden has him beaten. Holding out a Bible he says, “Trust in the Lord, but your ass is mine.”

Contrast the scene above with the one in Luke 4 where Jesus, in the synagogue at Nazareth, applies Isaiah 61 to his mission:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
In one scene, the warden enters Andy’s cell and lays hold of his Bible. Andy and the warden engage in Bible ping pong quoting Scripture. The warden does not open the Bible, which is a good thing since hidden inside is the rock hammer Andy uses to tunnel through his… [Read more…] about Some Classic Lessons from a Film Classic

Be Who You Are and Help the Church Be the Church

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues, LGBT

Vickie Beeching, the widely acclaimed Christian songwriter and performer who recently came out as gay, is a superb example of how LGBT Christians can help the church be the church. The path forward, however, will not be without setbacks, obstacles, and many twists and turns.

Brian McLaren recently attended a forum on global human rights for LGBT persons where he recommended finding ways to help religious leaders move incrementally along a spectrum with four spaces:
Zone 1: Promote violence against and stigmatization of gay people in the name of God and religion.

Zone 2: Oppose violence but uphold stigmatization of gay people in the name of God and religion.

Zone 3: Oppose violence and seek to reduce stigmatization of gay people in the name of God and religion.

Zone4: Oppose violence and replace stigmatization with equality in the name of God and religion.
Blogger Fred Clark (Slacktivist) has noted that these zones do not reflect “a good, better, best spectrum” but “a spectrum that runs from monstrous to awful to slightly less than awful to adequate.” He summarizes the stages as:
1. Violent exclusion
2. Exclusion
3. Semi-reluctant exclusion
4. Inclusion
Inclusion is the only “adequate” position for the church that wants to model the inclusive love and compassion of her Lord. There is much, however, that impedes movement toward inclusion.

For example, three professors of biblical counseling in Southern Baptist seminaries recently gave advice to families… [Read more…] about Be Who You Are and Help the Church Be the Church

What to Do About ISIS: A Christian's Anguish

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues

When I think about ISIS and what our response as a nation should be to their reign of terror my soul is in anguish.

Why the anguish? Does ISIS not completely devalue human life and are they not committed to the utter destruction and mass enslavement of all people who refuse to surrender allegiance to them? Does this not warrant the use of military action to stop them?

The reason I am in anguish is because I take seriously the nonviolent life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth whom I strive to follow. In the temptation narrative Jesus renounces the option of wielding power as a means of accomplishing God’s will. In his conflict with the religious and political powers of his day, Jesus chooses the way of suffering every time instead of the way of violence. At the time of his arrest he tells his disciples, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). Jesus dies powerless and mocked, absorbing the animosity of his tormentors without wishing them harm.

Less we think this was somehow unique to Jesus, he instructed any would-be follower to renounce all violence by taking up his or her cross and getting in line behind him (Matt. 16:24). He even told his disciples to love their enemies by praying for them and doing good to them (Matt. 5:38-48). In his letter to the Romans, Paul echoes basically this same teaching (Rom. 12:14-21).

Not all Christians have or do take Jesus’ teaching on love of enemies… [Read more…] about What to Do About ISIS: A Christian's Anguish

Dr. Albert Mohler versus musician Michael Gungor: Who is on the verge of theological peril?

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues, Christian Spirituality

Dove Award-winning Christian musician Michael Gungor has been taking a hit from some of his evangelical fans for saying that he has no more ability to believe that Adam and Eve were literal persons who lived 6,000 years ago or that “a flood covered all the highest mountains of the world only 4,000 years ago” than he is able “to believe in Santa Clause or to not believe in gravity.”

In a recent podcast Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist flagship seminary in Louisville, claims that Gungor “is shifting into theological reverse, moving right back to the last decades of the 19th century.” According to Mohler, Gungor’s ideas are the result of Protestant liberalism, “which also came over to the United States [from Germany], infecting many denominations and seminaries.”

I mean, really, Dr. Mohler? Since when is learning how to think a disease?

What Dr. Mohler doesn’t say is that practically all mainline biblical scholarship rejects the inerrantist view of the Bible and the literal interpretation of the creation story and flood narrative. Even many evangelical scholars who still cling in theory to biblical inerrancy (they are forced to sign faith statements in that regard) reject the literal reading of the early chapters of Genesis.

Actually, throughout most of the history of the church the literal meaning of a biblical text was deemed the least important reading by many Christian scholars and teachers. The literal reading was often compared to the physical body,… [Read more…] about Dr. Albert Mohler versus musician Michael Gungor: Who is on the verge of theological peril?

Baptist pastor calls for sexually ethical understanding of divorce

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues

What would a modern day Jesus-inspired sexual ethic look like? Did Jesus teach a sexual ethic? I believe that he did, though not explicitly. Biblical fundamentalists who like to claim that the Bible’s teaching is clear about any number of complex issues will find little in the Gospels to support the claim that Jesus is clear on all matters sexual in nature.

What Jesus does say relative to a sexual ethic, however, must be viewed within the broader perspective of that which constituted the critical core of all his teaching. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment in the law, he responded,
‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40).
And lest we look for some wiggle room in the way we define “neighbor,” Jesus closed that door by teaching (at Matt. 5:44-45) that our neighbor even includes the “enemy” who wants to do us harm :
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
This teaching emphasizes that the love ethic embodied and taught by Jesus provides a guiding beacon, a compass that charts the course of God’s will for human beings. Everything Jesus did and said must ultimately relate to this essential demand: love God with the… [Read more…] about Baptist pastor calls for sexually ethical understanding of divorce

Stupid Religion

by Steve Schmidt in Christian Issues, Christian Spirituality

This guest post is by Steve Schmidt.

I just had another one of those conversations. The conversation I seem to have a lot these days with my Christian friends, gay and straight, about what it means to be a Christian.

Am I still a “good Christian” if I don’t go to church? Am I a good Christian if I cuss, if I have sex with my girlfriend or boyfriend? And of course, that one question that seems to preoccupy the evangelical world right now: Can I be a good Christian if I’m gay?

Franklin Graham, the hostile son of that epitome of Christian kindness Billy Graham, thinks not. And he’s spouting his morality-driven view of Christianity in all the media. For him, and for many in the church world, Christianity is defined in terms of do’s and don’ts. Rules. Outward behavior.

And ya know, to some extent, I would agree with that. But only to the extent that “behavior” is defined as how we treat other people.

Christianity, at least for most Protestants, is defined by our faith in Jesus, and then how that faith translates into real life. More than simple head-knowledge or just believing that something is true, it is the transformational power of a relationship with the Living God that defines us–proves us–to be true followers of Jesus. That, and that alone, is what makes us “good” Christians.

That’s what I’ve come to conclude–after living my entire life in the church, growing up in a conservative evangelical home, going to an… [Read more…] about Stupid Religion

Do these jokes make me look fat?

by Angela Fields in Christian Spirituality

Body dysmorphia is like a special kind of astigmatism. A pair of glasses can fix the normal kind of astigmatism, but there aren’t corrective lenses for the body kind. I happen to have both. Since I regularly lose my glasses, I end up relying on others to reflect reality to me—whether that means reading street names aloud while I’m driving, or telling me that I look like a normal, healthy human being.

The way my dysmorphia works is that I look in the mirror, or shop windows, or any terrifyingly reflective surface, and see a whale. Everyone else looks at me and sees a tall, unremarkable-looking girl of average BMI (body mass index). I look down at my medium-sized clothes and wonder how they’re even containing my bulk. I walk up the sidewalk in amazement that cracks aren’t forming in the cement beneath me. At Starbucks I try not to let anyone see me pouring cream into my coffee, so that I won’t offend the other patrons, whom I’m sure would like to think that someone as large as me is at least trying to change her ways.

You might be thinking, “Wow, an entirely warped view of things! Is her view of everything warped?” Sadly, I don’t get to look around and see ballooning Dr. Seuss table legs on the coffee table, or massive squirrels in the trees being miraculously supported by frightfully narrow branches. My funhouse mirror vision applies only to me.

I look at my reflection as a blob overflowing its intended human frame, and feel like an irresponsible child who… [Read more…] about Do these jokes make me look fat?

Left Behind (for being gay)

by in Christian Issues, LGBT

This guest post is by Renee P. of southern California. A technical writer, Renee describes herself as a former fundamentalist and recently converted progressive Christian.

In fifth grade I enjoyed being at a Christian school where love and peace abounded. I found favor in being obedient and striving for a world beyond this one. I loved the structure, conformity and ‘do unto others’ expectations of the school. I loved improving my penmanship, spelling tests, memorizing all fifty states, being one of the best Bible verse looker-uppers.

I gloried in all of it. I loved learning. I loved God. Life felt safe and happy.

It did, that is, until one Friday morning in the school’s chapel, when they showed a movie that caused me to fear for my soul in a way I never knew I needed to.

Thief in the Night is about what happens on earth after the pre-tribulation rapture—that is, after all the Christians have been taken up into heaven, leaving behind all those who failed to accept Christ when they had the chance.

Looking back on it now I see what a hack B movie it is. But as a highly impressionable nine-year-old I was no film critic. One particularly vivid scene from the movie that terrified me featured a little girl my age (that’s her above) who comes into the kitchen to ask her mom a question. A pan of green beans sits unattended on the stove. The girl calls for her mother. There is no answer. She calls again. No answer. Finally, fearing the worst, she begins to… [Read more…] about Left Behind (for being gay)

Baptist pastor on why the Bible supports LGBT equality

by Chuck Queen in Christian History, Christian Issues, LGBT

Of the handful of biblical texts quoted by opponents of same-sex marriage Romans 1:26-27 is the one most often referenced:
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
The problem with turning Paul into an anti-gay proponent is that Paul, along with most ancient moralists, would have regarded same-sex relations as an expression of excessive or exploitative sexual behavior by heterosexuals. It is not likely that he would have had any understanding at all of same-sex attraction as a sexual orientation set early in life.

For Paul to have known about sexual orientation is about as likely as for him to have known about atoms and electrons. He would have been totally unaware of the distinction between sexual orientation, over which one has no choice, and sexual behavior, over which one does. Paul (and everyone else in his day) most likely believed that everyone was straight. The idea of sexual orientation or the possibility of same-sex committed relationships were not even on his radar.

On the basis of Romans 1:26-27 it is common for anti-gay proponents to argue that same-sex marriage denies the natural order. This is such a weak and misguided argument. It certainly sounds lame when… [Read more…] about Baptist pastor on why the Bible supports LGBT equality