Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

John Shore

Welcome to our new online home

by in Miscellaneous

If you’re looking for the Unfundamentalist Christians blog, you’ve found it. We moved our blog here–archives and all–from its location on Patheos.com, where it was launched in the summer of 2013. Why the move? Mainly because we (along with, we know, so many of you) finally got fed up with all the ads, cookie downloads, and random emails from bottom-feeder advertisers automatically sent out to anyone who subscribes to a Patheos newsletter.

We understand Patheos’s desire to make money, of course. And we certainly appreciate that Patheos actually pays its bloggers, which so few sites do. For a blog such as ours, which does a lot of traffic, that monthly paycheck definitely helps. But ultimately we felt that we couldn’t in good conscience remain on a site so overwhelmed with ads.

So here we are, in a whole new place. And we’ve got a whole new name, too! We’ve changed our name from Unfundamentalist Christians to simply Unfundamentalist.

We did that because we want to extend the conversation we’re engaged in beyond the echo-chamber that has become the online world of “progressive” Christianity. We’re not in the slightest denying that we’re Christian; the document upon which this group was founded will not change. But we now want to emphasize that it’s time for the Christianity which we (frankly) have done so much to define and defend to move into that great big world which exists beyond those concerns exclusive to Christians and the Christian church.

Enough already… [Read more…] about Welcome to our new online home

Is every Christian against gay marriage necessarily a bigot?

by in LGBT

The call of today’s anti-gay Christians is, “Stop calling us bigots, everyone! Just because we believe what the Bible says about homosexuality doesn’t make us bigots!”

So, let’s think about that.

Pertinent question #1: When, if ever, does the anti-gay Christian irrefutably become a bigot?

Answer? The moment that he or she does anything whatsoever to restrict the rights of any other person, based upon the fact that that person is gay.

It is not beliefs that make a bigot. It is actions.

If you vote against gay marriage, or gay rights, you are a bigot, as surely as anyone who voted against civil rights in the 60’s was a bigot.

If you preach against gay rights—no matter how high your pulpit—you are a bigot.

If you write against gay rights, you are a bigot.

If you give your money or time to any Christian church, organization, or ministry that you know in any way actively works to restrict or limit gay rights, you are a bigot.

If, in private, you intimate to anyone that you don’t think gay people should be allowed to get married, you are a bigot.

No one wants to be a bigot, of course: not even the most virulent KKK member will claim that repelling appellation for him or herself. But bigot is as bigot does.

And since it’s impossible for a person to hold a conviction—especially one based on religious beliefs—that they don’t in some way live out, it is, alas, safe to claim that any and every… [Read more…] about Is every Christian against gay marriage necessarily a bigot?

Welcome Dan Wilkinson, UC's new editor

by in Current Events

Since its launching in June 2013 I’ve been editor of this blog, choosing, editing, and finding an image for each piece published here, interfacing with the folks at Patheos, etc. It’s work in which I’ve taken a great deal of pleasure. Running this blog, which has been viewed over 1,340,000 times,  has allowed me to recapture some of the cooperative team spirit I so relished during the years I worked as a magazine editor. Finding and respectfully presenting new writing talent is one of my favorite things in the world to do.

From its inception, Dan Wilkinson (that’s him above, turning a mountain into a Barcalounger) has proven invaluable to this blog. Besides being a web Jedi always ready to solve any techie-style problem that arises on the blog, Dan is a fine writer who possesses a keen analytical mind that he has used, through his writing on this blog, to become a respected book reviewer.

It was Dan who, years ago, first phoned me to ask if there was anything he could do to help Unfundamentalist Christians become more than a document I wrote. And he’s been with me ever since. No one could ask for a better partner.

Today I’m handing the UC blog over to Dan; he is its new executive editor. As I’ll soon start sharing about on my blog, my life has altered in such a way that I can no longer properly serve this blog’s writers or readers. That is a positive thing for me, and is certain, with Dan at its helm, to be a positive thing for this humble little outpost in… [Read more…] about Welcome Dan Wilkinson, UC's new editor

Welcome to the Duggar's world of Independent Fundamental Baptists

by in Christian Issues

[This is an updated version of a post which originally appeared on my blog.]

The Duggar family, so much in the news lately, are Independent Fundamental Baptists (IFB), a loosely affiliated, singularly cultish denomination of Christian fundamentalists.

According to the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life there are approximately 7.85 million IFB members in America. It’s unlikely there isn’t an IFB church within a half-hour drive from your house.

Some of the beliefs and practices characteristic of Independent Fundamental Baptists are:

→ The King James Version is the only true Word of God; all other translations of the Bible are the work of the devil. Meant to be taken literally, the KJV is inspired, inerrant, infallible, and the supreme and final authority in all things. It is therefore literally true that, for instance, God created the world in six 24-hour days; Satan is real, the enemy of God, and the instigator of all false religions; the theory of evolution is unscriptural and therefore without merit; and hell is a real place where all who die without having accepted Christ as their Savior suffer consciously being roasted alive for eternity.

→ Each IFB church is wholly autonomous and free from any outside governance. Its pastor is divinely appointed and accountable to no earthly authority. He speaks for God, and God alone may judge him. To question the sovereignty of the pastor is to disturb God’s order and invite upon oneself separation from the church, and… [Read more…] about Welcome to the Duggar's world of Independent Fundamental Baptists

"Go. Be apostles of this peace."

by in Christian Spirituality

This morning we posted on the Unfundamentalist Christians Facebook page (here) a link to my blog post for today, Eight “Bible-believing” churches vs. one progressive church.

In response to that link a commenter wrote:
I find all of it so nauseating I can’t even stand church anymore. Church culture and all of the nonsense has fatigued me in a way that I’m so over saturated with the BS that I honestly feel sick. I feel this exhausted eyeroll/shudder when people say “I’m a christian”. It usually means that someone is going to shove some political or “biblical” load of crap down my throat or judge me because I don’t think like they do or believe the way they do. I’m somehow “less than” “not of the faith” “in rebellion” “not in the covenant” or whatever.
Another commenter concurred:
That is what drove me away. All of the judgement and competition, and we are better than them crap. Just couldn’t take church anymore.
And that’s when our beloved Christy Caine (who wrote the viral post The lies Christian fundamentalism taught me) chimed in with this:
Which is part of the reason we created this group. There are Christians who are different. There are Christians who are intellectual. There are Christians who are welcoming and affirming. There are Christians who believe in gender equality. There are Christians who have high emotional intelligence. There are those of us who care for the environment and all people no matter who they are, what they wear, what language… [Read more…] about "Go. Be apostles of this peace."

Denied a birth certificate and SSN# by her fundamentalist parents

by in Fundamentalism

(I got in this letter last night, and thought I’d share it here.)
Hey John, I hope your novel is going well. I saw your latest post about it and I sympathize with the feeling of trying to juggle several big activities.

I thought you might find this case interesting. Another story of patriarchal fundamentalism gone wrong, and this time it’s happening to one of my close friends, Alecia. She left home at 18 to escape the oppressive and manipulative environment. But she has no ID and no way to prove her citizenship. Her parents, who never got her a birth certificate, SSN, or anything, are refusing to help unless she agrees to their unreasonable terms (basically, they’re using her civil rights as leverage in an attempt to control her). They’re whining about how she betrayed them by moving out.

She made the video below to ask for help with figuring out what to do, because she’s tried a lot of ways to get documentation and it isn’t working. I figure the more publicity she can get, the sooner and easier she can get the legal help she needs.
Alecia’s mother, Lisa, writes a blog she calls The Pennington Point, featuring “lots of tips on Parenthood, Mothering, Home and Faith.” She titled the post she wrote about Alecia running away from home The Hardest Post I Ever Wrote.* In it she (of course) cast herself as the victim:
On Wednesday, September 24th my life was changed forever. My 18 year old daughter left home. She gave us no warning, no signs that it was… [Read more…] about Denied a birth certificate and SSN# by her fundamentalist parents

Atheist and Christian argue about hell. Guess who wins?

by in Christian Issues

(While sitting at Starbucks yesterday I overheard the following conversation between two men I’ll call Christian and Tom. Christian was trying to evangelize to Tom.)

Tom: But what you’re saying simply doesn’t make any sense.

Christian: What doesn’t?

Tom: That if I don’t believe in the reality of the same God that you just told me loves me, then that God will condemn me to hell for all eternity. How could God love me and do that to me?

Christian: Because God loves you enough to let you decide your own fate.

Tom: But that doesn’t change the fact that if I choose to not believe in God, God could, if he wanted, still not send me to hell. He could commute my sentence. He could forgive me for the mistaken choice I made. God has that power, right? Because he’s all-powerful?

Christian: God can do anything.

Tom: Which means he can certainly choose not to send me to hell. And that can only mean that if I do end up in hell, it was God’s will that made that happen. Ultimately God wanted me in hell—so that’s where I ended up. God actively chose hell for me.

Christian: You chose hell for yourself by refusing to accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.

Tom: That I made that mistake doesn’t alter the fact that God has chosen to… [Read more…] about Atheist and Christian argue about hell. Guess who wins?

The cycle Christians must help break

by in Christian Spirituality

Hi, guys. UC founder John Shore here.

Recently, on the Unfundamentalist Christians Facebook page, we linked to a piece I published on my blog last November called “I’m Christian, Gay, and Too Angry to Read the Bible Anymore”, wherein I advised a Christian lesbian who found herself no longer comfortable reading the Bible:
I don’t know if the homophobia and faith issues are related to each other [she wrote], but I know that I can’t read my Bible. I try sometimes, but I feel my stomach tighten and my heart heart rate increase, and I feel like a trapped animal. … I don’t know how to separate out what is God and what is my religion. And even within my religion, I don’t know how to save what is good, and let go of the stuff that is harmful. I love Jesus, but some days I’d like nothing better than to turn my back on Christianity.
Part of my answer to this good woman was:
If you’re angry with God, be angry with God. I think it’s safe to say that s/he will understand. If you are angry with God, think how angry God must be with the people who made you feel that way. … If you don’t feel safe reading the Bible, put your Bible away. I imagine you’ve had enough of the Bible in your life to last you awhile.
Back on the UC Facebook page, a commenter wrote about that post:
Bullshit. If you can’t read the Bible because you are so angry, then you are not a Christian. … If you can’t separate God from the lowbrows who are attacking you in this world, then you are not a… [Read more…] about The cycle Christians must help break

Cutting Through the (You Know What) on the LGBT Issue

by Chuck Queen in LGBT

Until the church can come to a place of full inclusion (acceptance and affirmation) of our LGBT sisters and brothers, the church will continue to fail miserably at fulfilling Jesus’ mandate to love God and neighbor and being the body of Christ in the world. I honestly admit my personal daily failure to fulfill this mandate and to incarnate the love of Christ; I would never point to my own life as an example of what loving my neighbor as myself should look like. However, I also would not appeal to scripture to justify my failure to love, as opponents of full inclusion routinely do.

All the wrangling we do over a handful of biblical texts that condemn some form of same-sex behavior is necessary and we will continue to discuss and debate what the biblical writers’ intentions may have been; it’s what biblical interpreters do. But in terms of our practical discipleship to Jesus who made everything turn on our human capacity to love, all our exegetical endeavors to figure out what the authors/faith communities intended in these texts are largely irrelevant. With regard to our daily discipleship to Christ and in view of God’s judgment (which I believe restorative and redemptive, not punitive or retributive) all that matters is how well we love.

And anything short of full inclusion is a failure to love.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the handful of texts known as the “clobber passages” (Lev. 18:22/20:13; 1 Cor. 6:9; Rom. 1:26-27, and 1 Tim. 1:10),… [Read more…] about Cutting Through the (You Know What) on the LGBT Issue

Church Beyond Church

by in Christian Spirituality

The other day a fellow left this question in the private message area of the UC Facebook page:
I am recently in the process of leaving an evangelical church. Any pointers? Any resources regarding being a Christian without a church would be great.

Christy Caine, UC’s director of social media, wrote him an answer. First she recommended a few books for him to read (Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor; Too Soon Old Too Late Smart, by Gordon Livingston; Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott; and The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg).

Then she wrote him this:

Others in similar situations have found “Christian community” outside of church by practicing service as worship, by getting involved with community programs that serve the poor or the needy in some way. This might be building houses with Habitat for Humanity, or serving meals and talking with men at the homeless shelter, or working in another area of interest in your community where you can “do church” with others who have a similar interest and a serving spirit.

This creates opportunity for connection—which is really a way of allowing the spirit to move us.

One thing I learned along the way after leaving my conservative denomination was a new way of worship and prayer. I understood it no longer as a “special thing” I needed to set aside a specific time to do, in a certain prescribed way. Instead, I found that in my everyday searching for God, the world opened up: Walking with… [Read more…] about Church Beyond Church