Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Current Events

I Am a Pre-Existing Condition

by Sheila Hunter in Current Events

To those Christians who support the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA):

Perhaps you have never been denied health insurance for a pre-existing medical condition, and you think you don’t know anyone who has, which is why you support the repeal of the ACA, including coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Well, guess what? If you know me—as your daughter, sister, cousin, niece, or friend—then you know someone who was born with a pre-existing condition. I have a rare genetic disease called X-linked Hypophosphatemia (XLH). Around 15,000 people in the United States have this disease. Since it’s genetic, it is passed down by a parent or it can also occur spontaneously. I’m a spontaneous case. Either way, I suppose you can blame my parents because, after all, they created me.

I’ve been denied health insurance for my genetic disease. Even when doctors knew very little about XLH (called Vitamin-D Resistant Rickets back then), the insurance companies thought I’d be a liability. My first job after college, in 1982, was with a small company with less than ten employees and they offered health insurance to full-time employees. The Republican owner was determined to find a health insurance plan that would include me, since the first few insurance companies he tried refused to put me on the policy. When he found a company that would cover me except for any care pertaining to my pre-existing condition, I was thrilled, because I was at the mercy of the Insurance Industry, and willing to… [Read more…] about I Am a Pre-Existing Condition

An Open Letter from the Syrian Border

by Sheri Faye Rosendahl in Current Events

This guest post is by Sheri Faye Rosendahl.

Dear America,

Self-proclaimed Christian nation, I wish the lives of others mattered to you as much as Starbucks coffee cups. I know the guy you call savior instructed you to love others as yourselves, but that seems to have become more of a catchy phrase than an actual command to live by.

A few days ago, a handful of miles north of where I am sitting right now, a chemical attack massacred innocent Syrian children as they slept. As the Internet floods with yet more images of small, limp, lifeless bodies piling up, my heart falls apart knowing this just adds to the atrocities the world watches, yet refuses to respond to with love.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with one of the most beautiful and kind families I have ever encountered. They are refugees from Syria and, like millions of others, they have lost everything while going through the unimaginable. After fleeing their homes and everything they have ever known, they are now stranded on the border of Jordan since the majority of the world doesn’t seem to care more than expressing a shallow sense of sorrow at what “those poor people” have to go through.

Where is our true compassion? If we were able to find any speck of empathy within our souls, we would quickly sacrifice what we Americans so often cling to: time, money, refuge, and our self-absorbed fears. However, our shallow comforts and our privilege of apathy are taking precedent over the lives of others.

If… [Read more…] about An Open Letter from the Syrian Border

Is This a Person?

by in Current Events

A bill currently in the Montana legislature seeks to amended the state constitution to define a “person” as “all members of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development, including the stage of fertilization or conception, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency.”

If passed by the legislature and a subsequent ballot referendum, it would provide full legal protection as “persons” to fertilized eggs, zygotes, and embryos, thus effectively outlawing all forms of abortion, some forms of contraception, as well as in vitro fertilization and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Derek Skees, views this as just a small part of the national “pro-life” movement that has been invigorated by Trump’s election. Skees said:

“We just won the presidency with a new president, and his position is pro-life. His vice president is pro-life. The majority of folks in both chambers in Washington, D.C., are Republican, and the majority of them are pro-life … We have some awesome opportunities within Trump’s eight years of presidency. We could have two more Supreme Court justices.”

Regardless of your general views about abortion, the idea that a cell, at the very moment of fertilization, suddenly becomes a person and therefore has a legal right to not be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law” is ludicrous. A zygote can’t see, hear, feel, taste, or smell. It can’t feel happiness… [Read more…] about Is This a Person?

Trump’s Travel Ban Hurts American Children

by Sana Khatib in Current Events

Embed from Getty Images

[Editor’s note: though this piece was written in response to Trump’s first travel ban, the issues still apply to the subsequent new travel bans.]

My son is eleven and my daughter is nine. They have only ever known a black president; that is as far back as their memory will take them. When President Obama was elected to be our 44th president, my son was attending a majority-African American preschool. The students celebrated by making paper crowns with an image of their president in the center. The celebrations continued as my husband and I joined President Obama at Grant Park, in Chicago, to listen to his acceptance speech. People were cheering, crying, and hugging strangers. The crowd was overwhelmed with emotion and a sense of pride for how far our country had come. We were a part of history.

Eight years later, we are now living under a Trump presidency. The night the election results were clearly falling in Trump’s favor, I could not sleep. I awoke at 3 a.m. to check the results yet again, at which point it was clear that Trump would become our next president. My heart sank from fear of what this would mean for me and my loved ones, as Muslim Americans with Syrian heritage. I hoped for the best–that Trump would not fulfill his promises to surveil, register, and ban Muslims. I hoped he wouldn’t continue to encourage a re-emergence of white supremacy, an irrational fear of African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities, and a… [Read more…] about Trump’s Travel Ban Hurts American Children

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

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

Power Play: What You Can Do Inauguration Day

by Sarah Anderson in Current Events

I was in 3rd grade when I decided to try my hand in politics. Along with two others, I was vying for the position of elementary school treasurer. My campaign took a turn for the worse when I observed one of my opponents taking down a poster of hers–to relocate it–and I decided to start a rumor that she was dropping out of the race. I thought that would make me a shoe-in for the win.

Despite my best efforts, I still lost.

That’s when I decided I wasn’t cut out for politics. Not for any morally compelling reason, but because I was a sore loser, and also because I’d learned the hard way that politics makes you do funny things–like spread untrue rumors based on faulty reasoning. Maybe politics, in and of itself, wasn’t to blame, but rather, power was, the thing at the very root of the quest for elected position.

When I look back, I see that’s what the position for school treasurer was really about, what the draw for power allows us to attempt to get away with. What the lure of power makes us believe. What the attraction of power does to our conscience. It was a tempting game to play as a 3rd grader. So imagine how the higher stakes contort the game as adults.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character give him power.” I think one look back at 2016 would confirm that. Power, it would seem, as much as we may want it, sometimes turns us into people we never thought we would be.

History tells… [Read more…] about Power Play: What You Can Do Inauguration Day

Plant Gardens and Eat What They Produce

by Buzz Dixon in Current Events

A friend asked for advice as a Christian for not letting Donald Trump’s evangelical support color our views. Here it is.

It’s going to be a long haul. Jeremiah warned the Israelites they were going down hard if they didn’t repent, but once they were conquered and in captivity, his message changed to one of compassion and encouragement:
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I… [Read more…] about Plant Gardens and Eat What They Produce