Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Glitter Is Serious Business: The Story Behind Glitter Ash Wednesday

by in LGBT

Glitter is serious business.  No, really.

On March 1st, as the Christian world enters the holy season of Lent, LGBT and LGBT affirming clergy will be offering ashes mixed with a bit of purple glitter as a means of welcoming LGBT people who may have felt rejected by the church and as an affirmation of God’s love for all. The project is a partnership between Parity, Liz Edman (the author of Queer Virtue), and Metropolitan Community Churches, and has clergy from a variety of denominations who will be participating throughout the country, currently in eleven states.

Parity has been receiving criticism that our Glitter Ash Wednesday project is “Blasphemy!” “Save glitter for Fat Tuesday,” some critics say, because glitter betrays the “somber time that is Ash Wednesday.”

We disagree. In fact, the whole point of Glitter Ash Wednesday is to reflect the deep, somber, serious faith in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that millions of queer Christians have. And yes, there are millions of us queer and queer positive Christians. Surprised? No wonder, because the lie gets told over and over again that “God hates fags” and that homosexuality is sinful. Precious few queer Christians survive the hate and make it through to become visible members of the church.

I spent five years working with LGBTQ+ youth and their families in Utah, and saw time and again hundreds of youth and children kicked out for being–or even seeming–LGBTQ+. Parents told their kids, “I wish you had never… [Read more…] about Glitter Is Serious Business: The Story Behind Glitter Ash Wednesday

Why Doesn't God Answer Life's Big Questions?

by Tony Cutty in Christian Spirituality

So often, especially when we are distressed, we cry out to God, “Why is this happening?” So often we ask the big questions: why does suffering happen; why is there pain if God is so good; why did my wife die so young?

And the silence is deafening. You listen for the Voice to explain things, like He does so often, and yet on these questions, when it seems so really important, He doesn’t say anything. You can almost feel Him looking at you with His huge compassion…

I think the reason for this silence is that the answer is so deep, so embedded in God’s purposes, so unable to be put into words, that there’s no way He’d do it justice with a short answer. Such an answer wouldn’t, in fact, answer the question, because the answer is too immense. In some ways it’s almost as if the answer is “Wait and see!” (although there’s a little more to it than that, as we shall see).

Because, only now, after my entire adult lifetime of following Him and learning to hear His voice; learning to hear His heartbeat; learning to feel the gentle breeze of His Spirit’s guidance; living through the very worst thing that could happen to me (Job 3:25); do I begin to get the slightest inkling of understanding, what it’s all about; the answer to “Why?”; the reason for the silence that denies me the quick, easy answer.

And I still can’t tell you “why.”

But I am beginning to discern the slightest shadow of an inkling of an answer–though I can’t put it into words. This kind of answer is only discerned,… [Read more…] about Why Doesn't God Answer Life's Big Questions?

People, Not Projects: Re-Thinking Evangelism

by Darrell Lackey in Christian Issues

We need to re-think evangelism—what it means and what it should look like. The common Christian understanding of evangelism sees the world in a stark black-and-white of “saved” and “unsaved.” We are “saved” and everyone outside our understanding of what that term means is “lost.” (Notice what I did there?) This view of evangelism is both destructive and un-Biblical.

When we view people as part of a black-and-white world, they become “projects” rather than people, who are, in many ways, just like us: people on a journey. It can make us approach people differently. In our consumer driven world, it can turn us into sales people rather than friends. It can also engender a sense of superiority. We can begin to develop the attitude that the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, had toward Gentiles—the notion of them being “unclean” and less than God’s “chosen” people.

The person we approach with this sensibility (project rather than person) immediately, or sometimes slowly, begins to sense a hidden agenda. It’s not that we really want to get to know them, or just befriend them regardless, or that we are acting out of an innocent and pure display of love and caring. They begin to sense that we want to “sell” them something, and that our “friendship” is just a ruse to tell them about our religious beliefs. Often, if they are not ready or not interested, we soon drop them. We no longer call or show much interest in them. We move on to the next “project.”

This is not to say that we… [Read more…] about People, Not Projects: Re-Thinking Evangelism

God-Breathed: Questioning Inerrancy

by Daniel Verona in Christian Issues

Growing up, I was taught that the Bible is the Word of God, and that it is therefore inerrant, infallible, and authoritative.

The verse used to support this idea was 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

The general assumption was that “God-breathed” meant that God had told human beings what to write down and that the Bible was thus free from error and authoritative because it came straight from the mind of the Creator.

But is this a good reading of that text?

What does it mean for something to be God-breathed? Is this the metaphor that the author would have used if the author had really meant to say that all Scripture is inerrant, infallible, and authoritative? I highly doubt it.

My assumption is that the author was Jewish and would have thus been very familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. So the question I ask is: do the Hebrew Scriptures have anything to say about the breath of God?

As it turns out, yes they do.

In Genesis 2, God takes the dirt and forms the man and breathes into him the breath of life. In Ezekiel 37, there are four mentions of God restoring the people of Israel and breathing life into them once again.

The Hebrew word for “breath” is the word ruach, and it is also the word for “spirit.” The same is true in Greek, the language of the New Testament, where the Greek word pneuma is the word for both breath and spirit. In the ancient world, people… [Read more…] about God-Breathed: Questioning Inerrancy

​An Open Letter to Anyone Who Has Left a Church

by Alisha Walston in Christian Issues

To anyone who has left a church, especially those who left a church I’ve attended–I understand now my role in your story.

I left a church. It was a church I attended, and very much loved, for nearly a decade.  It didn’t happen the way I planned.
In the time since I attended my last service at that church I’ve had a lot of time to learn, reflect, and get a new perspective. I’d like to extend an olive branch to anyone who has left a church before–because now, I understand what it may have been like.

I apologize for any time I judged your relationship with God based solely by your attendance at my place of worship. 
I understand now that church attendance is not a golden ticket into heaven, and if you choose to worship somewhere besides where I attend Sunday mornings, that’s ok.

I apologize for assuming that you don’t attend church any more.
I understand now that just because you didn’t give me a play by play, doesn’t mean you didn’t find another place to go to church weekly.

I apologize for considering you a “backslider” if your convictions no longer align themselves with mine.
I understand now that my lifestyle isn’t meant to be your moral compass–quite honestly, we would probably be in a heap of trouble if it were.

I apologize for any texts, phone calls, remarks or questions that were judgmental or demeaning.
I understand now just how much… [Read more…] about ​An Open Letter to Anyone Who Has Left a Church

Showing Love

by Jim Gordon in Christian Spirituality

Christians talk a lot about standing up for our beliefs and doctrines. It seems we often feel this is the best way to show our devotion to God and to be a witness for Him.

But I am not so sure we are going about this in the correct way. As Christians, we are getting to be known more for what we are against and for what we condemn instead of for how we show the love of God to others.

Many of us go to a church building on Sunday and sing and smile and listen to a sermon and think we have fulfilled our duties for the week. All day we feel good and close to God and we think everything is good.

Then Monday hits and we go grudgingly off to work with a frown on our face and feeling down. We might even be in a bad mood and snap at our fellow employees and try to make them feel as bad as we do.

We too easily forget that Christianity is not a religion or a one day a week life. As followers of Christ, we are to let Christ live through us in the strength of the Holy Spirit. We are to let his love flow out of us to touch those we come in contact with throughout the day.

Instead of trying to win people over to our way of thinking by pointing out their mistakes and shortcomings, instead of condemning them and making them feel like outsiders, we should be allowing the love of Christ to touch them. We should accept and treat all people like we want to be treated.

While Jesus lived in bodily form on earth, he constantly spent time with those the religious crowd would not even… [Read more…] about Showing Love

When Jesus Said "Love Your Enemies," I Think He Meant "Don't Kill Them."

by Zach Christensen in Christian Issues

I am sometimes asked, “How can you be a Christian and not support the death penalty?” The answer I usually give is quite simple: when Jesus said “Love your enemies,” I think he meant “Don’t kill them.”

I never really understood how important this issue was until I became a Jesus follower, and even then it took me a few years to really get my mind around it. During my time as a sociology and criminology student, I came to find that there really was no evidence to suggest that the death penalty deters murder rates where it is practiced. The death penalty obviously kills people who are not guilty, it is also incredibly expensive, and it is a long and drawn out process that is very painful for anyone involved with trials and hearings.

While statistical data as well as more subjective and anecdotal accounts have steered me away from the death penalty in the past, I eventually reached the impasse where I had to ask: How can someone worship a God who dies for his enemies and then proceed to kill their own enemies? This was an idea that I could not harmonize. I also had to face the fact that if human beings are made in the image of God, then that means they possess innate dignity, are intrinsically sacred, and hold irrevocable significance.

What cheapens or increases the value of a human life? Is it what someone does or doesn’t do? Is it what they say? What they believe? What the color of their skin is? What their sexual orientation is? How much they possess materially? What vices… [Read more…] about When Jesus Said "Love Your Enemies," I Think He Meant "Don't Kill Them."

An Underlying Issue with the Letter Signed by Evangelical Leaders

by Rich Rosendahl in Christian Issues

Recently, over 500 Evangelical Christian leaders signed a letter that was sent to the current president and vice president expressing their opposition to the Executive Order effectively banning travel to the United States by many Muslims and refugees. This is great, it really is. Seeing Evangelical leaders rise up and speak out is awesome, necessary, and helpful. Thanks to all who participated in this initiative!

But before we celebrate and move forward, I want to ask you to pause and reflect with me about some of the things that led us to this point. Remember, Evangelical Christians are an incredibly powerful group in America and played a significant role in electing the administration that promised, and then enacted this Muslim ban …

Over the years, my involvement with Muslim refugees through my organization, The Nations, has led to many interactions with Evangelical Christians and pastors. These experiences have taught me a lot, like how much I love our Evangelical Christian neighbors and how I admire their remarkable impact on American culture.

But I have also noticed a common thread that I believe, in part, is why we saw such overwhelming support by Evangelicals for a candidate that consistently campaigned on the promise of implementing a Muslim ban that some now (rightly) reject.

The simplest way I can describe it is this: much of Evangelical Christianity has (often unknowingly) dehumanized Muslims by treating them as a project rather than neighbors. This is… [Read more…] about An Underlying Issue with the Letter Signed by Evangelical Leaders

How I Lost My Salvation

by Alex Camire in Christian Issues

It started in 2013. I got married in January and a month later, in February, my mother got a DUI.

We came from a fundamentalist background where the fact that mom was drinking, which she kept hidden for a year, was more scandalous than her having done it while driving. Because of this, my mother carried a lot of shame. She slowly attended church less and less and eventually stopped coming altogether.

There were other factors at play during this time that are too difficult or too personal to describe. What ended up happening, though, was my parent’s marriage began to deteriorate, and they eventually divorced.

My mother’s alcoholism and her absence from church were the impetus that caused a thirty-year marriage to collapse, and it all started a month after my marriage began. Suffice it to say, this wounded me terribly.

In the fall of 2013, something else happened: I started college. I was twenty-four at the time, and for the first time in my life I became fully immersed in a culture that I had rarely been exposed to.

I started school to become a social worker. This required me to take a lot of humanities and social science courses. I took classes in psychology, sociology, anthropology, and others that taught a contrary message to what I had grown up with in the church. We discussed topics like mental health, sexuality, and evolution that conservative Christians often oppose, dismiss, or ignore.

It became difficult to reconcile the traditional picture of God with the… [Read more…] about How I Lost My Salvation

Biorhythmic Resistance

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

This guest post is by Jill Crainshaw.

“Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” –Deuteronomy 30:19

Whatever else people of faith make of this week’s Old Testament lectionary reading from Deuteronomy, I hear in these ancient words a call to embrace and embody life as gift, even during messy, difficult, and uncertain times.

My brief encounter with cedar waxwings the other day reminded me of how important this is. Waxwings are wonderful, mysterious birds. Here, where I live, their visits are brief. They come to our backyard for a few hours in February, and then they journey on. If we are lucky, we get to see them. I was lucky–blessed–to get to be near the waxwings this week.

How did the fleeting visit of these beautiful birds remind me of Deuteronomy’s call to embrace life? Political chaos fills my newsfeed and attempts to infiltrate every corner of my heart and head. So many people have so much to say about our current political realities. A colleague shared with me important wisdom about this. The danger, she said, is that we will begin to live by the new administration’s biorhythms instead of our own biorhythms of hope and grace.

I wrote this poem as a prayerful imagining of what kind of internal spiritual resistance is needed if we are to reclaim healthy heart and head space so that we can do our part to “choose life,” to cultivate communities of Gospel hospitality, healing, and hope.

 

The waxwings visited today.… [Read more…] about Biorhythmic Resistance