Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Christians need to be honest about biblical contradictions (especially in the Bible's different portrayals of God)

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues

Christian leaders and churches need to admit that we have done a poor job in teaching parishioners how to read biblical texts critically. Perhaps Christians wouldn’t believe and do such silly things if they had been taught to read the Bible critically before trying to appropriate it spiritually.

The Revised Common Lectionary on the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost of Year C pairs Exodus 32:7-14 with Luke 15:1-10, providing Christian preachers a wonderful opportunity to talk about the importance of reading the biblical text critically, honestly facing the inconsistencies.

In Exodus 32, Moses goes up to the mountain to talk with God and receive God’s instructions. Meanwhile, the people God brought out of Egypt grow impatient and decide to make an image and worship the image. So God says to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.” God has lost all patience and is ready to consume them.

But Moses intercedes. Moses says, “Now God, let’s step back, take a deep breath and talk about this. You brought these people out of Egypt by your mighty power. Think about what the other nations and peoples will say about you. Your reputation is on the line here. They will say: ‘The God of Israel brought his people out of Egypt so he could wipe them off the face of the earth.’ Think about how that makes you look. And then too,… [Read more…] about Christians need to be honest about biblical contradictions (especially in the Bible's different portrayals of God)

To the hate preacher at Pride

by Franziska Garner in LGBT

LGBT Pride events in smaller cities are growing. They give members of the LGBT community who do not live in large cities a sense of belonging and safety. Such an event was recently held at a community park in Lubbock, Texas, a city in the middle of nowhere, five hours from Dallas and four from Albuquerque. On that day, some 600 people came together to celebrate the bond they share and enjoy a true day of the rainbow.

That is, until Pastor M. showed up, began accusing the churches who were there of false teaching and telling people they would go straight to hell if they did not “repent for their sins.” Of course on a day like this no one listened to him. He must have felt very unimportant because on the same evening he posted this to the Facebook page of a local news station:

As a German, I fiercely believe in the separation of church and state. I fiercely believe in an individual’s right for self-definition. And, as a Christian, I passionately argue that God is love and love does not discriminate.

So I replied to his post with nothing more than a link to my educational blog about the LGBT community and Christianity. Not even an hour later he sent me a message. What followed was a somewhat civil exchange, where I tried to tell him that love does not judge, nor hate, nor reject. He, however, threw Bible quote after Bible quote at me and, once he realized that I would not back down, he showed his true opinion of me:

It shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t get upset. Even my… [Read more…] about To the hate preacher at Pride

Grace in a Tin Shed

by Mark Darling in Christian Spirituality

Separation. Divorce. Failure. That’s how it goes, right? At least that’s how it did for me. Marriage was for life, for better or for worse, and people who got divorced just weren’t trying hard enough. They were failures. Second rate. Oh, I never would have thought of it like that, let alone articulated it, but somewhere in my subconscious that is what I believed. I judged people and I was wrong. But that was before the shed.

When you come from an inflexible, dualistic, rules-based system of beliefs it is difficult to see other possible worlds. Everything is either black or white. Wrong or right. You’re in or you’re out. You belong or you don’t. There’s no room for the gray, messy, unpredictable beauty of life. I was married. I was in the club. And then suddenly, yet not, I wasn’t.

For the first time in my life, without any fanfare, I found myself living alone in a tin shed in the middle of nowhere. A dark space that was sparsely furnished with borrowed items and a few meager possessions. No television, no internet, and intermittent phone coverage. I was alone with my thoughts: “I have failed. I am a failure. I AM FAILURE.”

Love found me

It is a disconcerting thing to be cut adrift from familiar havens into the uncertain waters of a new beginning. Of course I hadn’t perceived it as a new beginning, only as failure, loss, and uncertainty. Dualism doesn’t like uncertainty. It likes things that can be measured, counted, compared, relied upon. It likes rules. And… [Read more…] about Grace in a Tin Shed

When Does She Become He?

by Brettany Renee Blatchley in LGBT

What makes a woman and what makes a man; what is male and what is female? What was once a very taboo subject in our culture, only seriously (and quietly) contemplated by doctors and researchers, is becoming dinner-table talk with the new, greater visibility of transgender and intersex people. Perhaps a little thought experiment can add to this conversation?

Say that Sarah is an ordinary woman inside and out. When would she stop being a woman, a female, and what would it take to make her a male, a man? Consider:

DNA: Let’s exchange one of Sarah’s X chromosomes for a Y. Would this make her a male, a man? Not necessarily. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome is an intersex condition in which a person’s body is unable to respond to testosterone. So their body does not masculinize from the default female form of all mammals, including humans. With Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), Sarah is a girl to all outward appearances: she is assigned female, usually knows herself to be a girl, and is raised as a girl. Then as she approaches womanhood, it is discovered that she cannot menstruate and is sterile; further investigation reveals her to be a female with XY DNA.[1]

There are also instances where the SRY gene (the short arm of the Y gene) malfunctions[2] and does not stimulate the production of male internal genitalia, so this XY girl will never have testes, for example. And because she will not produce testosterone, her… [Read more…] about When Does She Become He?

No Matter How Smart They Think They Are, Atheists Don't Shake My Faith

by Rebecca Chamaa in Christian Issues

I’ve had many discussions with atheists. Well, I don’t know that I would call them discussions, because they usually start out something like, “I can’t believe you believe in those fairy tales.” Right away, I know the person doesn’t respect my worldview, so why is there any point in going on from there? But I often do continue, and, more often than not, they try to trip me up with the question, “If God does exist, why is there so much suffering in the world?” They usually follow that up with the statement, “If God did exist I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a being so cruel.”

I feel the cool breeze from the bay gently move across my skin. I close my eyes to feel the sensation fully.

The atheist doesn’t shake my faith, even though they think their questions are so good that no one could answer or believe if they seriously contemplated the meaning of their words. But I have contemplated the meaning of their words, and I am still a believer. There, I said it, even though it is such an unpopular thing to be these days: I am a believer. I believe in God, not despite the questions so much as because of them. God is a mystery.

My mother has leukemia. My dad has heart problems. My brother has diabetes. Medicine keeps all of them alive. 

In the Bible, God said, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made.” To me, that is the answer to most of the questions I have heard. Fearfully?  Why fearfully? Is it because Creation is bloody and painful, both… [Read more…] about No Matter How Smart They Think They Are, Atheists Don't Shake My Faith

Why I Left the Mormon Church (And You Probably Would Have, Too)

by Rachael S. in Fundamentalism

A common accusation against ex-Mormons is that they “leave the church, but can’t leave it alone.” This phrase sounds a lot like “you know you like it.” When reading the stories of lives lived under the Mormon church, imagine your own life lived under such pervasive control. Mormon thought is policed to the point where 12-year-old boys and girls are regularly and formally interrogated by adult male clergy about their sexual fantasies, activities, and masturbation habits.

Would living under such an invasive institution not shape your identity such that it was impossible to simply leave it alone? Could you simply forget or move on from having been a child who was asked by an adult to describe the ways you think about or touch your budding body? Whether it was touched by or talked about with your boyfriend or girlfriend, in excruciating detail? Would you not wonder why so much time was spent on this particular topic in the Bishop’s interview? Whether he, in fact, “liked” it?

Would you not wonder how often this Bishop’s interview added physical sexual assault to verbal harassment?

Further, would you not, perhaps, wonder whether it was moral for you, knowing the effects of such an institution as intimately as you do, to “leave it alone?”

Ex-Mormons are forced to move on with their lives knowing that others are being damaged the way they were. It’s not as if the church has changed because an ex-Mormon once wrote a heartfelt letter of resignation from it. (It’s also not… [Read more…] about Why I Left the Mormon Church (And You Probably Would Have, Too)

Innocence and Awareness: Questioning Original Sin

by Daniel Verona in Christian Issues

In the churches I grew up in, the story recounted in Genesis 3 was viewed as the moment when sin–Original Sin–entered humanity. In that story, a serpent persuades Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She does. And so does Adam. These events were called The Fall, a theological tragedy that resulted in our Sin Nature, severed our relationship with God, and created a need for a Savior who could save us from our sin and restore our relationship with God so that we would not burn in hell when we die.

This interpretation of Genesis 3 is common, but is it supported by the text? Here are 11 observations about the Genesis 3 story and its characters (because this one goes to 11):

Traditionally, the serpent in this story is viewed as Satan or the Devil. But it is important to recognize that Genesis 3 never equates the serpent with Satan. There’s not even an implication that the two are the same.
In the ancient world, serpents were common symbols of wisdom, rebirth, and eternal life. Is it surprising that a serpent shows up in Genesis 3? Is it surprising that this serpent is talking about not dying and being like God and knowing all things?
Genesis 3 does not contain any Hebrew words that translate to “sin.” The first instance in the Bible of a Hebrew word that translates to “sin” is in Genesis 4 when God is speaking to Cain.
The term “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” contains a merism. A merism is a rhetorical tool in which two contrasting… [Read more…] about Innocence and Awareness: Questioning Original Sin

Love, Love, Love: The painfully misunderstood, profoundly simple, earth-shattering message of Jesus

by Emma Higgs in Christian Spirituality

 

If someone was to ask me to sum up the message of Jesus in a few words, I would probably quote the Beatles:

“All you need is love.”

Love. 

Not just shallow, gooey, fluffy, romantic love.

The kind of love that sets people free.

Love that gives of itself endlessly and asks for nothing in return.

Love that fights tirelessly for the needs and rights of strangers.

Love that breaks down barriers, crosses borders, and shatters social constructs and expectations.

Love that sees the beauty in all life and seeks to honor, treasure, and nurture it.

Love that treats the outcasts of society as if they were worth more than all the diamonds, gold, and oil in the world combined.

Love that brings tangible hope to those who are suffering physical or emotional pain … those who are lonely, lost or terrified … those whose hearts ache with grief … those who long for deeper meaning and significance.

Love that points to a greater reality, a greater purpose, and a greater future for the whole of creation.

Love that never, ever, ever gives up.

That is the kind of love that brings transformation.

This is not a sideline to the main Gospel message in the Bible, an optional add-on that helps to make life more bearable but is ultimately pointless.

This is the point.

Over the centuries, we “Christians” have complicated and distorted this message. We have added conditions, built walls, piled on guilt. We have… [Read more…] about Love, Love, Love: The painfully misunderstood, profoundly simple, earth-shattering message of Jesus

Will the Real Black Church Please Stand Up?

by DeWayne R. Stallworth in LGBT

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” The same dictum can be applied when analyzing the challenges associated with religious bias and LGBT inequality, especially within the black church. These issues should have a pronounced platform in the black church, which has had the lived experience of challenging oppressive societal systems that were anchored in religious rhetoric. In the same vein, the LGBT community endures an exorbitant amount of hate via a religious interpretation regarding what is morally proper.

Within this same faith community, some indeed argue that God is opposed to same-sex relationships; as a result, such persons present themselves as diametrically opposed to the notion of same-sex happiness, love, marriage, family, and sexual intimacy. It is important to note that such a discriminatory perception is rooted in a religious interpretation regarding God’s relational will for humanity. This is a tautological debate which the black church must refuse to entertain and/or engage. Rather, the black church should be committed to conversation regarding pragmatics which promote the love ethic of Jesus Christ.

Cultural advocacy is a definitive component of Jesus’ philosophical and theological mandate of assisting “the least of these.” As such, cultural advocacy (also known as social justice) must be connected to… [Read more…] about Will the Real Black Church Please Stand Up?

What the Bible Actually Says About Singleness

by Noah Filipiak in Christian Issues

I recently attended a wedding where the pastor used Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 as his text to describe marriage:
Two are better than one…If either of them falls down, one can help the other up…But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
But this text is not about marriage. The lying down together is not sexual, it was simply practical in an era where there was no indoor heating.  You would lie down together so you didn’t freeze! The third strand of the cord is not referring to God; it’s referring to a third human. The context these four verses is humans helping humans. God isn’t going to lie down with you in bed and keep you warm.

When we read ideas about marriage into the text (as the pastor did), it not only belittles singles (“oh pity them!”), it also places an unbiblical emphasis on marriage. It shames singles and portrays them as second-class Christians who God is holding out on.

If you want to use the “cord of three strands” imagery in your marriage ceremony to depict you, your spouse and God, that’s fine.  But don’t preach a sermon saying that the meaning of Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 is for married people in a way that directly precludes its application to single people. The meaning of the text has to do with friendship and community, things that singles are uniquely… [Read more…] about What the Bible Actually Says About Singleness