Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Why do so many conservatives oppose Pope Francis?

by Sean Bresnahan in Christian Issues, Current Events

I guess I’m a bit of a masochist.

The moment before I press “enter” to begin my first search of the day, I pause and ask myself, “do I enjoy misery?”

I question my sanity in this way because I know that as soon as my screen illuminates with bolded headlines, my heart will sink and my forehead tighten. I breathe out a heavy sigh.

“Pope Francis: Communist, or Antichrist?”

“Pope Francis: Most Dangerous Human Being on the Planet”

“Pope Francis: False Prophet, come to America”

I’m quite serious. It seems that even the vicar of Christ can be given such preposterous titles left normally for men like Adolph Hitler and Henry Kissinger. Though, as I recover from my abrupt laughter, I realize that I’m not incredibly surprised.

Conservative radio host Michael Savage declared on the June 16 edition of his show: “The pope is a danger to the world.” He continued by calling the Pope a “great deceiver,” “stealth Marxist,” “eco-wolf in pope’s clothing,” and compared him to the false prophet in the book of Revelation “directing mankind to worship the Antichrist.” Savage concluded that “we are living in global tyranny right now.”

The next day, Rush Limbaugh, another prominent conservative radio host, expressed similar sentiments, claiming that the Pope was aligning himself with those on the left who wished to “leave everybody … living equally in misery,” and confirming the claim that Francis was, indeed, a communist here… [Read more…] about Why do so many conservatives oppose Pope Francis?

I'm not a fan of the Pope and you shouldn't be either

by in Christian Issues, Current Events

As the hullabaloo over Pope Francis’ visit to America reaches a fever pitch, it’s important to keep in mind some sobering realities about the organization he leads.

The Pope has been widely lauded for his seemingly revolutionary statements, such as:

“Who am I to judge?”
“there is no Catholic God”
“when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? We must always consider the person.”
“How I would like a church that is poor and for the poor”
“Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense.”

But these missives are little more than symbolic gestures entirely devoid of meaningful and substantive change. They’re reminiscent of a slick politician who promises hope and change in order to please his constituency, but behind the scenes continues to conduct business as usual.

And the Catholic Church is a business, one with enormous power. In America, the Catholic Church has 74 million members, employs 1 million people and spends $170 billion yearly. And that’s just in the United States. World-wide there are some 1.2 billion Catholics and vast financial resources.

But the size and power of the Catholic Church isn’t necessarily cause for alarm. What is troubling are many of the beliefs espoused by the Church, beliefs that are fully supported by the Pope and which every Catholic, whether they like them or not, are supposed to believe. These aren’t obscure bits of theological ephemera, they’re… [Read more…] about I'm not a fan of the Pope and you shouldn't be either

I caused a bomb scare on a military installation and got in less trouble than Ahmed Mohamed

by in Current Events

View image | gettyimages.com

I hadn’t even thought of this story in relation to the Ahmed Mohamed incident until I saw this tweet and realized that I knew exactly what happens when there’s really a bomb scare — because I’d once caused one myself — and that Ahmed’s story bore no resemblance to my own experience.

It was the summer of 2008 and I was installing WiMAX internet service for a three-story support building located in the middle of an Air Force base.

The project involved accessing the roof through a trapdoor in a bathroom on the third floor, setting up an antenna on the roof, running a cable down the outside of the building to the middle of the second floor, drilling a hole through the brick wall for the cable to enter the building, pulling a hundred feet of cable through that hole to the inside of the building, and then running the cable through various conduits and ceilings and walls to reach its final location in the basement.

I had finished drilling the hole through the wall and was in the middle of pulling the cable into the building when someone came jogging up the hallway telling everyone to evacuate immediately. I dropped my tools and filed out of the building along with the hundred or so other people who worked there.

We gathered at the designated evacuation point about a block away and watched as fire engines, police cars and an EOD team — complete with bomb suit and bomb robot — surrounded the building. Word quickly spread that… [Read more…] about I caused a bomb scare on a military installation and got in less trouble than Ahmed Mohamed

Love in the Anthropocene

by in Book Reviews

“How will love arise in a world without nature as we have known it?” This is the central question of Love in the Anthropocene (OR Books, $18), a newly-released collection of two essays and five short stories jointly written by environmental philosopher Dale Jamieson and novelist Bonnie Nadzam.

Against the backdrop of a near-future earth that has been indelibly altered by humanity, Jamieson and Nadzam tell bittersweet stories of love: a father and daughter go on a fishing trip to an artificial park in which every tree, rock, stream, and fish are the product of technological design; two men rekindle a relationship while the city’s homeless are being deported to avoid rising sea levels; three female friends take a vacation from working at a refugee camp to enjoy the artificial pleasures of a domed city; a couple meets in a yoga class and carries on a virtual love affair; a blind date leads to an encounter with the world’s last living tiger.

Love in the Anthropocene has an agenda, but it is an agenda with more questions than answers. The authors address issues of environmental change “by telling stories and sharing meditations, not by issuing predictive declarations that are supposed to provide answers.” These carefully crafted vignettes, replete with moments of quiet beauty as well as deep unease, thoughtfully consider humanity’s effect on nature and nature’s effect on us.

At its heart, this is a book about what is real and about why we value that… [Read more…] about Love in the Anthropocene

Dear Dispensationalist God

by Matthew Distefano in Christian Issues

Dear Dispensationalist God,

Before you decide whether or not to include me in the rapture, please read the following. Actually, I’ll just be frank—this is not going to be pretty. I fear my fate will be sealed by the end of this letter. But, it is not meant to offend you, really. I just want you to be aware as to where I stand on the matter.

Oh, but that does remind me. I’ve been dying to ask you something for some time now. Why is it that those who follow you say that my words are offensive? Doesn’t that imply that you have an issue with your ego, or what Richard Rohr refers to as the “small self?” Well, never mind…

Anyway, about that whole rapture thing…

I know there are a ton of us out there claiming “the Bible clearly says,” but, c’mon, that book—or rather collection of “books”—couldn’t be any less clear when you open it up.

Regardless, if the rapture is so important, why not have a few verses that are a bit clearer than, say, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 – 17? How can someone like N.T. Wright get it wrong, while John Hagee nailed it? I know that is not an argument but, I mean … c’mon! I can’t believe the proper way to read a passage like that is outside of the original context! See what I mean about supposed biblical clarity—how is that “clear”? In any case, since “rapture” is how you are choosing to do business, I want to get a few things off my chest.

First, didn’t the Hebrew writers describe creation as “tov tov”? I know my Hebrew is greatly lacking,… [Read more…] about Dear Dispensationalist God

The Punctuation Mark That Might Change How You Read Romans

by in Christian Issues

One of our all-time most viewed posts on the UC blog is Don Burrows’ Romans 1:26-27: A Clobber Passage That Should Lose Its Wallop. Drawing upon the work of Calvin Porter, Burrows argues that Romans 1:18-32 is best understood as “boilerplate, Hellenistic Jewish material that attacks the Gentiles.”

He goes on to cite Porter’s conclusion that “in 2:1-16, as well as through Romans as a whole, Paul, as part of his Gentile mission, challenges, argues against, and refutes both the content of the discourse and the practice of using such discourses. If that is the case then the ideas in Rom. 1.18-32 are not Paul’s. They are ideas which obstruct Paul’s Gentile mission theology and practice.”

In short, Romans 1:18-32 is a rhetorical passage representing the voice of Hellenistic Judaism, and Romans 2 is Paul’s voice arguing against that viewpoint.

It’s a powerful interpretation that challenges the conservative perspective on this passage and decisively undermines a key point in the anti-gay theological agenda.

But though I find Burrows’ (and Porter’s) arguments compelling, one point about their conclusion has always bothered me: our English Bibles don’t clearly support this interpretation.

Burrows rightly makes much of the use of the vocative in Romans 2:1 (ὦ ἄνθρωπε — “O man” — often translated “whoever you are”) as a signal that Paul is now addressing his interlocutor in the previous passage. But this subtlety is lost on modern English readers who aren’t… [Read more…] about The Punctuation Mark That Might Change How You Read Romans

Teaching Children About Hell

by Cindy Brandt in Christian Issues, Fundamentalism

I was a morbidly fearful child. I was also a highly literate child, having learned to read before school years. My mother tongue is Mandarin, and the storybooks I consumed were Chinese folk stories. Some of them were harmless tales of developing moral character, but many recounted ancient Chinese myths of hell. In Chinese folk religion, hell consists of eighteen levels, each containing a specific type of torture reserved for corresponding sins. It is not a stretch to say that the images of hell I saw in picture books as a young girl impact me to this day. I was terrified.

Fast forward to my school-age years, when my parents sent me to a Christian school started by western missionaries, where I learned of the Jesus who could save me from hell. It was a no-brainer for me. I believed swiftly because I was deathly afraid of hell.

I have told this testimony many, many times throughout my growing up years in the Christian world. It was the ice-breaker to my testimony, the chuckle-inducing anecdote to begin a speech: “I accepted Jesus because I didn’t want to go to hell!” People would smile and nod with approval at my child-like faith. How did nobody tell me it was not funny?

Certainly, as I grew in cognitive and spiritual development, I learned there was more to the Christian life than an escape from hell, but once you begin a relationship with God based on fear it takes years to unlearn the image of the punitive God to be able… [Read more…] about Teaching Children About Hell

Why I Have Compassion for Defiant Court Clerk Kim Davis  

by Chuck Queen in Current Events

Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses, has been all over the news and internet this past week. Last Thursday U.S. District Judge David Bunning sent her to jail. The couples who originally sued in the case asked Bunning to fine her but not jail her. Bunning said that sending her to prison was his only alternative because he did not believe she would comply with his order if she were fined.

I have to admit I have looked at this woman with some disdain. I have thought, “Oh great, another example here in Kentucky (where I am from and where I minister) of Christian fundamentalism and religious hypocrisy to showcase to the world.” For the most part, when I heard her name mentioned on television or came across another news story or opinion piece about her I felt frustration welling up within me.

But something happened this past week that pierced through my defense mechanisms and touched my true self. I don’t know why, but when I read an article earlier in the week before the judgment by Bunning that talked about the real possibility of her being held in contempt of court (I knew this already, but for some reason when I read it this time) somehow the Spirit broke through. At least, that is how I understand it. Others may think differently.

Here’s what happened: I felt compassion. I experienced sympathy. I was moved with pity and sorrow.

Here’s why: It makes sense when someone faces consequences for standing up for what is just and fair and… [Read more…] about Why I Have Compassion for Defiant Court Clerk Kim Davis  

5 Ways You Can Help the Syrian Crisis

by in Current Events

Although the Syrian conflict has been going on for almost five years, it’s taken graphic images of dead children washing up on Turkish beaches for the world to really pay attention. The photos are disturbing, but it’s also disturbing that so many of us have largely ignored the Syrian crisis until we were confronted by heartbreaking images of suffering and death.

Over 12 million people in Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance, over 5 million children have been affected by the crisis, over 7 million people have been displaced internally in Syria and over 4 million have been displaced to other countries. It’s a crisis of massive scale, and there’s no sign that it is going to get better any time soon.

As with most major crises, the best way to help is by giving financial support to those who can make the biggest difference.

To that end, here are five charities who are doing important work on the ground in the affected regions and who could use our donations. Each of these organizations has an “A” rating with Charity Watch and a 4-star rating with Charity Navigator.

Please consider giving to at least one of them…or even all five.

Save the Children — “Save the Children’s emergency responders are working across Europe providing aid and support. But they need your help to reach more refugee children. Your support will help us reach desperate children across Europe and in other locations where refugees are on the move.”

Mercy Corps — “Your gift to our Syria… [Read more…] about 5 Ways You Can Help the Syrian Crisis

Why I Support Kim Davis

by in Current Events

View image | gettyimages.com

Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis refuses to issue same-sex marriage licenses because doing so would violate her religious beliefs. While I vehemently disagree with Davis’ beliefs about same-sex marriage, I wholeheartedly support her for taking a stand for what she thinks is moral, and I admire her willingness to maintain her convictions in the face of enormous pressure. It’s an example that many of us would do well to heed.

With rare exceptions, I don’t think anyone should have to do something that violates their sincerely-held moral convictions. If morality has any meaning at all, then it’s something we should stand up for, regardless of political, social and even legal circumstances. Morality isn’t something that we should simply set aside for the sake of convenience, it’s something we should uphold no matter what the consequences.

And yes, there will be consequences. Every moral choice has implications that we must live with. In this case, Davis seems prepared to face the consequences of her stand. How many of us would be willing to face fines, jail, loss of our job and public humiliation over a moral issue? How many of us would instead choose the far easier path of capitulation?

Unfortunately, much of the discussion surrounding this case is focused on tangential issues. I’ve seen far too many attacks on Davis that focus on her alleged hypocrisy, especially in regards to her checkered marital history, as well as her apparent willingness to… [Read more…] about Why I Support Kim Davis