Going AWOL from the Culture Wars and Loving Humanity
Welcome to Fundagelical Scripture Twisting 101! You might want to take a few notes so you too can avoid doing all those pesky things Jesus taught. Let's start with love. That whole love your neighbor, love your enemy thing can be very inconvenient. You might have to buy a meal for a hungry person or … Continue reading Twisted Love
The Religious Right and the Religious Left were watching this week as United Methodist Church delegates met in St. Louis. Two critical issues topped the agenda for the denomination to decide. One was about pensions and the other about how the denomination would respond to LGBTQ people. The denominational delegates would decide if the UMC … Continue reading United Methodist Not United Anymore
As I pointed out in another post, Fundagelicals tend to skip over Bible verses that seem a bit inconvenient. The positive attitude towards sex and sexuality in Song of Songs doesn't get a lot of play time on the Fundagelical preaching playlist. However, If you want an obscure bit of Bible weirdness, try Exodus 4:20-26. … Continue reading I bet you won’t hear a sermon preached on this!
When I talk to my old Fundagelical High School friends and family members, it can be a frustrating experience. If I discuss a passage such as Leviticus 18:22 and attempt to contextualize it to the holiness code, limited scientific knowledge, patriarchal society, and cultural preservation, I get accused of twisting scripture and not understanding the … Continue reading The Bible is very clear, except those parts that aren’t, so we don’t talk about those.
Sitting in chapel at my Christian school, I was guaranteed at least once a week to hear about the evils of rock music. Our school principal would get up on stage and in a loud booming voice declare "ROCK MUSIC IS EVIL, IT IS FROM THE PIT OF HELL, IT IS SIN, IT IS WRONG!" … Continue reading Rock Music Is EVIL!!!
Fundagelicals love them some mission trips. Every summer, as a youth pastor, I took teens on youth mission trips to the Mexicali Valley. We would set up a week-long series of children's Bible studies, women's Bible studies, and evening church services in small villages. We worked with the local missionaries to preach the word of … Continue reading We Bring Jesus To You Just Don’t Bring Him Back
Amazon announced it would do an Anita Bryant movie written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. Anita Bryant for the younger folk reading this was a 1970's religious right anti-gay rights activist. She had been a runner up in the in the Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant, charted a few songs as a singer and was the … Continue reading Just because I oppress you is no reason to dislike me.
Fundagelicals love to tell you the Bible is inerrant. What they mean by that is often fuzzy. Fundamentalists at the beginning of the 20th century were upset about textual criticism applied to scripture. Discoveries like the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, two Biblical manuscripts older than the majority text used to create the King James … Continue reading The Bible is inerrant except for all those mistakes that don’t count.
Fundagelicals love them some persecution. Of course, they aren't actually being persecuted. They love to believe they are being persecuted. In the same way, a wannabe hipster wears faux-vintage clothing, Fundagelicals dress in faux persecution to become wannabe martyrs. Since they aren't being fed to the lions anymore, they have to find new ways to … Continue reading Please Persecute Me.
Satan, rock-n-roll, and liberal Hollywood are three things Fundagelicals love to rant about. I grew up listening to my Southern Baptist preacher warn against the evils of rock-n-roll and attended a private Christian High School that warned about the demons infesting the music industry, movie industry, and Magic 8 Ball industry. Thanks to Right Wing … Continue reading Demons, Rock-n-roll, and Hollywood: A Fundagelical Conspiracy Trifecta!