Blogaround

Image source.

1. It sounded right in my head until I said it out loud (posted November 2) "Those misconceptions endured, unperturbed, uncorrected, almost unacknowledged, until life conspired to draw us outside of the bounds of that little world and we saw the look of confusion and consternation on someone’s face as we said those things out loud for the first time in the presence of someone who knew better."

2. T.F.: The Logic of Hell (posted November 2) "Accept that Hell is real and that it is infinitely more important than any earthly concerns and suddenly the very things that might compel you to attend to this-worldly needs and injustices — compassion, empathy, faith, hope, love — become reasons not to do so." Oh my goodness, you guys, go read this post. This is exactly everything I've been saying over and over about how HELL RUINS CHRISTIANITY.

3. The GOP primary’s theocratic X-factor: Inside the twisted worldview and junk history of David Barton (posted October 27) "He is the most influential right wing crackpot in American politics today. And that’s saying something."

4. Dear Professor: Is This Class Going to Challenge My Faith and Make Me Uncomfortable? (posted November 13) "I find frustrating the too-frequent sentiment from Christians that equates interrogating and examining the texts with destroying faith. There is a strain of anti-intellectualism in modern US Christianity that is vile, unbiblical, and deadlier to faith than scholarly examination could ever be."

5. This Children’s Book About Sex And Gender Is A Total Game-Changer (posted November 5) "Because any part of your body can be private, in this book we don't call them your private parts."

6. You Don't Need Your Moms' Permission to Have Sex. (posted November 13) "You could have the most eloquent, well-reasoned argument for why you should be allowed to have sex, and she would still say no. Because she's demonstrated that this is less about your well-being than it is her personal views about sex."

7. This image:

Image source.

Image text:

It is not Paris we should pray for.

It is the world. It is a world in which Beirut,

reeling from bombings two days before Paris,

is not covered in the press.

A world in which a bomb goes off

at a funeral in Baghdad

and not one person's status update says "Baghdad"

because not one white person died in that fire.

Pray for the world

that blames a refugee crisis for a terrorist attack.

That does not pause to differentiate between the attacker

and the person running from the very same thing you are.

Pray for a world

where people walking across countries for months,

their only belongings upon their backs,

are told they have no place to go.

Say a prayer for Paris by all means,

but pray more,

for the world that does not have a prayer

for those who no longer have a home to defend.

For a world that is falling apart in all corners,

and not simply in the towers and cafes we find so familiar.

I live in China. If it had happened in China, in some city with 5 times the population of Paris, but which most Americans have never heard of, would it be all over my American friends' twitter and facebook pages?

(On the other hand though, I'm not comfortable with the idea of policing the way people grieve or saying "how dare you care about this issue so much when there are other issues going on elsewhere in the world?!" So... not exactly sure what to do with that.)

8. One Million Moms Declares War on Children of Gay Parents (posted November 10) "One Million Moms’ claim that American Girl should have chosen another family and thus “remained neutral in the culture war” reminds me of those people who tell progressive parents that they need to force their sons to wear pants, because letting them wear dresses is “pushing an agenda.” Do you know what neutral looks like? It sure as heck doesn’t look like going out of the way to avoid stories about kids with gay parents."

9. I believe in conversion, but not in ‘conversionism’ (posted November 9) "Tell us about the moment when you got saved, the moment when you were born again, when you repented of your former life and everything changed. The problem, though, is that for most of us, everything didn’t change."