Fragments of Hope: Letter from a Christian

A friend asked me once why I still love the Bible. She grew up in the Hellmouth right along with me and left as quickly as she could and I imagine that if she never goes back it’ll be too soon for her taste. She is now a self-identifying intellectual atheist and I think that my persistent faith confuses her as much as her persistent denial confuses me.

For me, I never stopped loving the Bible, or my perception of God. I love it like I love the works of select Transcendentalists, CS Lewis, and many of the Buddhist scriptures. I will always find comfort and power in the book. I don’t mind the seeming contradictions. I don’t need to find it without flaw. I like picking it apart for language, history, context, and subtext. I take exception with man, not the objects that man uses to such disappointing faults.

I rant at Christians not because I think that Christianity has run its course and proven itself obsolete, I rant because of its relevance and its potential, and because its message has been horribly distorted. Still, some things give me hope, and when I find them I will share them. The link below is one such.

What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?

I Am Not of This World: Cycles of Abuse, Plato’s Cave

So, yesterday’s entry, as rough and rambling as it is, will be left as it is. It has inspired a great deal of thought and dialogue in this house and even with Mum. There was a horrible tightness in my chest all day yesterday, and when the Darkling got home, we had a passionate discussion complete with my pacing and hitting the punching bag about our differing views on whether or not I was abused. Deep breath, big sigh.

I was victim of child abuse.

Now all of you who are thinking about that fist fight with Mum, forget it. Nope. Even after I admitted that I have been abused, I can’t change my mind on that one. See, after I wrote yesterday’s blog, I had this whole follow-up planned about how I wasn’t abused but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I was going to write about that. So, I’ll start there, but that’s not where I’m staying.

I was not a victim of abuse, I wrote yesterday, but it’s important to state that it wasn’t for lack of trying. That uncle was always asking for hugs, trying to get in rooms alone with me, and generally made inappropriate remarks from the moment I started developing breasts. I always responded with the aforementioned aggressive avoidance techniques and very clear “no.”s.  So, no, I was never abused, and I was prepared for my single caveat to be “though not for lack of trying.”

But here’s the thing. I couldn’t tell Dadai. Oh, I tried. Just as I tried with Smeagol. After the first dozen or so attempts though, you learn quickly that the adults around don’t want to hear about it. They’re going to tell you that you’re wrong or they’re going to make light of it. When, after you’ve told your Dadai about the incident, he insists that you go give your uncle pervert a hug… THAT. IS.  ABUSE.

When that same paternal figure regularly reinforces his world view by making you feel that you are wrong, unloving, unforgiving, unfaithful, and an overall bad person. THAT. IS.  ABUSE.

When you are drawn back in by sweet nicknames and common interests and demonstrations of concern for your well-being at moments of particular personal vulnerability. THAT. IS.  ABUSE.

When the nature of your character, your heart, and the very state of your soul is questioned regularly because you will not sanction or ignore the horrible wrongs around you and you are taught to doubt yourself from childhood. THAT. IS. ABUSE.

I grew up believing without a single doubt, that there was something wrong with me. That I didn’t think “right”, that I don’t love “right”. But for Grace and Mum and Da’s reinforcement, I don’t know where I would be. At least this way I grew up knowing that I was wrong, but not caring. If I was “wrong” I didn’t want to be “right”. Never the uselessness of those terms on a grander scale, it is more important right now that I stress that I WAS NOT WRONG.

Now that I’ve dealt with the personal particulars, I’ll explain some things about abuse so that you know I’m not just ranting, I’ve had some classes. ; )

I realize that Dadai’s family is caught in a cycle of abuse. His father was an alcoholic who (when drunk), verbally and physically abused every last one of them. I don’t know all of the particulars. I do know that there were times when the children hid under their beds in terror of their father. While I’m sure that things are much worse than that, that single image tells me all that I need to know. They were terrorized. They were abused.

Their sainted mother blamed the alcohol. I know this not only from hearing the words leave her lips, but I also know it because “except for the alcohol” Grandpa was reportedly a good man. There was a built-in excuse for his behavior, never mind that class and economics suggest that Grandpa himself was an abuse victim. Instead of stopping the abuse, Grandma prayed. I think we’ve covered some of this before, and I know I’ve covered the whole I’m-not-bashing-prayer thing. But whether or not she was afraid of him herself, a product of her generation, or whatever, the fact remains that she was both victim of the cycle of abuse and participator. There were exit avenues available to her; she knew that his behavior was wrong. She chose to remain with him because she loved him more than herself or her children, and she continued giving him children to abuse. (Thirteen, folks. They had THIRTEEN.)

Every last child carries the legacies of that abuse. Some of them have broken the cycle. They are geographically and emotionally distanced from the rest of the family, though in the twisted psychology of family groups, they still love them and occasionally spend time with them. They have not passed that abuse or the baggage of that abuse onto their children. They have empowered their children to not become victims or abusers. I admire the heck of each of them, and am so grateful for their courage, their honesty, and their willingness to help me in their own ways to deal with my part of that family legacy.

The rest are trapped in that cycle as surely as the folks in Plato’s cave. For my part, I believe that the folks in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (at least after the first one is freed) and in my family choose to remain there. A quick summary for those of you who don’t click on the link (CLICK IT!): those trapped within the cave watch shadows on the wall. They create their own ideas of that flickering reality. Should one be freed, escape to experience the reality of those shadows and return to liberate his brethren, they inevitably rail against that one, claim that he/she is corrupted and refuse to turn their heads to see anything but the shadows on the wall before them. They are still bound in darkness. It’s sad. It can even be heartbreaking, and you can argue for their victimhood and their fears, but at the end of the day they would rather hurt someone else than question themselves. They would rather remain in chains.

Why? A heart like mine will always wonder why on earth anyone would rather remain in chains. The short answer is fear and shame. I’m going to tackle those next, but I think I’m going to take a break for now. A small thanks to those who’ve shown their support for this series of posts. Even something as simple as a “like” on google+ is encouraging right now. It’s an interesting process.

I Am Not of This World: persistent abuse cultures really make me want to leave

I think that today I need to talk a little about sexual abuse. I am sincerely hoping to write a more coherent, less personal follow-up to this piece, but right now I needed to get all of this down. I know that it’s been on everyone’s mind lately with the Stuebenville rapes and rape culture all over the media.  And to that end you should go read this: “I Didn’t Know What Rape Was.”  Yes, I know all about the author, I know that there’s profanity, but don’t make me give you the language lecture. Go read Jen’s blog and let how heart-breakingly relevant her words are in our world seep in.

(And if you need the language lecture, ask me. I’m sure I have a copy handy somewhere).

Now, I could discuss social, cultural, and gender norms, but I hope at this point we’ve at least gotten to an understanding that traditional versions of these are not without their problems.(And honestly, I think that Jen does an admirable job).  Instead, I want to share something personal from the closet that is the Hellmouth in which I grew up.

Let me say first and foremost that I have been blessed to have never personally suffered physical, mental, emotional, or sexual abuse. Arguments can be made for each of these, but the latter, and my husband has done so. But I disagree, maybe even on semantics. For my experiences “abuse” is not quite the right word. But I’m going to work on that in the next post. No clue where I’ll end up from here.

When I was twelve Mum lost her temper and hit me in the face. The bruise was small, but it was there, just below my eye on my cheekbone. She shouldn’t have done it, won’t argue that at all, but the psychology of abuse doesn’t work in that situation any more than me getting hit in a schoolyard fight would. It was a violent attack, yes. It should not have happened, yes. But I promptly punched her back and the ensuing fight was not one that left me with a fear of my mother or any other victim psychology. I did not hurt physically or otherwise any more than I would have had I gotten into the same tussle with my bff (and trust me, Billie and I had our scraps).

Violence is not abuse, though abuse can be violent. Violence is not always malicious. I would argue that abuse most certainly is.

I feel as if I’ve rambled. To return to the topic. I have not been abused, though I too easily could have been. I grew up knowing this. I watched children around me suffer neglect, physical abuse, and emotional abuse. I saw classmates cringe when the teacher had to raise her voice. I knew kids who couldn’t be touched, and children that you had to approach cautiously, as if they were half wild. I knew kids who feared their parents and their disapproval or their retribution. I knew, from an early age, that no all adults could be trusted.

For the record, none of that ever happened with me and Mum. Until I left for college, if I had a bad dream, I still went to Mum and Da’s bedroom and crawled under Da’s side of the bed. There I slept safe, loved, and protected with Pinky Toast (epic teddy extraordinaire) as a pillow, Mum’s robe as a blanket, and Da’s gun tucked between their mattresses just above my head.

Atypical, I know, but I tell you all of that to illustrate the important parts that an abused child doesn’t get: I felt loved. I felt safe. I was protected. With the exception of a single incident that to this day haunts my Mum, I did not encounter anything (at home) that would even count toward abuse. Mum (an abuse victim herself) always watched out for us, always talked to us about the signs, and how to protect ourselves. Da made sure we knew we could come to him with anything and that he’d kill anyone who harmed us. That sounds crazy violent to some, I’m sure, but when you’re a kid surrounded by adult predators, knowing that your folks have your back (even violently) is a comfort that cannot be overstressed.

And now the predators.

Dadai’s family is large. Large enough to have that one uncle that most good people would not leave alone with their children. I remember, from a very young age, not trusting said uncle. More importantly, I remember Mum telling me to stay away from him. To never be in a room alone with him and not to let him put his hands on me. I remember her telling me not to worry about being polite. Back talk, yell, kick, do whatever I had to in order to keep him away from me. I didn’t have to hug him hello and goodbye no matter what Dadai said. These were important bits of advice, since after their divorce when I was four years old Mum was not present at Dadai’s family gatherings. She raised me to never be a victim. Which in a funny way is precisely why I hit her back that day when I was 12.

Long ramble short, I was safe. I’m still safe. I’ll be dead in a ditch somewhere before I’m ever a victim unless some super clever serial killer kidnaps me and has the patience not to let me drive him to kill me.  Still, the predators are sout there. Most of Dadai’s family won’t talk about it. If you bring it up (and believe me, I did after I found out that said uncle had asked Smeagol—the baby sister—to see her breasts when she was fourteen) they act as if it’s some small bad thing that he shouldn’t have done. As if he swiped a cookie before dinner or something. They don’t tell the other children in our family to avoid him, to stop him, that they have every right to scream, shout, or kick. They make them go give him hugs when he shows up at family dinner. They make the teenage girls wait on him (fix his dinner plate, etc). I have one little cousin who is repeatedly allowed to spend the night with him and his wife!

This man has molested young girls and young women (can’t say about boys, I only know about the females) for decades. DECADES. At least forty years. That. I. Know. Of.  And while I think he should be taken out back and shot, I would be happy with even a moderate, modern response. Reporting. Counseling.  Protecting. These women have no support structures. By ignoring it, dismissing it, blaming the victims even!, family members not only hurt existing victims, they create more.

Their solution is always to pray about it. While I’m ALL for prayer, that’s b.s. It’s our JOBS to protect the innocent from harm. Not merely pray that they never come to it. More importantly, if you know that they are going to be harmed and you do nothing to stop it then you are JUST as responsible as the one who harms them.

Which is where I am today. The camel with that last straw.

I recently found out that someone biologically close to me—while under the influence of alcohol—said inappropriate things to Smeagol. These things could have come straight from the mouth of my hellbound uncle and because Smeagol’s parents are the useless creatures that they are, the Darkling and I had to explain to her just how inappropriate those comments were. Alcohol does not excuse it. I cannot go to her parents. I have done so already where the uncle was concerned and they LITERALLY did nothing. I have, of course, told Smeag to be assertive, to avoid as often as possible, but that if necessary she can shout, kick, scream or whatever.

As I said, today I’m angry. I’m angry for current events, I’m angry for past events, and I’m angry on behalf of all those victims. Little girls who had no one to stand up for them. No one to whom they could go and know that Da would shoot the bastard who’d put hands on her.

I’m also, just a little, angry for me, because I’ve finally gotten old enough to hate them all for their indifference.  I look back and I don’t see a family so human in their flaws, I see deplorable weakness and darkness. I see malice. I do not want to forgive them. That’s not who I am. I believe FIRMLY that there is good and evil in this world, and I DO believe that some people are bad. The adult me has broken trust with them. I cannot view them in the light that I once did. I do not care that they are “saved by grace.” I don’t believe that most of them are saved at all, because the abuse continues. The cycle is unbroken.

Men in that family treat women in wretched and horrifying ways because the women and the men buy into a system that reinforces the false idea that men are weak, subject to their hormones, and that they “can’t help” what they do. Women are taught that it must be their fault since the men can’t help it. So they believe that they deserve the abuse for wearing, saying, being whatever it is they were.

Enough. Enough, enough, enough. Humans MUST stop creating victims. Humans MUST stop creating these cowardly excuses for predators. And gods help us, they MUST stop using religion to reinforce this culture.

Truths:

All the prayer, church, singing, and Jesus-shouting will not save you if you are living daily the role of malice, of abuser, of harm. Being saved means you stop all that junk and pray for forgiveness for it. Not that you’re counting on JC to mitigate for you so that you can do whatever the heck you want.

An individual may be sick. An abuser may have deep-rooted psychological issues. But when over one hundred people know of even one instance of abuse and a child is still encouraged to spend time with the pervert, that isn’t a sickness, that’s frelling evil. No amount of being a “good person” will excuse you from the sins you committed against the children you sent like lambs to pain.

We need to empower one another. Children, adults, it doesn’t matter. We need to each know that no matter how stupid we may be or what we do, that no one has the RIGHT to harm us. Then we need to flip that coin and teach each other not to be stupid.

We need to empower men. That’s right. Read that again. Men are more than basic animalistic drives. Men are to be held responsible for their actions, not have excuses made for them. Men are capable of civilization.

We need to empower women. Women are not temptation. Women are not virtue. Women are humans. Just like men. If I don’t have the right to punch someone in the face because they’re stupid, then men don’t have the right to rape, molest, proposition a women because she’s not swathed in wool from hair to heel.  My skin is not an invitation to have sex with me. And a decent person never thinks that.

We need to stop apologizing to the perpetrators for the crimes they commit. Stop giving them excuses for committing them. We need to create a social norm that doesn’t encourage sins to be kept in closets that victims are then led to. We need to be comfortable calling people what they are. “Oh, he/she has had a hard life and didn’t know….blahblahblah.” WRONG. He/she is a rapist. A child molester. That’s what he/she is. And if he/she doesn’t want to be that then get help, redefine. BE BETTER.

The Stuebenville rape situation is heartbreaking because I agree with Jenny (the linked article).  It’s depressing that we do not teach physical, emotional, mental, sexual boundaries. That not only to women not know what rape is, men don’t. That we teach that someone is ENTITLED to another person’s body or being for any reason.

That, my friends, is the definition of chattel slavery.

I owe Mum (even with that right hook of hers) a greater debt than she will ever know. I was raised in region where slavery still rages (though I’ll argue it is not limited to the South), but I was not born in chains. Maybe it’s because of how hard she fought to break her own bonds. Maybe it’s simply because of how much she loved me. I don’t know. I don’t care. I am just thankful.

I do know that as a child I wasn’t much better than the monsters. I protected myself and my cousins as best I could from my uncle but because I was never abused, I didn’t stand up and say “hey, it’s not okay. It’s not okay for you to pretend this isn’t happening. It’s not okay for you to say he’s just being a dirty old man. Dirty old men are NOT OKAY!”

I did stand up when I found out about Smeagol’s incident. And that’s what I’m doing today, because I’ve watched that evil grow and it must be stopped.  If all I do is leave, if all I do is refuse to reinforce the sense of community surrounding the perpetrator, then I will have done something. Maybe not for those older than me. They know better. They choose otherwise. But maybe for the young ones. I will not be a part of it. Not in association, not in name, not in forgiveness.

Evil has too long been permitted to thrive in the hearts of humankind because we tell one another how sorry we are for the blight, instead of trying to cure it.

As Christmas Approaches

Look! Words! 

This is Linus. I love Linus. He knows what Christmas is all about.

Y’all know that I struggle with Christians. Technically I struggle with zealots of all types, but this is the time of year that the “Christians” remember the God they try to ignore for most of the year and start trying to cram in “worship and praise” like they’re vacation days that they have to take or lose next year. I hate them. I tried being mildly displeased with them, but I realized last night as my FB feed blew up with evangelical ravings from the modern culturals that I really. Really. Hate. Them.

Christianity, in and of itself, is something of a struggle for me. If you remove people from the equation (and it’s technically not possible, but if you can suspend your disbelief for Batman, you can work with me here), I have a powerful love/hate relationship with the basics tenants, a whole lot of nostalgia from my Grandmother’s version of the faith, and a deep respect for those who at least attempt to get it “right”.

For the record and in fairness, I DO NOT HATE ALL CHRISTIANS.  But a large majority of them are why I started this blog and why I have decided to reread the Bible (cover to cover with Apocrypha) before getting too specific with my rantings again.

However, in the interest of heading things off at the pass and getting out my general rant of the day, let me give you a few of my heretical notions.

1.  I do not believe that everyone should be a Christian. Period. If you want to get super technical, Jesus came to fix what was broken in Judaism, not start a new religion (read the red words, folks), and I’m not going to say that the Messiah’s chosen religion is wrong. Are you? People really need to stop using their faith as a way to ostracize and assimilate people. Sheep. Grr….I hate sheep. Crooked shepherds are even worse.
2. I think that the word of Jesus trumps the word of Paul, so stop ignoring the words in red and harping on Thessolonians.
3. The book of Revelation was written for early Christians. It’s allegorical. A code written about specific people at a specific time. It is not a portent of doom for the future. (For the record, if I’m wrong, I’ll be thrilled. A Red Horse, a Great Sword, Dragons, Harlots, self-righteous hypocrites getting their comeuppance…I’m so on board for that.)
4. I loathe a “Sunday Christian.” Spare me the speech about how you should go to church every Sunday. For the record, I have nothing against church every Sunday, but you aren’t giving him a day of worship if you sit in church for an hour and then spend the rest of the day watching sports or whatever. You’re giving him an hour (two tops if you go to Sunday School too) and two hours on a Sunday is NOT “remember(ing) the Sabbath by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8 for those following along).
5. “Christmas Christians” fall into the same category of loathing as those above, only some days (like today) they are worse because I love Christmas, the Christian and the Secular versions (except Santa Claus, I do not like Santa Claus, sorry. Oh, and that Elf on a Shelf junk. Ick.)
6. On the “Happy Holidays” topic (to paraphrase a lovely post I saw somewhere): I don’t mind being wished Happy Anything by someone who is actually taking the time to wish me well. Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanza, Yuletide, whatever (just not Wren Day…I don’t  want to be a part of anyone’s Wren Day). The point is that *I* celebrate Christmas, so unless I know that you observe another holiday, I’m going to wish you a Merry Christmas. This is not a covert way of saying “I wish you’d accept the Lord Jesus Christ and come into the fold of his robe” (<-heh). “Happy Christmas” means simply that “I wish you love, joy, peace, warmth, friends, family, and just enough abundance to feel how blessed you are this winter season, this time of darkest nights.” If those are not the sentiments you wish to receive from me, then we probably don’t need to talk anyway.
7. Now, onto the evangelicals. Let’s get this straight: I do not think that it is acceptable for people of any faith to disparage (especially from a pedestal of ignorance) any belief. Atheists might not make sense to me, but neither do most Christians. Most days, Zen and Tibetan Buddhists make more sense to me than the rest, but you don’t see me plastering “Be a Buddhist!” all over my social networking outlets. That said:
8. Be kind. Be loving. Be helfpul. Be inclusive. Be questioning. Be skeptical. Be willing to learn. Be grateful. Be compassionate. Be honest. Be faithful. Be intentional. Be aware. Be purposeful.

Cause I gotta tell you, the modern, political, occasional Christians are ruining Christmas for the rest of us. And for a group that seems largely driven by evangelical notions, it is amusing to me how many drive faithful hearts right out of the churches.

“I Weep for the Species”: kindness, compassion, and the separation of church and state

I hope, for originality’s sake if nothing else, that this will be last time I address homosexuality for a while. Not because it is an unworthy topic, but because its level of controversy is but a symptom of a much larger problem. One that I will only briefly begin to touch on below.

It is interesting to me how marriage camps define themselves as hetero- or homo- sexual, but you don’t see any campaigns teaching our young people how to be in a loving, honest, committed relationship of any kind, or how to find themselves or the right person before entering into a commitment. We need to teach family and relationship values, timeless elements that have absolutely nothing to do with gender or sexuality. We need to teach parenting, not what a father or a mother does. Those ideas have changed since humans moved from caves to farms to cities. But kids…? Kids still need the essentials. We should teach those.

My parents were not hung up on gender roles. Don’t get me wrong. Da was and remains a very Southern man. He is the breadwinner, the backyard farmer, and has a shop where he can make everything from welding projects to carpentry projects to his own bullets. Mostly, though, he uses it as his space, for tossing a few back, grilling out, and generally hanging out with Sundance and listening to classic rock. Still, when it came to raising a daughter, he totally stepped out of tradition. We talked about boys, relationships, my period, and bras.

Mum has always been a whole nother story. She’s a tomboy, raised with/by three brothers, she was tough as nails when I was growing up, always outside, always rough housing, and always fixing something. When our washer broke, she and I took it apart and fixed it. Same with the go-cart, the lawnmower, the vcr…I could go on. Da was not threatened by this any more than he was her propensity to not wear a bra, or make up, or fix her hair up pretty. Mum did not think him less of a man because he and his daughter talked clothes and boots and he couldn’t gut a home appliance and put it back together and have it working.

It is because of my parents that I first began separating Church and State. I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, I was twelve, and much more concerned with the fact that Da’s horse Confederate was sick. Having some bad blood between her and the local vet, Mum called one from the next county over, a lady with whom she’d gone to school. It was late. The lady asked if she could bring her significant other and their kids. Mum said, of course, and when she hung the phone she proceeded to prep us for meeting our first gay family. It went something like this:

“Dr. Vet is gay and I don’t want anyone acting like jack asses to her or her family.”

Confusion from me and my brother. Brooding from Da.

“Uh…I don’t care that she’s gay. She is coming to help Confederate, right?” Me

As always I looked to Da for confirmation. He nodded.

My brother only wanted to know how many kids she had and if they could play in the pasture.

Sundance and I ended up with babysitting duty.

I don’t remember thinking much about them or their “sin.” The two ladies were perfectly nice and had raised polite, kind, and intelligent children (a rarer and rarer thing these days). Mum and Mrs. Dr. Vet talked about animals and kids while Dr. Vet and Da took care of Confederate. Dr. Vet was good people, and her family was more than welcome on our property. We did not treat them politely and with respect in spite of their lifestyle. We treated them as they treated us and with gratitude for caring for one of ours. I guess my folks figured if they weren’t judging us for our skeletons, we wouldn’t be judging them. It wasn’t as if they were trying to convert anyone. And neither were we.

If you don’t want your kids growing up around homosexuality, pay more attention to them, control their environment. And their environment does not include the entire country. Most faiths renounce a large part of the world and popular culture. Christians are expressly told that they are “not of this world.” (a favorite passage of mine, to be sure)

This is no different. If I were a Christian parent, I wouldn’t let my kids go to see certain movies, listen to certain music, read certain books, or hang out with people who I thought might harm them (We aren’t discussing the fact that I wouldn’t actually do most of this, but if I can ban my imaginary daughter from reading Stephanie Meyer, then I can understand Christian parents choosing their own list of things to restrict). In America, parents have that right.

What parents (of any group) do NOT have the right to do is legally dictate the rights and privileges of other groups. Especially when those groups are simply demanding the same rights that the parents themselves expect. Should we protect our children? Absolutely, but that starts at home, with your family, your community, and the values that you instill in your children. They are not to be raised by the government, the schools, or the county rec league. We should be teaching them to be respectful and compassionate. Notice that there’s not direct object in that sentence? That’s right. Not “to <insert group here>”, children should be taught a basic level of common decency if we are ever to stop squabbling amongst ourselves over petty differences.

As religious cultures become increasingly divisive, the human race loses precious evolutionary ground. Even worse, spirituality takes the flack. Faith becomes the “problem”. Sacredness is the disease.

And the world is going to suck if nothing is sacred. Ever. I would rather everything be sacred. Now, we can get into a discussion about that if you’d like, and likely I will in another post, but I imagine that’s a doozy. The very nature of the sacred and the Sacred…subjectivity versus objectivity…I can feel small brains collapsing like ancient stars even now, so I’ll wrap this up and make it simple:

The misuse of religion (such as in the opposition of basic civil rights) equates religion with the lowest forms of humanity. It drags us into our past, where religion has been the tool of racists, bigots, extremists, and hatemongers. It keeps humans in the darkness of all their past crimes. It also takes a very small (if misguided) leap for those fed up with the whole thing to toss Faith out right along with religion…the unfortunate baby with the bathwater. Our world, however, has become increasingly faithless, secular if you want to sort of correctly use a word that I only kind of like. And. This. Is. Bad. If humanity has any hope of being anything more than what it is, then it is imperative that human beings spend some of their lives (often, if you ask me) contemplating something (ANYTHING!) greater than themselves. Because if we are the pinnacle of existence, then “I weep for the species.”

A Couple of Links: Christianity, Politics, and Homosexuality in America

Interestingly, before I began this blog, my facebook feed was filled with the kind of politicized cultural Christian trash that I hate. To be fair, I live in North Carolina and grew up in South Carolina, so this week in particular has been buzzing with people telling me how to vote on North Carolina’s Amendment 1. Of course I was disappointed with the end results of the voting, but I live here; I was not surprised.

Since I have stepped out in faith to begin sharing my thoughts, I have seen a  few posts pop up from other friends that I positively love. I have been encouraged by these and would like to share them. I have not yet had the opportunity to peruse the entirety of either blog, so I am not going to jump on a wagon and tell you to ride it too. Just that I’m interested in reading more from these sources. I have read the specific articles to which I will link, and I really enjoyed them. I encourage you to check both of these out and know that I will be reading much, much more at God is Not a Republican and Ms. Evan’s blog. And I will be getting my hands on the GINAR book.

For Every Christian that Opposes Gay Rights-God is Not a Republican a brief, but thoughtful note on our topic yesterday

How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation-Rachel Held Evans, a note that also speaks on the topic of NC’s amendment 1.