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The Perfect Millennial Church that they don’t want
Unfortunately, most clergymen won’t like the answer, which is double-pronged. First and more negative is that there is an enormous segment of the millennial population — perhaps a majority — that they will never, ever convert, no matter what they do. Many people my age are simply not interested in church, organized religion or religion in general, and no number of projectors, hip, youthful pastors, or Twitter hashtags are going to change that.
I’m all for love and a personal relationship with God, but I choose to follow the man who teaches that political action is worship, that social justice is love.
Posted in Daily Links and Notes
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Woman looks back at her youth and talks about the ways the system should have constrained her
When I was sixteen I was released from a court order, the purpose of which had been to keep me detained for my own protection. It did not have the required effect. The reason for this was clear, and I still wonder how the children’s court could have been so foolish as to imagine that a few months of detention would have turned my life around when I was released back onto the streets with no viable alternative to prostitution. If they’d had any real dedication to helping me change my life, they would have detained me for a couple of years and made it a condition of my future parole that I complete some form of training, be it secretarial, hairdressing, etc., and I would have been assigned a parole officer and social worker who’d have ensured I was placed with an apprenticeship or in an entry-level office position. It wouldn’t have been rocket science, it could have been done and I know I would have been capable of applying myself to it. Anyway, this did not happen; I was released after a few months and it was at this point I went to live in the brothel on Leeson Street.
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A Book About Post-Colonialism Not Written By A White Dude | Pete Enns
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Dreher asks his audience what’s the one last thing that would make you leave your church
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Pope Francis and the Magic Kingdom of Inconvenient People
Pope Francis Visits America, Film at 11
Part of what has fascinated me about this papal visit was watching us watch him.
On the surface the Roman Catholic church should be an institution that culturally left leaning Americans should hate, and many of course do for a variety of reasons:
- The priest sexual abuse scandals whose stain won’t go away
- The RC position on contraception, abortion, women in church office, gay rights
- It’s role in European and colonial history around the world in terms of religious wars, persecution and colonial mistreatment of indigenous peoples.
If Americans talk about “the church” doing bad things in the past, most of those things were done by the institution of the Roman Catholic church. You would imagine that activists would be ready to pounce on the institutional leader for contemporary and past sins that get the most press in today’s moralistic public square. That might have been true for past pontiffs, but for many on the cultural left Pope Francis feels different.
Pounce on Protestants, Cheer for Catholics
One compare and contrast moment might be between Tony Campolo’s announcement to affirm same-sex marriage and the response he got. While some in the affirming camp applauded him others criticized his announcement as “too little, too late.” This is in contrast with Pope Francis’ “who am I to judge” line which derived widespread celebration from the cultural left. On the plane back to Italy Pope Francis makes a comment that seemed to give some clearance to Kim Davis and her stand to not sign marriage certificates but this doesn’t seem to bother anyone at all. This Pope’s Teflon faces the left as much as John Paul II’s faced the right.
Why the difference? Skye Jethani on the podcast he does with Phil Vischer once noted that many hold Protestants and Catholics to two different standards. Protestants are expected to adapt to changing social norms while the Roman Catholics are expected to not change at all even while many in the West simply ignore their teaching. No one really expects the Roman Catholic church to change its doctrine on these matters.
He Brought Roman Catholics out of the closet and onto the air
The Pope and I
Cynical
A good friend had a response to my post yesterday about Pope Francis that stewed in me overnight, cynical. While I confess that cynicism is a problem for me and that yesterday’s post could well be seen as an expression of my cynicism I want to clarify a few things because these issues come up often I’ve found in my relating especially to people in my own church tribe when I get into things that touch American politics.
I believe that people often start their political journeys like they do their religious ones, by inheriting or pushing back from the beliefs of their parents. This is true for me too. When it comes to politics I grew up as an African American Christian because of my parent’s journey and in many ways my political proclivities continue to align best with that community.
From what I’ve seen from this Pope I would have to say that as far as I can tell my take on American politics probably line up about as well with this Pope as they do with any other major public figure on the state today, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter. What this means is that when it comes to Donald Trump, put me down in favor of the bag carriers.
Some Ways I Disagree with Republicans Continue reading →