Why Homeless People Don’t Use Shelters. After I was hospitalized after a brutal assault I required the use of a walker.
Sleeping on the ground was agony while still healing from multiple fractures so I decided to try to use a homeless shelter again, even though I’d sworn I never would again. Silencing Techniques. Have you ever had an entire conversation that was not about the thing you wanted to talk about, but about why you needed to stop talking about it?
It's called silencing. What women who want equality in the church must face. Thank you for your interest in Patheos newsletters!
Please enter your email address below and click the "Subscribe" button. Our records indicate that you are already a subscriber. To avoid conflicts please select any additional subscriptions from your Preference Center. Thank you for your subscription. You can visit your Preference Center to complete your profile and see what else we have to offer. We apologize, we were unable to complete your subscription at this time, please try again later. The Junia ProjectThe Junia Project. This post is the second in an Advent series on the women in Christ’s lineage: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.
Visit the blog every Monday in December to learn more about these important ancestors of Jesus, and tune in on Christmas Day for more about his mother, Mary. Biblical Nicknames In the Christian tradition, we often assign nicknames to characters in scripture, such as “Doubting Thomas” and the “Virgin Mary”. These nicknames are not always a bad thing, but they do affect our understanding of certain characters and stories. Wine and Marble. “The hardest part is realizing you’re in charge” – Helen Bishop, Mad Men One of the things that has been a constant struggle for me, as a woman leaving the world of Christian patriarchy, has been reconciling reality to my learned “right” responses.
The Logic of Stupid Poor People. We hates us some poor people.
First, they insist on being poor when it is so easy to not be poor. They do things like buy expensive designer belts and $2500 luxury handbags. To be fair, this isn’t about Eroll Louis. His is a belief held by many people, including lots of black people, poor people, formerly poor people, etc. On Humility and Privilege. A few months ago I wrote about the relationship between self-esteem and servanthood.
The observation I made then was that we often fail to humble ourselves to take on the form of a servant (Philippians 2.6-8) because we are struggling to secure self-esteem. Somewhat paradoxically, it takes a lot of ego-strength to be humble--to let others go first, to take the last place, to "wash feet," and to allow others to get the praise, recognition, and accolades.
We struggle with this. Not because we are wicked but because our sense of self-worth is built upon praise, compliments, attention, respect and popularity. Thus we engage in what psychologists have called "excessive reassurance seeking," constantly taking the temperature of our social network to verify that we are being noticed, approved of, and included. The War Prayer. Below is the full text of "The War Prayer" by Mark Twain.
It was published posthumously in Harper's Monthly in 1916, six years after Twain's death. Twain delayed publication during his lifetime because, as he said to his publisher, "I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead. " The War Prayerby Mark Twain. Greg Boyd Explain’s His Open Theism. Many of us who deeply care about sound teaching and biblical theology have been concerned about the teachings of “Open Theism” where certain Evangelical scholars like Clark Pinnock and others seem to be suggesting that God is not truly omniscient.
I have heard that Greg Boyd is also an Open Theist, and this troubled me because I really like Greg and feel that a lot of his teaching is is a good counter balance to the idolatry and the unbridled nationalism of the Christian Right. So I was not too happy when I learned that he espoused Open Theism. LOST IN TRANSLATION Part 2 - A Look at 1 Timothy 2:12-15. [In Part 1, Bob showed that some words in the Bible are translated differently when they refer to women as opposed to when they refer to men.
Case in point: Phoebe’s depiction as servant and helper rather than minister and leader. Today he addresses the impact of translation on our understanding of 1 Timothy 2:12-15.] So, what went wrong? In the 4th century A.D. the church became the state religion of the Roman Empire. It may be said of this merger that Christianity altered Rome. Gender bias in translation did not begin with the English language; it started in the 4th century, when St. Your God is too Big. As a college professor interested in the psychology of religion I'm sort of an anthropologist of young adulthood spirituality. That is, I listen a great deal to how my students talk about faith, God, Christianity, and church. DO YOU HATE YOUR NON-CHRISTIAN FAMILY & FRIENDS? A couple of weeks ago at church, we had a guest speaker. And he convicted me…he convicted me hard. Carolyn's Reflections: The Underlying Belief System of Spiritual Abuse. After a temporary hiatus from the spiritual abuse blog series while I traveled south to Pennsylvania and west to Oregon, I’m back in Boxford again, stationed at my computer, and ready to pick up where we left off.
Statements I made earlier about abuse (see “The Perfect Storm”) point to the possibility that something is amiss our Christian belief system that is opening the way, if not directly giving rise, to spiritual abuse. The details are in that blog, but the gist of what I said is that abuse is: a denial of the gospelthe antithesis of what it means to follow Jesusan overt rejection of God’s vision for his image bearers These are serious statements, but the graphic and tragic stories of abuse speak for themselves. Because this topic is particularly important, this blog will be a bit longer than usual, but please read to the end.
Rev. Dr. Randy S. Woodley: Native American Christianity: Through Bullets and Arrows to Peace. When I came to faith at age 19, I learned to ignore my ethnic heritage because I was told it was "of the flesh. " My experience is consistent with the colonial history of those living in a land where the dominant culture is associated with one particular faith tradition. Because Euro-Americans contextualized their Christian faith so well (see, for example, the White Jesus on the wall of First Church of Anytown, USA), Euro-Americans became confused over what was faith and what was culture. The resulting enmeshment of Christianity and Euro-American civilization was the decision that all native religious ceremonies and many cultural practices be outlawed. For almost 100 years, in the name of progress, Native children were forced into government-sponsored, denominationally run boarding schools where many were abused physically, sexually, emotionally and spiritually, and where many of them died.
Even today, most mission-sending agencies don't deal with cultural distinctions well. Formerly Fundie: Insights, Hopes and Laments on American Christianity and Culture. A Developing Picture of God: The Warfare Worldview. Everyday Idolatry: My God. Is God Impassive? We just finished up a study of John Sanders' book A God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence in our Wednesday night class at the Highland Church of Christ. The American Dream for Losers. *Identities changed to protect those involved. Here’s Something about the Bible of the First Christians I Bet Many of You Didn’t Know (you’re welcome) Respectfulconversation - The Conversation. Inclusive Orthodoxy ~ The Rev. Justin R. Cannon. G. Roger Denson: Homosexuality as Population Control? Why Gays & Lesbians Are Essential to the Balance of Nature. New Insight into the (Epi)Genetic Roots of Homosexuality. Modesty: I Don't Think it Means What You Think it Means by Rachel Held Evans. Comparing the Psalms to Songbooks.
Dethroning Male Headship by Shirley Taylor. David Lose: Misogyny, Moralism and the Woman at the Well. David Lose: Misogyny, Moralism and the Woman at the Well. Greg Boyd Explain’s His Open Theism. A Good Friday Meditation. Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near. I Am a Worm. Rethinking Service. An Angry God Vs. A God Who Gets Angry.
Abuse, Violence, Gender and Submission. Getting Honest about the Dark Side of the Bible – ReKnew. Personhood « The Jawbone Of an Ass. Now You Owe Me a Zillion Dollars « The Jawbone Of an Ass. Unnecessary roughness: The moral hazards of football. Sermon by Anne Robertson ~ WATER INTO WINE. The Historical Mary. What Do I Mean by Post-Evangelical? The whole megillah. BATHSHEBA - A Truthful Account. Untitled. Finding Darwin's God. Think. Laugh. Weep. Worship. The Shape of Piper’s Foundation Laid for Driscoll. Imagine Justice. Media Player. The Greening of the Blogosphere: Simeon and Anna. The Prophetess Anna. How Torah Undermines the Very Slavery It Permits.
She’ol « The Jawbone Of an Ass. The Women in Christ's Life: Anna, The Prophetess - Christian Dating, Singles. Anna the Prophetess. The feast of the prophetess Anna - Who was she? Anna the Prophetess and the Holy Infant: Bible Commentary on Daily Readings. ANNA THE PROPHETESS. Women in the New Testament A Cultural View. A Bad Answer is Worse than No Answer: Kephale and Authority 1 « The Jawbone Of an Ass. Women in the Gospels: Jesus and His Female Benefactors « The Jawbone Of an Ass.
Whose Kingdom, Which Lord? Jesus & Nationalism, part 5 (Concluding Exhortations… Native Americans as Victims of Nationalism) Quivering Daughters: The Cultic Family, Part I. Disability and Autonomy « BLT. Embracing the Humanity of the Bible: Listening for the Divine through Human Words.