A Sound of Sheer Silence

This story caught my eye .  It's a story about Ferguson and the Eric Garner story (for those not from the US--both are incidents involving the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of the police), and it has Russell Moore, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, calling for solidarity between white (and, really, people of all races) Christians and African-Americans.  “It’s time for us in Christian churches to not just talk about the gospel but live out the gospel by tearing down these dividing walls not only by learning and listening to one another but also by standing up and speaking out for one another,” Moore said. I think Dr. Moore's statements are extremely positive, in two different ways.  First, they are positive on their own terms--he's right about the continuing need for serious reflection and change in the US with regard to race.  White, conservative churches, as those Dr. Moore speaks for, can ...

I wasn't going to talk about the Vatican's "Complementarity" shindig for a second time in two days , but I saw a quote that I just had to talk about.  It comes out of the mouth of Russell Moore, the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.  Dr. Moore was a speaker at the Vatican conference, and he attempted to make the case that we have it all wrong.  Traditional Christian morality is not about patriarchy.  Instead, patriarchy is the product of that terrible, unfathomable evil--THE.SEXUAL.REVOLUTION. Here's how Dr. Moore says it : The Southern Baptist ethicist said the sexual revolution appeared to have imposed a new patriarchy that enabled men to "pursue a Darwinian fantasy of the predatory alpha male" for the pursuit of "power, prestige and personal pleasure." Just in case you missed that, Dr. Moore is asserting that the "Darwinian fantasy of the predatory alpha male" who see...

I am going to warn you ahead of time--I am about to show you a picture of what, according to many, is an example of the most dangerous people in our society.  A Catholic bishop recently said that "standing firm" against these folks "makes an irreplaceable contribution to the common good of society."  So, this is serious.  Are you ready?

The most recent dust-up in the evangelical world involves the upcoming meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC").  To give the short version--a pastor of a SBC church in Southern California "came out" as being gay affirming , first to his son (who, in turn, came out as gay) and then to his congregation.  The congregation voted not to fire the pastor, and instead to become a gay affirming church.  Al Mohler, the head of a key seminary for the SBC and a general big-wig, basically laid down a marker that the SBC needs to vote these folks off the island .   Various folks responded .  Etc. A few thoughts.

My youngest sister graduated from college last weekend.  She's really an amazing person.  She has a job doing international development work, with a focus on Africa.  She is incredibly smart and passionate, and is a dynamic and self-assured person.  She's really special.  I'm very proud of her. This weekend saw a new hashtag campaign, #yesallwomen.  I missed the beginning of this movement, but I gather it was prompted by the shooting in Santa Barbara, California  on Saturday.  Apparently, the shooter left a manifesto that blamed his deeds on the fact that women have rejected him, and the loathsome and brain-dead Men's Right's Advocate (MRA) community took to Twitter to blame women generally for this shooting.  #yesallwomen was a series of stories from women about the kinds of experiences that women deal with on a daily basis from men.  The thread running through many of these stories is men who believe that women have a one-way obligat...

I am about to wade into very dangerous territory with this post--I am going to talk about women's fashion. Deacon Greg Kandra has a post today on his Deacon's Bench blog about The Clergy Collection , a new line of clothing for female priests and ministers put out by a London fashion outfit called the House of Ilona. I will say up front that I am the least qualified person on the planet to judge these pieces from a fashion perspective.  I am seriously color-blind--I can't match my own socks most of the time.  To the extent I have a notion of two pieces of clothing "matching," such as a shirt and a pair of pants, it is a product of someone (usually my sisters) telling me particular colors match, as opposed to some innate sense of my own.  So, no one should take my fashion analysis remotely seriously.  Having said that, these outfits seem perfectly lovely and appropriate to me.  It seems to me if you remove the collar, these outfits would at home in a normal...