news

TNT: Labels – Rick Warren – Politics

May 1, 2013 by Bo Sanders 5 Comments

In this Theology Nerd Throwdown, Bo and Tripp discuss labels, Rick Warren mourning publicly (and virtually) and how the issue of gun control demonstrates the broken nature of our political system.

We begin with a fun new game of defining words in 30 seconds.

If you want to follow up some of the topics covered in the Throwdown, you can click on the links below:

Labels and the potential overlap of Subverting the Norm and Missio Alliance

The difference between Progressive and Liberal also what I learned about using ‘vs.’

You can also sign up for this Summer’s high gravity book club or get the new videos of Rob Bell, Barry Taylor and Peter Rollins

Thanks to all who sponsored this episode!
*** If you enjoy all the Homebrewed Christianity Podcasts then consider sending us a donation via paypal. We got bandwidth to buy & audiological goodness to dispense. We will also get a percentage of your Amazon purchase through this link OR you can send us a few and get us a pint!***

Subscribe on iTunes Here!

Subscribe on iTunes!

Subscribe on iTunes Here!

Filed Under: engaging, latest, news, politics, TNT

Do Confessional and Radical theologies need each other? More on Missio Alliance and Subverting the Norm

April 27, 2013 by Callid Keefe-Perry 3 Comments

Guest Post from Tad Delay

I. On Tuesday Bill posted a very conciliatory case for “Why Missio Alliance and Subverting the Norm need each other.” Bill and I were both at Subverting the Norm. And to be honest, I do not know much about Missio Alliance. But I’m intrigued and want to think more about this.

II. Tony Jones advised those at StN to “be loyal to this tribe” and “put less words in scare quotes. Just answer the goddamn question.” I’ve been thinking about that. The catch of course is how to determine who is in the tribe. Being part of the vituperative world that academia so often is forces you to get used to the idea that some people are brilliant comrades working toward similar goals and yet can be very difficult people. That’s easy enough to spot and work with. On the other hand, a difference of goals has a tendency to inflame tensions no matter how good our intentions are. That’s easy enough to recognize, but very difficult to work around. So how do we decide who is going toward a similar destination via different route or who has departed for a different course altogether?

III. This far-too-simplified schema is how I tend to think of Christian theologies. Each of these has a difficult time talking with either of the other two:

A) Confessional pastoral and lay theologies

This is the filler of many sermons, coffee house conversations, and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists. It is not sophisticated, but it is theology “on the ground.” You know it when you hear it. And it absolutely has to be engaged, but it is more and more difficult to dialogue with the more you learn theology.

B) Confessional academic theologies

This is the material produced by the seminaries and universities. Along with Biblical studies, academic theology is expansive, engaged with history, systematic, and (hopefully) philosophical. My assumption is that every future pastor and/or theologian makes a decision at some point in their studies about whether or not they will even try to communicate the material they are learning, because more academic theologies can feel very intimidating and threatening to parishioners who are not reading theology/philosophy. It is meant to be theology “for the church” in the roundabout way of developing coherent, esoteric systems of thought. I put Missio Alliance here. Again, I profess my ignorance of Missio Alliance, but my impression from those I’m in dialogue with tells me MA is a very confessionally Christian group.

C) Radical, political, and process theologies

This third category is theology in the aftermath of Altizer, Whitehead, Derrida, Schmitt, Badiou, Žižek, and of course the two living JCs. This group often treats theology as a void that can only be accessed by the various disciplines on the periphery. There are certainly confessional types among them (particularly within post-liberal or process types), but its also not at all uncommon to find entirely atheistic political theologies in this camp. Subverting the Norm asked a broader question about postmodern theology, but since radical theology ended up being such an important theme, I put Subverting the Norm mostly – but not entirely- here.

VI. Conservatives, liberals, and radicals see very different problems as the main point to address. The primary antagonism we select directs our energy. Sometimes disparate theologies can work together on social issues here and there, but on a long enough timeline they are driven apart because the antagonisms they mean to address are mutually incompatible.

Forgive the caricatures, but political conservatives locate a primary antagonism along lines of moral purity or cultural/religious loyalty. Liberals locate the primary antagonisms along some combination of class, race, and gender or whatever else liberals are upset about. Both liberals and conservatives tend to agree on capitalism (with minor skirmishes over neo-classical or Keynesian models), and thus we get the stereotypical similarities between platforms. Radical and/or Marxian perspectives locate the primary antagonism almost exclusively along class lines, which is why we are always complaining about capitalism. And at Subverting the Norm, there was a definite tension between liberals who wanted to talk about how to be more inclusive and radicals who think theology (no matter how inclusive) does not matter if it doesn’t occupy politics.

So can Missio Alliance and Subverting the Norm work together? I definitely hope so. I haven’t even figured out if StN’s mix of radicals and liberals can work together in the long term. But if we can be serious about exactly how confessional (or not) we expect a theology to be, and if we can isolate the antagonism(s) our theologies address, then we are at least on a path toward an answer. And that answer has implications that are much more significant than two conferences.

Tad DeLay is a PhD student in philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont Graduate University. http://taddelay.com

@taddelay

Filed Under: emergent, engaging, latest, news, post-something, thinking Tagged With: Confessional, Missio Alliance, radical, subverting the norm

God in the Darkness

April 19, 2013 by Callid Keefe-Perry 6 Comments

It has been a crazy week to join the Homebrewed crew, and I didn’t feel like I could let it go by without at least somehow addressing some of the events of this week, especially those in Boston, a hometown of mine and the place to which I’ll be returning this summer…

Perhaps this will serve as some small measure of comfort or calm in and among all the noise…

What about you all? What is keeping you grounded and centered on God?

Filed Under: engaging, latest, living, news, prayer Tagged With: Boston

Beauty, Bodies and Blunders

April 5, 2013 by Bo Sanders 28 Comments

President Obama got in some hot water for a compliment he paid California Attorney General Kamala Harris. He said:

You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country — Kamala Harris is here. (Applause.) It’s true. Come on. (Laughter.) And she is a great friend and has just been a great supporter for many, many years. [via The Los Angeles Times]

A remark like that is never going to go over well. It was just one sentence but we could talk for days about it!

I know that I am an odd bird in that I often see the silver lining in things that other people think are really bad – like taking the Lord’s name in vain. I like that people do it. It means that the name of God still carries some gravity. No one is cursing Thor when they smash their thumb with a hammer. No one is blaspheming Zeus when they get cut off in traffic. Anyway …

I was happy to see the outrage and level of outcry over the President’s remarks. I love when stuff like this happens outside the walls of the church and I think to myself “Ok, it’s not just us that are sensitive, reactive and protest-ant. Good, I was starting to worry”.

You have to forgive me. I come from a very muscular – testosterone – ‘Wild at Heart’ brand of Christianity. In the last decade I have migrated to a progressive – critical theory – ‘She Who Is’ brand of faith.

The thing that has been most difficult for me is to figure out what to do with the body.

As a contextual theologian and an Ancient-Future practitioner, I am deeply concerned with issues of incarnation and embodiment of the gospel. Our faith can not be merely intellectual, super-natural or institutional. Our faith must embodied, or in-bodied and lived-out.

I have figured out, through 6 years of blogging, how to talk with conservative, evangelical, and charismatic Christians about almost everything related to faith and practice in ways that they can hear. The issues of sexuality remain the most illusive.

The problem seems to relate to a giant pot-hole in the road to understanding that is so treacherous it almost doesn’t leave enough room to move without careening into the pit of ‘natural design’.

What complicates matter all the more is that there is a serious ditch on the other side of the road – one that was dug by Augustine’s legacy (I hate Augustine’s influence on church history) regarding the badness of the body, a specifically sexuality.

Here then is the issue: If I am talking about somebody and I’m listing all of that they bring to the table in areas of smarts, relationship, experience, and capacity … am I to act like they don’t have a flesh container? It asks me to act like they have no body.

Yes. That is what we want you to do. Jonathan Chait at New York explains:

For those who don’t see the problem here, the degree to which women are judged by their appearance remains an important hurdle to gender equality in the workforce. Women have a hard time being judged purely on their merits. Discussing their appearance in the context of evaluating their job performance makes it worse. It’s not a compliment. And for a president who has become a cultural model for many of his supporters in so many other ways, the example he’s setting here is disgraceful. [New York]

Even while I write this I can hear my more conservative Christian brothers saying “That is ridiculous! This is the sissy-fication of our culture.” To which I can only reply,”Yes. It is the leveling of a historically unequal playing field.”

I get why culturally, we don’t want the President even acknowledging her flesh container at all. We don’t want pastors commenting on congregant’s looks. I get it.

But as thinking christians, is anyone else worried about the implications for this kind of willful charade? Do we think that President Obama doesn’t see her? Are we under the impression that he doesn’t notice her beauty? Do we think that she, in her private moments, doesn’t want to be found attractive? Do we think that she doesn’t invest time and energy in her looks?

“It doesn’t matter! Just don’t say it. Not ever ever ever.” And I get that. What I am asking about is the ramifications for the embodied practices of the life of faith. What we have learned from church history (and reality TV)- from fundamentalist pastor’s daughters to celibate priests – is that repression of desires in one place (public) is bound to cause pressure which bubbles up some place else (private).

We have to break the ‘old boys network’ mentality. I get that. I am worried about the secondary effect of perpetuating a deadly dualism between body and mind/soul.

I clearly need help thinking this through. Anyone want to chime in on this?

Filed Under: church history, engaging, latest, media, news, politics, post-something, thinking Tagged With: Attorney General, Augustine, body, book, books, California, church, conservative, controversy, female, feminist, gender, God, hot water, image, incarnation, jesus, Kamala Harris, Liberal, looks, prayer, President Obama, sex, sexual, sexuality

The Problem With The New Pope

April 4, 2013 by Bo Sanders 20 Comments

It has been amazing to watch both the amount of reporting and the kind of reporting that Pope Francis’ style has drawn. You can find stories about him in major magazines, on every news website … even the Daily Show gave some hilarious attention to the hype.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I was on an Australian radio show the day of his election – they liked the angle that I had taken on my blog focusing on the Southern hemisphere. [I will put the 4 minute clip at the bottom of this post] I was on after the Australian Ambassador from Argentina.

Some of my co-workers are Catholic and Pope Francis’ dealing provide us with every-other-day content for our coffee-pot conversations. Even my wife, who is generally not that interested in such things, is into it.

She asked me, on a recent road trip after several news stories, why I thought people were so into Francis. I have three thoughts and would love to hear other’s thoughts.

There are still 1.6 Billion Catholics worldwide. That is 1/6 of everyone on the planet. Who is their leader matters a lot.

I know that not every Catholic listens to the Pope and that the Pope does not influence every thing … but it is still a big deal.

Between the elaborate displays of the Vatican and the global sex-abuse scandal – both of which are hard to figure out from reading the gospels – the Catholic church has been having a rough time of it in the court of public opinion.

Francis’ style is not just a breath of fresh air – it is substantially different. What he did on Maundy Thursday was not just a ‘break with tradition’, as reports kept repeating, but was significant. Washing & kissing prisoner’s feet instead of priest’s is not window dressing

Protestants seems to be fascinated with Pope-drama like Americans are fascinated with Royals. I don’t really get either.

It’s like we are enamored with the figure-head of the thing we left so long ago. I chalk it up to some sort of fetish thing for regal gowns, bejeweled crowns and antiquated (and sometimes secret) ceremonies.

There is one problem though. Protestants seem to want the Pope to be more protestant.

Almost all of the critique or concern I heard about him is something that would be more emblematic of protestant values or approaches. He is following the church’s traditional stance on (just to name 4):

Contraception
Celibacy
Women in ministry
Homosexuality

I want to holler at people when they are disappointed in this

“Of course he is – otherwise he wouldn’t have been elected Pope”.

It feels to me like somebody saying “I like the new Miss USA … I just wish she was built like a Linebacker in football.” Well … I hate to break it to you but that’s not going to happen. In fact, people who are built to play linebackers don’t make it to the Miss USA pageant. That is just not what the judges are looking for.

What I wish we would instead focus on is his economic dealings, immigration issues (he is the son of immigrants) and out-reach to non-Europeans. I continue to claim that just those 3 will make this a game-changer.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Standard Podcast [ 4:16 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Filed Under: engaging, latest, media, news, thinking Tagged With: Argentina, Bible, book, books, Catholic, church, complain, critique, foot washing, Global South, God, jesus, Maundy Thursday, Pope Francis, Protestant, Southern hemisphere, tradition

Tiger Woods, Nike and The Easter Narrative: When #Winning Means Nothing

March 30, 2013 by Deacon Case Leave a Comment

Jesus Stripped of clothes. Photo of station at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal in Atlanta, GA.

I’ve been a fan of Tiger Woods for a long time. As a youngster, I aspired to golf like him, and as an adult, I’ve spent hours watching nervously as his putts rolled in – or past – the hole. However, this week, Holy Week, Nike’s self-effacing advert for Tiger has gone one fairway too far.

The controversial Nike ad heralding that “Winning takes care of everything” is making the circuit trans-media. Radio shock-jocks love it, Today Show professionals are confused by it, and those who have ever felt the sting of marital infidelity once again feel enraged by the audacity of shamelessness exhibited by the world’s number one golfer and brand.

Tiger’s indiscretions are not the issue. My concern is what this narrative, this “winning is all that matters” attitude, means in light of this week – the most important week in the life of the Christian calendar.

From Palm Sunday until Easter, many mainline churches in America will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 services compared to their usual 4 or 5. This Holy Week, more than all other weeks, winning has nothing to do with who we as Christians claim to be in the world. Rather, if anything is to take care of everything, it is the deep and ancient practice of walking the Way of the Cross – a way that is marked not by what one is able to accomplish or win, but a way that is marked by how we are able to discover and live fully into deep oneness with God in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Christian triumphalists who will herald that the Nike ad is right on point with the message of Easter Sunday. Many will suggest that the Christian belief in resurrection is a winning, a taking care of everything. Yet what these Christians and Nike mistake in common is what Tiger and those who take the Way of the Cross seriously know best: the road to winning is filled with more self-learning, falling, failing, judgment, support from others, death, and personal inner growth than could ever be imagined. In a sense, victory is nothing if in the process you lose your self.

The Gospel of Luke remembers Jesus of Nazareth as having asked, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his very self?” The radical thing about the Christian narrative of Easter is that Jesus won through losing; he proved that life comes not from conquering first, but from loss.

Tiger Woods has been down this road before. He is again the #1 golfer in the world. But by my read, Nike does a disservice to Tiger and the journey he has been on when they ignore the brutal human and spiritual course he has walked to get back to glory.

This Easter Sunday, at the end of Lent and Holy Week, Christians have the same chance as Tiger Woods did on Monday at Bay Hill: we are invited to celebrate our proverbial return to Eastertide, to winning. Yet, we who walk in the Way must not buy the lie the Nike advertisement suggests, but find truth in the opposite: winning takes care of nothing! New life, even God, is found not on the road filled with personal accolades, but on the journey of self-discovery that leads through pain.

Joshua Case in Oratory of the Holy Family, Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church, Atlanta, GA

Joshua Case is an Episcopal blogger, curator, and public theologian. Joshua currently works at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta. When not curating things religious and technological, Joshua works as a professional golf instructor.

Follow Joshua on Twitter

Filed Under: church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, news, thinking Tagged With: Eastertide, Holy Week, Joshua Case, Tiger Woods

Homosexuality: the difference between TV and Greek Tragedy

March 27, 2013 by Bo Sanders 21 Comments

Blogging is a fascinating way to interact with people over an issue or topic.

Once in while a blog will unexpectedly come back to life after months of lying dormant. It usually happens when A) somebody references it month later B) when the topic hits the news again. The dying embers leap back to life in flame!

This week my old post on and Evangelical approach to same-sex marriage has fired back up – for obvious reasons. I’m not going to link there because I just can’t wade into the 195 comments without getting lost. I did, however, want to report about a most interesting exchange that came out of it.

Someone who disagreed with my saying that ‘homosexual’ as we currently understand and conceive of the term, never existed until the 19th century. Some people keep wanting to argue about sexual acts and missing that there are broader issues of orientation and identity that were not addressed in Greco-Roman culture or the greek language of the New Testament.

One such person – let’s call him TM – engaged the issue this way:

For example, the statement “The Bible (the inspired written word of God) is not talking about homosexuality. It didn’t exist.” seems somewhat confusing, even if we only focused on the Roman era of indulgences of the First Century. Are you suggesting that homosexuality didn’t exist in this era… simply because they may have called it something else?

This is along the lines of your attempt to make a point about television – in one sense, it didn’t exist; and yet in another, it did – as plays/theater. Are you suggesting that simply because the presentation was different that there weren’t actors and actresses who presented drama, comedy, tragedy and more to a mass audience? Are you really going to argue that because a word didn’t exist that means the concept didn’t exist?

Do you see the how the analogy works? This is really important to see because those who sincerely believe that they are being faithful to the scriptures are often mashing contemporary experiences into ancient writings in a way that is … how should I say this?
Let’s try it a different way: when your faith is constructed in such a way that you need your sacred text to speak to every area of your life – then you will, by necessity, fit your modern data into the provided molds.

My response to TM included 3 points of departure:

“TV is indeed different from ancient theatre.

1) One can sit alone in a house and watch TV, absent of the social connection and crowd interaction.

2) One can also change the channel when it gets boring. You can not do that at the theatre.

3) Plays also so do not have commercials which deeply influence us.

In those three ways I would say that one can not simply say “TV and theatre are the same” as you have.

You are comfortable mashing modern categories onto the ancient & calling them the same. This willingness to mash is why you are frustrated that the Bible isn’t talking about what we are talking about. TV is a different medium than ancient theatre – I hope that you can see that.”

It seems like a great example of the where the ‘two’ sides are missing each other in this debate.

It reminds me a great deal of the ongoing issues of conservatives ‘starting in the middle’ that I am perpetually having to point out.

That is where Ray Comfort takes the highly refined and cultivated modern banana and reads meaning, design, and intention back into it by the ‘creator’ – even going as far as it’s fit to the human hand, its easy pull tab opening, and its built-in disposal wrapping.

Maybe it would be easier for us to talk about TV & theatre in a categorical way before we wade into the elevated hostilities of the same-sex debate.

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, conversations, engaging, latest, media, news, politics, public policy, thinking Tagged With: ancient, Bible, church, conservative, court, gay, God, homosexual, homosexuality, jesus, marriage, modern, news, paul, same sex, science, TV

Big Platforms Coming Out For Marriage Equality

March 19, 2013 by Tripp Fuller 15 Comments

I have had a couple great conversations with some fellow young progressive Jesus lovers. They were bemoaning all the slow moves towards embracing the LGBT community and advocating for Same Sex Marriage. If you are supportive any move that direction could be a good one but sometimes you just want people to ‘break on through to the other side’ so we can spend our energy on bigger issues like justice & caring for the planet.

In the last year four people of note took their support of SSM public. Each time I know my inner-progressive said ‘thanks you’ and ‘about time.’ I would love to hear y’alls thoughts on the four transitions. Here are mine.

President Obama evolved…at least he did publicly between his first and second election. Of course he refused to defend the ‘Defense of Marriage (for straight people only but as many times as you want) Act’ & has since operated as an ally in the White House. When he finished evolving I thought… 1) duh we all know where you were evolving too, 2) now get to work, 3) I bet he started thinking what his kids and NOT his baby boomer flyover moderate contributors would think if he evolved any slower. Thank God he set gay rights on the list of Human Rights during the second inauguration!

In 2006 Brian McLaren advocated for a 5 year moratorium on the heated debate surrounding SSM. Then he was much more connected to the evangelical community and those post-evangelicals in the emerging church movement. Giving (or at least advocating) that kind of space seems really smart since so many different doctrines are connected with a shift to a more progressive stance. Once you here Brian tell his own story (watch the video) from growing up where homosexuality wasn’t even discussed to preforming his son’s ceremony it’s hard to think Brian was being disingenuous in the process.

Hilary Clinton just went public in support of Same-Sex Marriage (SSM) as a human right. I doubt anyone was surprised that the Secretary of State for Obama agreed with her boss BUT her husband, former President Clinton, was the one who signed the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ into law. Hilary has been an international advocate of women’s rights and has done some amazing work. I am excited to see the Clinton machine get to work in the UN around this cause!

Rob Bell‘s affirmation of marriage equality both legally and theologically is currently getting a lot traction. I thought it people would have already noticed a number of the other times he made the affirmation but I can’t say I am surprised. For at least the last 3 years at Mars Hill his way of reading scripture implied as much.

In the best of light…

Obama demonstrated a response as someone in authority that seek to model with grace a transition from one position to another. In doing so he gave permission to many Americans and those in the Black Church to follow & stop evolving on the inside and start evolving toward justice in our communities.

McLaren‘s pastoral sensitivity about the personal nature of the SSM question, the seriousness he took in working through the connected theological underpinnings, and the classy way Brian handled Christianity Today and other ‘friends’ treating him like trash for supporting his own son adds to the reasons I respect him. It would be wonderful if this kind of intentionality and integrity was more celebrated.

Clinton’s public affirmation of SSM is revealing because it signals that the old school democrats are unified in their support of SSM & that the Clintons’ feel the need to distance themselves from the less-than-awesome work of Bill’s for her 2016 run (maybe NAFTA & the repeal of glass-steagall is next!).

Bell is the most interesting to me because he took a stand AND continued to embrace his evangelical identity. At some point the evangelical community is going to have to permit some diversity around this issue and not continue to excommunicate the messenger. Ask former evangelicals stuck in a Mainline situation because of a justice issue like this and many still wish they could go home.

What is amazing to me is I have already seen 2 prominent evangelical scholars chastise Rob Bell who have also… off the record of course… articulated his very same position to me. I hope they already have their apology letter written to Rob for when they are finally free from the pressure of their endowed chairs & evangelical publisher book contracts.

Why now?

58% of the country is supportive of SSM. The longer the church continues to sound backwards and advocate against a human right they will continue to be dismissed when they describe a God who knows and loves all of humanity. No one is bullied and shamed when we advocate for fidelity in covenants, forgiveness in relationships, healing & wholeness in our sexuality, or insist that a marriage & a home with parents is the ideal place to welcome a new child of God into the world.

When we get over this issue we can start doing real life ministry! Being a human is hard work. Being married is hard work. Being a parent is hard work. But it is also beautiful! So many of my GLTBQ brothers and sisters are left to outside of the church or are keeping silent within the church because too many Christian gate keepers miss the boat on marriage. I long for the day when the church is invested in the content and character of the marriage and the home it supports rather than the parts people use to celebrate their love in the bed room.

Filed Under: emergent, latest, news, public policy

A Pope from the Southern Hemisphere! This is a game-changer

March 13, 2013 by Bo Sanders 22 Comments

For those of us from missionary backgrounds, we have saying (myself for almost 2 decades) that if when the Catholic Church elects a pope from the Southern Hemisphere – S. America, Africa, Asia, or Islands – that is would be a game changer.

Well that has happened.

Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina will be known as Pope Francis and it is nearly impossible to overstate how monumental this is.

You don’t have to be Catholic. You can think that the white smoke and all the pomp & circumstance is a bunch of hooey. You can roll your eyes and some of the superstitious or antiquated elements of the various varieties of global expressions.

What you can not do is ignore how important this is.

In his 2007 book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Philip Jenkins talked not only about the rise of Pentecostalism is the Southern Hemisphere but the importance of the unique Catholic expressions and hybrids as well.

Read any book about globalization and you will see how much this is going to matter in the inter-connected, trans-national, multi-cultural 21st century.

This is the primary reason that even as I have transitioned to working at a Mainline church, attending a Liberal school, and adopting Process theology as my main conversation partner … I have continued to carry the banner of Pentecostal-Charismatic expressions of the church and to have post-colonial studies as one of my cognate fields for my PhD.

I take this stuff seriously and I am under the impression that you should too.

Since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960′s the Catholic church has undergone many serious changes. The sex abuse scandals of the past decades have been crippling – especially in the North Atlantic countries of Europe and N. America.

I am not saying that this one change fixes all that. That would be silly. What I am saying that is a non-white face, from South of the equator, speaking Spanish … it is going to be big.

I have been asked several times in the last month what my opinion of the Pope change was. I have repeatedly said:

Unless they elect a Pope from the Southern Hemisphere, I have nothing to say.

We they did, and now I do. I will write more this weekend after I turn in my massive paper due Friday.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Filed Under: church history, latest, media, news, politics, thinking Tagged With: Argentina, Bible, book, books, Catholic, church, Francis, God, jesus, Language, New pope, Pentecostal, scandal, sex abuse, Southern hemisphere, spanish, vatican

The Nones, The League & Death of the Nuclear Family

March 4, 2013 by Deacon Piatt 2 Comments

Jordan took his family to Disneyland this week, so Christian recruited his wife, Rev. Amy Piatt to co-host. They act pretty much like what you’d expect a married couple hosting a radio show together to act like, so that’s kind of entertaining in itself.

Then, after interviewing Shannon Moore, a Christian minister in Texas who has been denied ordination for a decade for being out about his sexual orientation, Christian promptly deleted the interview by accident (sorry Shannon!). WE’ll have Shannon back on soon, but for this week, we’re sharing an interview Christian did with Welton Gaddy on State of Belief Radio about a Washington Post piece Christian wrote called “Don’t Call Us the Nones: In Praise of Religious Independence.” Christian explains why the phrase “The Nones,” referring to religiously unaffiliated people, smacks of the dying remnants of Christendom in our culture: a cultural dynamic we’d do better without, thanks.

Then Amy and Christian tackle Olympian-turned-killer Oscar Pistorius in the Echo chamber, along with Tim Tebow’s recent refusal to speak at a prominent Dallas Baptist Church. From there, the conversation moves into family values and gender roles, taking a look at Phyllis Tickle and some blowback she’s gotten for claims that changing gender roles have negatively affected communities of faith and family as a whole.

Finally, Christian asks Amy why so many women like The League, a TV show about men in a fantasy football league. Basically her conclusion is that women find pleasure in watching men be idiots and tear each other down.

So we’ve got that going for us.

Standard Podcast [ 54:27 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Filed Under: CultureCast, emergent, latest, news, random Tagged With: amy piatt, christian piatt, culturecast, faith and culture, family values, funny, Homebrewed Christianity, humor, Jordan Green, oscar pistorius, Phyllis Tickle, The League, Tim Tebow

Claremont School of Theology