tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77763874187759948302024-03-18T02:47:57.897-07:00STUFF CHRISTIAN CULTURE LIKESthis blog is devoted to the stuff american evangelical culture likesstephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.comBlogger239125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-58766069073472940812013-07-25T15:40:00.000-07:002013-07-25T15:40:36.607-07:00#234 Daddy-Daughter Dates<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian culture is way into daddy-daughter dates. Yes. They're exactly what they sound like. To their credit, evangelicals have recognized that absentee dads are more or less a societal menace and they appear be taking steps to rectify this within their frame of influence. But the emphasis they place on the daddy-daughter relationship is wildly disproportionate to all other parent-child interaction, to say nothing of creepy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part of the discrepancy can be seen by the quantity of ink devoted to this concept. There are pages upon internet pages about daddy-daughter dates, while the number of pages on mother-son dates that I could find are under a dozen. I found even fewer on daddy-son and mother-daughter dates, but no shortage on the daddy-daughter front. These articles lay out details for how and why and when and where to "date your daughter" (that is really what they call it). This appears to come from a lovely sentiment and honest desire to help shape girls into women who know their worth and won’t settle for dodgy men when they’re adults. And yet an equivalent amount of emphasis is not placed on the mother-son / mother-daughter / father-son relationship, and the tone of fatherly ownership of daughters is remarkable. Christian culture does not appear to have a problem with this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not surprisingly, the chatter surrounding daddy-daughter dates is directly in line with Christian culture’s M.O. of Doing Things and Avoiding Relationship. Rather than learn about why your relationship with your daughter or son is important, rather than seek to understand why vulnerability is crucial to emotional health and that bearing each other’s burdens is where relationship truly takes place, lists are given and dads check them off. If fathers were instead reading about female psychology and relational intimacy, instructions on how to facilitate bonding through dates wouldn't be necessary as they would be organically acting out of their desire to know their daughters and honor them. But we don't live in that kind of world. And so here is some actual advice from <a href="http://www.faithgateway.com/daddy-dates-dos-dont/?utm_source=fgfamily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fgfamily20130725&spMailingID=42156616&spUserID=NTQ1NDY5NTAwNTcS1&spJobID=195959751&spReportId=MTk1OTU5NzUxS0" target="_blank">an actual Daddy-Daughter Date article</a>: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Keep your eyes on her. Looking at your daughter and not cutting your eyes to what walks by takes a little practice. Sure, you can look up at the server once, but that’s it after you order.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now this appears quite inoffensive and even commendable, but no one seems to be asking why this sort of instruction to grown men is even necessary. If he can't relate to his daughter organically, an article on how to go on a date isn't going to touch the root issue. And his daughter will be able to tell if he is doing what he was told as opposed to whether he is truly interested in her as a person. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This advice continues: “Keep a few open-ended questions handy.” “Girls want you to pay attention when they’re talking.” (As if boys don’t.) "So here’s the core list of Daddy Dates ‘Dos’: Do call her up and formally ask for the date. Do hold the door for her. Do tell her she looks nice. Do have her choose the music in the car. Do give her a flower. Do talk to her."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And on and on. The exhaustive instructions beg the question: are dads interested in who their daughters are as people or are they more interested in completing a checklist in order to feel they’ve done the fatherly duties required of them? Why are mother-son / father-son / mother-daughter dates not given one-tenth the amount of attention in evangelical culture that daddy-daughter dates are? It's an epidemic within Christian culture: actual relationships are not emphasized, but instead guidelines are given of what would follow naturally from a genuine relationship. They've put the cart before the horse once again.</span></div>
stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com228tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-60552971852842550782013-06-25T16:02:00.001-07:002023-10-29T09:34:35.304-07:00#233 Giving Kiosks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With the way tithing has been cramping our cyberactive lifestyles, we had to know we’d live
to see the <a href="http://givingkiosk.com/" target="_blank">Giving Kiosk</a>. Forged by Mother Necessity/megachurch-era <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2010/12/205-capitalism.html" target="_blank">capitalism</a>, these glowing monoliths of conviction are humming in lobbies of evangelical churches across North America. You may now foist over your
firstfruits anytime, anywhere. Your excuses have vanished
ascension-style.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;">Judging from Giving Kiosk’s customer feedback,
everyone loves this system. But t</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 14px;">he folks at Giving Kiosk say they don’t toot their own horn, they let happy customers do that for them. Yes, "customers." Don’t be cynical. That could just be their love language. </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;">Now the churchgoers/customers don’t have to haul
out their checkbooks or hate themselves beyond standard Calvinist depravity
when they leave their money at home. And Giving Kiosk even has an app so you can give at stoplights, worship
rehearsal, women's Bible study, men's discipleship breakfast, or from your marriage bed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;">Now, they might seem
a little spendy. An upright Giving Kiosk is $3,895, but their website says most
churches see a 20% increase in tithes. So even if your church can’t afford the
pastor’s life insurance right now, that 20% increase track record should have
it paying for itself pretty soon (and maybe even for some new daylight projectors, MacBook Pros,</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 14px;"> thermal-regulated baptismal tanks, plexiglass sound-isolated drum kit booths, plasma screens and worship woofers).</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"> And if a church really can’t afford it, they
can even lease the kiosk. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">Now, I know what you’re thinking.
“Doesn’t Dave Ramsey say leasing is bad?” Don’t get your soul patch in a twist.
Giving Kiosks are in line with Ramseyism because their Ramsey Clause™ specifically states that they encourage the use of debit-based giving. But they're not legalistic. They can configure their
products to accept credit cards, too. You never know how the Lord will work. He
might call for you to give him money you just don’t have. What’s more
self-sacrificial than that? Dump a wineskin of perfume on Jesus’ feet and wipe
it off with your hair already!</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">With the security of the Ramsey Clause™ you can push to
the back of your mind Dave’s “Leasing Is Fleecing” mantra. You can even use
your leased Giving Kiosk to conduct registration for your next Total Money
Makeover event. It just means they take your business seriously, which of
course is the message of the cross, or maybe the message of the bottom line and charge capture. Don't worry. T</span><span style="color: #222222;">here's no way Martin Luther </span><span style="color: #222222;">is</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">rolling over in Wittenberg right now. </span></span></div>
stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-74238890679902069822012-12-11T14:46:00.001-08:002013-11-18T13:30:04.082-08:00#232 Covert misogyny<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For as inclusive and LGBTQ-friendly the progressive Church likes to imagine itself, there are still deep, linty pockets of gender bias and old habits that haven’t been broken. And how could they be, if no one has pointed them out? Actually, I take that back. How could the Church realize its biases if if the people in positions of power won't entertain the possibility that they have them? The tragic truth is that the people in power do not need to realize their biases if they don't elect to, and there’s the rub.<br />
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Gender bias in Christian culture is so ingrained that it's difficult to identify much of the time. Many women who didn't take their husband's last name or promise to obey him (see, progressive!) are just fine with male-pastor-only denominations. Many men who Mr. Mom while their wives work the day job (and to whom many will ascribe feminist tendencies when he's just acting like a decent human being) can still operate under constraints they haven't examined. We all do it. It's getting to the point where you can dig it up and examine it that's the hard bit.<br />
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Straight men in Christian culture simply don't need to examine the ways in which they are sexist, and this is the most difficult factor in the move towards wholeness. Coming to terms with the truth could make men feel awful about themselves. To even be an unknowing participant in something as egregious as gender bias while living in a culture where civil rights and equality are valued above all else is one of the worst things you can do. Far easier to stay ignorant of it. I mean, I would want to. People of privilege can't understand what the margainalized experience day-to-day but when it happens in Christianity in the name of the ultimate gender barrier iconoclast (that would be Jesus), the irony is excruciating.<br />
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In a Christian culture whose doctors of theology, board members and published authors are more than 80% male, many men and women still maintain that no significant bias is truly at play. These same people seem proud of the fact that 10% of those in powerful Church roles are women. This is seen by many as a giant stride from where women were a generation ago, but it still means it's 9 times harder to get into a powerful role as a woman.
And if you're still having any misgivings as to whether it's really that difficult for a female voice to be considered in the progressive year of 2012, I would invite you to take ornery heed of a Black Like Me-esque <a href="http://rudetruth.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-benefit-of-penis.html" target="_blank">experiment conducted by Jen Theweatt-Bates</a>. While commenting on a male theology blog she found that she was engaged with significantly more respect and curiosity when using a male pseudonym, while her female persona encountered markedly more dismissal. Even her doctorate in philosophy doesn't appear to lend her much credibility amongst male theologians. There is no subjectivity in this experiment. Please refer to the statistics she recorded which paint a disturbing mathematical portrait of whose voice we value and why.<br />
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A common response to this topic by men in the Church is to deny that it is taking place and to tell women they are misreading the men in power. Those men are actually quite generous with their power! They do a lot of work for civil rights! They even have a gay friend! You are misreading them! I get it. There is nothing more difficult than facing the truth about the ways you perpetuate brokenness within the world and especially in the Church you hold dear. The hardest truths requires such painful realizations that many people live their entire lives without facing them. Summoning the curiosity and making the emotional and intellectual space for these realizations is almost preternaturally difficult. Could this mean they are also outrageously worthwhile?<br />
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When gender discussions occur on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/stuffchristianculturelikes" target="_blank">the Facebook page of this blog</a>, men frequently protest the women's claims that their voice isn't taken as seriously a male voice. In these cases it always takes the voice of a sympathetic dude to point out where sexism is present in order for the disgruntled men to come around a bit. The fact that it takes a person of privilege to advocate for the marginalized and engender understanding speaks disgraceful volumes about how those in power choose to manage their unearned privilege. When defending their role, men will often say "I feel that as I try to defend my position I can't say anything right. I feel that nothing that I say will be considered valid by you. It feels like a vortex and a mindfuck." This is the point where a man might finally understand what it is like to have a feminine voice in this culture.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com60tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-86256283620719382742012-11-01T00:11:00.001-07:002012-11-01T00:49:54.015-07:00#231 Sending conservative propaganda to their liberal children<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Political proselytizing from parent to child is a time-honored tradition made even easier and more passive-aggressive since the advent of email. The wayward and disillusioned child of conservative evangelicals stands an excellent chance of receiving insistent emails of a right-wing nature in the weeks before a big election. These emails tend to escalate in frequency and tone as the election draws nearer, lavishly capslocked and feverishly warning against the global implosion that will surely be triggered by turning the collective American back on the evangelical notion of God. In acute cases, you may receive up to two dozen per day in your inbox. This is normal. The conservative parent is frightened to the point of hypertensive chest pain that the future hinges on who will occupy the office for the next four years and they figure the best thing to do is educate their prodigal offspring with immutable resolute facts about the candidates. You might do the same if you believed everything Fox News said. They're insistent little buggers.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-4828278447401175612012-09-28T17:59:00.000-07:002012-09-28T23:04:14.747-07:00#230 Worship leader conferences<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Christian culture absolutely loves a conference. It's such a popular enterprise that there is now a conference for
every facet of evangelical life, and the bigger the conference, the more likely that it will be sponsored by a corporation or nine. Fortunately for the economy, the realm of
interacting with the divine and unsayable (which the Christian tradition often
calls “worship”) is no exception.</div>
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The entity of worship has so many types of conferences that now there are even conferences specifically for worship leaders. The websites and brochures for worship leader conferences state and restate that worship leaders and <i>church creatives</i> have been commissioned to lead remembrance
of Christ’s sacrifice. They want you to believe that they believe this. These conferences
charge on average $330 for 3 days of gathering with <i>worship specialists</i> to “keep
you engaging with God” and “offer the prayers of your congregation with more
authority and humility.” They call it a bargain, the best you ever had. Sizable evangelical churches and all Acts 29 church plants have a conference budget for occasions such as these so that the worship leader, select members of the worship team, and even a lucky intern or two may attend.</div>
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At these conferences you are often invited to present your
own original worship song to a panel of experts that includes <i>major
publishers</i> (the brochure's words) who will give you their professional feedback on just how worshipful and relevant your
song is exactly. I don’t think any of us even want to think about what would happen if there were no industry professionals to critique the remembrance of
Christ’s sacrifice, do we?<br />
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Along with relevant education in songwriting and pastoral worship, you'll find workshops on the art and maintenance of backline. These workshops have names such as“Worship Lighting,” “Wireless Mics in Worship” and (wait for it) “Who Moved My Console?” For the visual ministry teams that modern evangelicalism requires, there are workshops on “Multi-Screen and Environmental Projection on a
Budget” and “How to Effectively Organize and VJ Your Visual Media Library.” If nothing else, worship conferences highlight the fact that there are positions on church payrolls to fill the aching
spiritual void that is met by Visual Ministry. We often take these for granted.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But even a worship conference wouldn’t be a conference
without Sponsor Resources. The sponsors
hold their own workshops with titles like “Be A Part of Something
Beautiful. Is An [Insert Brand Here] Website For You?”, “Engaging Mobile Phones
With Your Presentation” which is sponsored by church presentation software, and “Yamaha Keyboards In Worship: Equipping Instruments Of Praise” — sponsored of course by our friends at
Yamaha.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyDYCPzRqpS533GdLGG81KIuzLHiZ0AxOqBNst-tDOpDBiWA4YrbDi8WOrtsaNiGyQ_xCzzTeC7ATbov7BDwMfq7HJ9fMZXj-4YC2luNOrSWwk3oLnt1qR291vE9u3HmYhg7K-bFFGPBIl/s1600/keybaords.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyDYCPzRqpS533GdLGG81KIuzLHiZ0AxOqBNst-tDOpDBiWA4YrbDi8WOrtsaNiGyQ_xCzzTeC7ATbov7BDwMfq7HJ9fMZXj-4YC2luNOrSWwk3oLnt1qR291vE9u3HmYhg7K-bFFGPBIl/s400/keybaords.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Best of all, record labels buy slots for their artists
to lead worship. They want their artists to worship during various sessions and workshops in hopes that other conferees will
take those songs back to their churches to perform on Sundays so the artists
and labels get to collect CCLI publishing money. Once the labels help cover costs and provide materials, their artists get the
coveted evening slots. It really is quite a strategy. Upon leaving the conference you will be strenuously encouraged to give feedback, and the most glowing reports will appear on the conference website to inform next year's applicants. The worship conference
website insists that attending their event is “one of the most important ministry decisions you’ll
make all year.” And who are we to argue with that?</div>
stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com96tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-86496472859010869902012-07-30T15:32:00.001-07:002012-07-30T15:33:48.237-07:00#229 Sufjan Stevens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz3_YGjie294TBq0iWxToxO0tSOxAa8xMxnwLNWsLz3MOLZZOV-s1NBeIMs23NUKvaYNBcCrBk2XC0NNklPgaP8vc5F8DgjBRCu-4pEhRgKphJsnI-7Gqy21l2hxxnJWk7ctk2dtUQwjN4/s1600/Sufjan-Stevens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz3_YGjie294TBq0iWxToxO0tSOxAa8xMxnwLNWsLz3MOLZZOV-s1NBeIMs23NUKvaYNBcCrBk2XC0NNklPgaP8vc5F8DgjBRCu-4pEhRgKphJsnI-7Gqy21l2hxxnJWk7ctk2dtUQwjN4/s400/Sufjan-Stevens.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Christian culture are suckers for a reworked hymn and a banjo and as such they cannot get enough Sufjan. Between his spiritual allusions, mandolin
usage, meaningfulcore vibe and altbro stage costumes, it is their firm belief
that he is relevant Christianity personified. </div>stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-19750029523285800512012-07-24T16:00:00.000-07:002012-07-24T16:00:45.857-07:00#228 Not taking God's name in vain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibO4LYWu-FkTLx17sbb_mXJPrbCd82-qTti5frSajKbpcH7XYhn-XGUu7lXFBiPqil3-t3VHEFA4UipchrXIQWl9R8OboULnJbFYoHjRNJHUXURAjc6zK1E5iAISMrxMF751mASO_NZwV/s1600/omgfivethings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibO4LYWu-FkTLx17sbb_mXJPrbCd82-qTti5frSajKbpcH7XYhn-XGUu7lXFBiPqil3-t3VHEFA4UipchrXIQWl9R8OboULnJbFYoHjRNJHUXURAjc6zK1E5iAISMrxMF751mASO_NZwV/s320/omgfivethings.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Evangelical Christian culture has a specific idea of what the third commandment entails and goddammit, they won’t hear anything else.<br />
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As a participant in western Christianity you are taught that this command is supposed to keep God’s name from being spoken with disregard or irreverence. From Sunday school onward the exegesis of <i>taking God's name in vain</i> is usually presented without context or explanation. Christian culture doesn't tend to be overly curious about meaning and intent.<br />
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People who identify as Christians become visibly uncomfortable when God’s name is spoken with apparent irreverence. They are on you like white on rice if you say <i>oh God</i> or <i>oh my Lord.</i> “Was that in vain?” you are then asked. Many of them don’t even approve of “gosh” because it is just a substitute for the authentically vain version. Christian culture has decried the use of “omg” for the same reason. What if the “g” stands for “gosh,” you might ask? We can’t know, they say, and we must not give the appearance of evil. End of discussion.<br />
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The evangelical definition of taking God’s name in vain is so far-reaching that it has become the mainstream (secular) definition. Ask someone what it means to take God’s name in vain and regardless of their faith tradition or religious persuasion they will probably tell you that it means using one of God’s many pseudonyms in an exclamatory or thoughtless manner. Test it right now. Poll a friend or nine and they will prove this. Jesus Christ, it’s universal.<br />
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Much of western Christianity doesn't even know that the commandments were issued to the same Israelites who, when they asked God his name, weren’t given a straight answer. They still don’t have an answer. The story goes that answer was only "I Am," which is why Jews traditionally write the name as G-d. And Christian culture hasn't really publicized the fact that the commandment issued on Mount Sinai wasn’t intended to censor careless bandying about of a literal name, but rather was stating we are not to use God to justify or legitimize an action that is not justified or legitimated by God.<br />
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Getting this detail wrong has resulted in Christian culture declaring God’s position on causes such as war, marriage rights, evolution and megachurches, all while staunchly refraining from typing “omg” lest they blaspheme the name of G-d. The irony is excruciating, and they are able to keep it going as long as people don't ask too many questions. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Fkuq5Lf0Q" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" sda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0qKkh8a4ZY5VpWP5kVgXkSlqk7r_QcAb5dKb6Sy45ug-VjO1Nz2uNHopxEPXOGL18J8x03ApzlIBzaoD_KDbRBMz7uf9uo2BYVqRKBuloBhSWZT0rL1vgviS2LqZyOhdPMqkEKVoX1r4/s320/leonard.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"You say I took the name in vain.<br />
I don't even know the name."</td></tr>
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<br />stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-77888480712328896712012-05-15T14:34:00.002-07:002012-05-16T09:43:51.827-07:00#227 Saying "Love the sinner, hate the sin"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK7Fwkb2XjtjEp_Q5nFpHu-37xPNcxduLifqrCuECNLGbOm6rtJ2L7OTtRo43kKOpxQflCoDwMDgqclzAH45r8ZfTN-yb2qBoNG5brt_7gDAqOyrRwAQsUfWU1daDztCGnIPgj9rRzC6Nd/s1600/tattoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK7Fwkb2XjtjEp_Q5nFpHu-37xPNcxduLifqrCuECNLGbOm6rtJ2L7OTtRo43kKOpxQflCoDwMDgqclzAH45r8ZfTN-yb2qBoNG5brt_7gDAqOyrRwAQsUfWU1daDztCGnIPgj9rRzC6Nd/s400/tattoo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Christian culture likes to say that they "love the sinner but hate the sin." They put it on bumper stickers and memes and have no problem saying it out loud to the sinners in question. Love the sinner. Hate what he does. Two separate things. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDuFlPMLJ-tUrkRMt_TGLD1J9LJFBP3kgWgOJDWH9dWZiAWsdlVSC_iHpQS7sCWHPB8q2urZ-4KgAagBXbw-k89z9RZk1a8Czcb_j1lJObOX8gLN8ifXsxZsAOTTv6iOF4YGzBxeHhbtEf/s1600/loveshateschurchsign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDuFlPMLJ-tUrkRMt_TGLD1J9LJFBP3kgWgOJDWH9dWZiAWsdlVSC_iHpQS7sCWHPB8q2urZ-4KgAagBXbw-k89z9RZk1a8Czcb_j1lJObOX8gLN8ifXsxZsAOTTv6iOF4YGzBxeHhbtEf/s400/loveshateschurchsign.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Curiously enough, "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is often credited to
Ghandi. Christian culture might not quote it as readily if they knew that part (danger! Hindu!) but even so, they can and will invoke it any time someone is doing something Jesus probably wouldn't like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoK1ThEzIIe2tpv3b8ywkpMpXN3CTbW0Ziuc_fUOv5y94M-1zvjBuM6YOKloQUv_EXSHySW50vu9kDpybz5JoTzJYKHfeLOCkDegYc2Ov59NnC63NuDkxBEW8JrNZGNlS-xiMZES4hK30r/s1600/fblove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoK1ThEzIIe2tpv3b8ywkpMpXN3CTbW0Ziuc_fUOv5y94M-1zvjBuM6YOKloQUv_EXSHySW50vu9kDpybz5JoTzJYKHfeLOCkDegYc2Ov59NnC63NuDkxBEW8JrNZGNlS-xiMZES4hK30r/s400/fblove.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Christian culture makes a special point of saying they love the sinner
and hate the sin when explaining why marriage should be between one man
and one woman. It's concise and tidy and lets them to stay an arm's length from the people they're calling sinners. Their subtext sounds something like this: "I sure do love
that sinning gay person. Sure do. But as a Christian I hate, I really
hate the fact that he continues down the path of willful defiance
against his Creator and chooses to live a gay lifestyle." </div>
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When pressed, a person in Christian culture will often concede that it's okay to be gay as long as you don't act on said gayness. You know, because of Leviticus. And they won't think twice about saying this to you over shellfish after working on Saturday while wearing clothes with two types of fibers and after cutting the hair on the sides of their heads. Then after all this they might remind you that they love that sinner but sure hate that sin. If you choose this moment to tell them they're quoting a Hindu, expect them to be defiant, or at the very least confused. They may be just as baffled by another of his quotes: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-12554712529355567542012-02-21T19:52:00.002-08:002012-02-22T08:47:45.883-08:00#226 Giving up Facebook for Lent<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyns9Qje7yJdKyrCqkeaeDBqBpXNXjMCqVKC_S9D2ZN9piTBP9ZXnCGX4WzvXIxszVSdqoFl65XM-XrmSheH013PtJoFw980HLvudVdmYGWG-ceGmuDyVJVaalVNC7PluyQ5gaGTIEKHXV/s1600/Lent4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" lda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyns9Qje7yJdKyrCqkeaeDBqBpXNXjMCqVKC_S9D2ZN9piTBP9ZXnCGX4WzvXIxszVSdqoFl65XM-XrmSheH013PtJoFw980HLvudVdmYGWG-ceGmuDyVJVaalVNC7PluyQ5gaGTIEKHXV/s320/Lent4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
In recent years a large part of Christian culture has made a dogleg towards the reformed tradition. This is particularly common among Christians who were raised evangelical. (The traditional evangelical non-observance of Lent is pointlessly pontificated <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2010/02/128-not-observing-lent.html" target="_blank">here</a>.) For not being raised with the ancient church calendar, or maybe because of it, they really get into its traditions. An obvious way to fast is from social media, and they certainly seem to enjoy telling you about it.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-1125206076753814802012-02-17T12:21:00.000-08:002012-02-17T12:21:19.319-08:00#225 The word "petting"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjryuWWhy4eMKlUP542FW3He1zNcmWeX0WpeFuZ-IyUnoyo5asmgLvrkdOdW07jay9_zykRsuR54j1QSrha6J7qjYwqsG1fJAJDl1PmHsRzXEY4-hy2XobE6nDwEp46vCIunggqXy9sVMbo/s1600/05heavy-petting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjryuWWhy4eMKlUP542FW3He1zNcmWeX0WpeFuZ-IyUnoyo5asmgLvrkdOdW07jay9_zykRsuR54j1QSrha6J7qjYwqsG1fJAJDl1PmHsRzXEY4-hy2XobE6nDwEp46vCIunggqXy9sVMbo/s320/05heavy-petting.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Nobody ever says this word unless they're talking about a petting zoo, and then it's used as a participle and is G-rated. Christian culture are the only ones who use it as a verb in a PG-13/NC-17 way and for them it only comes in two flavors: heavy and light. <br />
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Its etymology is uncertain but James Dobson brought it into the evangelical vernacular in the early 1990s or thereabouts with his twelve stages of physical intimacy (see <a href="http://bibleclassonline.org/07_Dating%20Biblical%20Guidelines.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>) which included a line that unmarried couples should not traverse. Very practical. Christian culture enjoys clear cut plans and handy guidelines in order to know at which point God goes from happy (not sinning) to furrowed brow (sinning).<br />
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Unfortunately for the enterprise of petting, both varieties are disallowed in all evangelical contexts. This restriction predicates the getting of married in order to Do It, which is why people in Christian culture tend to marry young. And getting married young causes another wellspring of problems. To elaborate on those problems would require many more posts, but that's what this blog is for.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-68928257449701473452012-01-19T19:55:00.000-08:002012-01-19T20:36:05.868-08:00#224 Saying "I'm praying for you"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8X9qe3gsO8mcYwYk2eAwEswEa57V2dUCxUvstlIv-Zrz6sOCxHD1Zip8zHKYWuJ2wlhneugTCgqAhRsDIAhH8epZ-W3XDlbv53wMtpSeokP908lcSoKiQSIkyofzIHwoclvmgP7RYs2x/s1600/prayingforyoubradpitt80.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8X9qe3gsO8mcYwYk2eAwEswEa57V2dUCxUvstlIv-Zrz6sOCxHD1Zip8zHKYWuJ2wlhneugTCgqAhRsDIAhH8epZ-W3XDlbv53wMtpSeokP908lcSoKiQSIkyofzIHwoclvmgP7RYs2x/s1600/prayingforyoubradpitt80.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
This is one of Christian culture's very favorite things to say. Whether they actually will pray or not is anyone's guess, but it seems important somehow that you believe they will. Versatile and efficient, "I'm praying for you" can be used in absolutely any situation to cover several evangelical bases and tend to egos all at once. With just four words it's possible to establish yourself as spiritual alpha dog and signal an end to the conversation under the guise of bestowing blessing. Delicious <i>and </i>nutritious!<br />
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You may not find a less relational phrase in all of Christianese than "I'm praying for you." When said in response to an expression of pain or heartbreak it often shuts the conversation down. The person sharing can feel as if they've been stiff-armed and kept at a distance by the person they were confiding in so they can be passed off to God Almighty. The confidant can easily say this and remain detached, and if you've said it before yourself, it's that much more painful to hear. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsNVBzD0Uv-rh6cXw2K0Z-iGR67qYtfZI4GjP4fHsFG0CWgoGN1YSOu5wouuxiERtmzPv58_ff4satKDpHgParUIKqzWU3Lf13f59NR8TyWYz1KV3qPDypvA5rNVpQ7U6uTLGHZY8SMKdx/s1600/jesus-teaching.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsNVBzD0Uv-rh6cXw2K0Z-iGR67qYtfZI4GjP4fHsFG0CWgoGN1YSOu5wouuxiERtmzPv58_ff4satKDpHgParUIKqzWU3Lf13f59NR8TyWYz1KV3qPDypvA5rNVpQ7U6uTLGHZY8SMKdx/s400/jesus-teaching.jpg" width="348" /></a></div><br />
People who are capable of casually informing people they're praying for them can't fathom that anyone could possibly have a problem with it. To their ears it's <i>the </i>most wonderful thing to say and anyone taking issue must be a jaded miscreant who's mad at God. (<span style="font-size: small;">Anger at God is something else Christian culture does not endorse and does not deem permissible, but that's a whole other blog post.) </span>This is a prominent characteristic of Christian culture: they have no idea how they come off. If anyone feels marginalized or dismissed by the allegation of impending prayer, the pray-er will likely interpret this as disdain for the whole of Christianity and take it as a cue to write that person off.<br />
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Saying "I'm praying for you" may be as relational as someone in Christian culture knows how to be. They're so busy Doing Things they may not know how to care and be cared for. All they may know is how to do is say things and remain detached, which definitely has its advantages. Actual relationship is a lot of work. Simpler to hold them at arm's length and avoid holding people's hurt than do the counter-intuitive work of bearing their burdens. When someone carries your struggle with you, the most healing form of relationship is taking place, and relationships are how we will all be healed. But they can be messy. It would be nice to keep this spirituality stuff within tidy boundaries. Which brings us to the hallmark of Christian culture: Doing Things and Avoiding Relationship. Keep this commandment and you will keep all the rest.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com64tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-23340877165218929492011-12-31T16:34:00.000-08:002011-12-31T16:34:02.517-08:00my religion podcast with david bazan from pedro the lion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3PmxYU9GGt751jZENsTfWoRFUDDBDzJ9NOG1aG2Iv5TzqfCEy-LKfgnKCMtB9NfVIuoQFnNzxnFZLnwVttTsAuSQ1YnEGYai82rHzrPnyPWv-ZBZeSn_qL81SQC4u5Wp6b9HJtPj2ALJi/s1600/Picnik+collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3PmxYU9GGt751jZENsTfWoRFUDDBDzJ9NOG1aG2Iv5TzqfCEy-LKfgnKCMtB9NfVIuoQFnNzxnFZLnwVttTsAuSQ1YnEGYai82rHzrPnyPWv-ZBZeSn_qL81SQC4u5Wp6b9HJtPj2ALJi/s320/Picnik+collage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Non-blog-post post: Last week I was on a special religion episode of the Grapes of Rad podcast with David Bazan. He was my Bible study leader ten years ago and isn't a Christian anymore, and we talked about that and the ways that being preacher's kids (which we both are) have come into play. In Part One we all talked about leaving our faith and growing up as preachers' kids and why Newt Gingrich has a chance in hell, American Girls, non-practicing evangelicals (which Dave identifies as), questioning, hating, bitterness, grief, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell">Joseph Campbell</a>, how not knowing is scary, and I also told the story about how Carman grabbed my ass one time. That was in part one and it is <a href="http://www.grapesofrad.com/2011/12/david-bazan-steph-drury-aka-the-super-mega-religion-show-part-1/">here</a>.<br />
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In part two we talked about Santa’s influence on Bazan’s view of God, masturbation, how I was in a Dr. James Dobson video in 1991, grief, Christians and therapy, WALL-E (twice!), using “Bug Me Bucks” to deal with ideological clashes at family gatherings, tits and ass, how Aaron and I met at one of Bazan’s Living Room Shows, underdogs and Malcolm Gladwell, abandonment and those you turn their backs on you if you stop believing their religion, <i>Morning Loaf</i> with <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/jeffbreakfast" target="_blank">The Rev. Jeff Breakfast</a>, how being a parent changes things, Bazan and I both attended the same church for awhile, sex scandals with pastors, and leaving church. So part two is <a href="http://www.grapesofrad.com/2011/12/david-bazan-steph-drury-part-2/">here</a>. <br />
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It was weird being so open about crazy personal stuff but I hope it helps people, maybe. It'd better or it's all for nothing! Ha.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com101tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-91409457748354449382011-11-04T13:13:00.000-07:002011-11-04T13:13:18.841-07:00#223 Scheduling sex<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjd_O_wTQvjUpc_-69WdipwO5dnwID8ouu-2Ejbp3VTwKT9NXPkLLu6m8zx1xB0zvOhtlbOhUcxkGjgw36GwTz7N_21ji83zjR7K2VdWeLpUtv8Xo2eLa3xDGVDQ4l-JS7Nb9gHF_v_mCc/s1600/husbandconsoling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjd_O_wTQvjUpc_-69WdipwO5dnwID8ouu-2Ejbp3VTwKT9NXPkLLu6m8zx1xB0zvOhtlbOhUcxkGjgw36GwTz7N_21ji83zjR7K2VdWeLpUtv8Xo2eLa3xDGVDQ4l-JS7Nb9gHF_v_mCc/s1600/husbandconsoling.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Who does this? Well, it’s a common practice among married evangelicals and is usually performed at the behest of the pastor who did their premarital or crisis counseling.<br />
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It’s even common to even hear suggested in a sermon. Unlike high chuch and mainline denominations, Protestant pastors of the evangelical stripe love talking about sex from the pulpit (the married and heterosexual elements always carefully emphasized). The pastor will say “We schedule other important things like quiet times and oil changes. Why not this?” You get the idea that he knows a lot of people in the congregation with near-celibate marriages and you have a sneaking suspicion he’s doing the men a solid.<br />
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Christian culture’s take on sex has caused no shortage of self-loathing, book deals, vaginismus and divorce. They aren’t sure how to hold power and danger and carnality alongside personal histories, spirituality and the whole person, so they hedge its pedestal with awed suspicion and then they're bewildered that sex isn’t better. In the grand tradition of Christian culture they once again put the cart before the horse. Not the position, but metaphorically. The wives silently seethe and wield it like a weapon. It’s the best way to exert control over that relationally passive horndog they’re married to. Their church’s Song of Solomon series gets the husband’s hopes up. Maybe she’ll put out if God says to? They resort to scheduling marital congress like the Zondervan books suggested. The husband waits for the appointment panting and wagging. The wife is grateful for each day that isn’t the designated Sex Day and when it arrives she wonders what’s wrong with her. He’s just so eager and unable to connect unless it involves their junk. But the sex date is as good as it gets. At least they’re doing it. A soggy potato chip is better than none at all. Again, this is advice given from the pulpit. Taken at face value (Christian culture's tendency) it’s another way of Doing Things and Avoiding Relationship.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com93tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-83928082737962336632011-10-10T17:24:00.000-07:002011-10-10T17:38:34.261-07:00#222 Steve Jobs<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwdmdHe5qYQBq206jYjg4rCgwNxQUXGelrDvzwJo_y5oZW_MJHARpDf8Lrrf2BMT30dhScGPF6RaATqgHpvnw9oCjDYRYrmfQL4BcQxFadamuVjI1NSW4MkhchrD9ju29du6xhaabPt63K/s1600/marshill+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwdmdHe5qYQBq206jYjg4rCgwNxQUXGelrDvzwJo_y5oZW_MJHARpDf8Lrrf2BMT30dhScGPF6RaATqgHpvnw9oCjDYRYrmfQL4BcQxFadamuVjI1NSW4MkhchrD9ju29du6xhaabPt63K/s400/marshill+copy.jpg" width="400px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Photoshopped or not? It seems like something that would actually happen.</em> <br />
<em>Answer upside down at the bottom of the page. Kidding. It's photoshopped.</em><br />
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With the passing of Steve Jobs an e-tsunami of worshipful eulogies flooded the interwebs, many of them from the major stakeholders in Christian culture. 94% of pastors, seminary students and church planters were moved to eulogize him this week via Facebook, Twitter and sermon illustrations. Much of the Christian sentiment towards Steve credits his technology with unprecedented gospel-spreading and says God used Apple in spite of Steve's Buddhist leanings. (Being Buddhist would normally frighten evangelicals away from someone’s product, but Steve invented some wicked fun toys so his eastern contemplativeness got a Christian culture hall pass.)<br />
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Evangelicals don't seem to be asking after Foxconn, Apple’s supply chain in China with bad working conditions and a worker suicide rate so high that employees have to sign pledges that they won't kill themselves. Christian culture also doesn’t seem very concerned that Jobs never addressed the worker suicides at the company that costs Apple only $6.54 in labor per iPhone. The question “who is being affected by this product?” is difficult to ask, so we don’t ask it. If we did, the answer that would move us to change would also be really difficult.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised</em></td></tr>
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The fervor and sheer volume of Christian culture’s sentiment towards Steve Jobs feels like something close to deification. But what exactly is that, and what’s it look like when it happens? When memorials are built outside of stores and such heavy and careful eulogies are written, we can at least say that’s what we do when we ascribe worth to something. When a corporation makes its billions on the backs of slave laborers, planned obsolescence is destroying our ecosystem and no one in your faith community speaks to this, we can at least say that’s what we do when we don’t ascribe worth to something.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-24070002511911069912011-09-29T14:40:00.000-07:002011-09-29T14:45:24.696-07:00#221 Saying "I'd like to invite you to..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqfjCjWAKZwZT93LMR3jjxaXDlmgj1_-5b0nwXV8y_D7P6Jm-PgQfXHhcmQQiB6kPwGjbKJ1MOr70N8ulIJLdBTNPFI7fdai9YrF4tFa07Oyp9LHbYu1HOmrFQGbJsWhPQpV_WO7ws9d7/s1600/shame.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqfjCjWAKZwZT93LMR3jjxaXDlmgj1_-5b0nwXV8y_D7P6Jm-PgQfXHhcmQQiB6kPwGjbKJ1MOr70N8ulIJLdBTNPFI7fdai9YrF4tFa07Oyp9LHbYu1HOmrFQGbJsWhPQpV_WO7ws9d7/s400/shame.JPG" width="400px" /></a></div><br />
"I’d like to invite you to" is a standard phrase in Christian culture. It frequently surfaces during the pre-sermon announcements or the post-sermon wrap-up, and it is a staple in the vernacular of church planting pastors, especially within Acts 29. It is used most often when the pastor is soliciting such things as prayer, church event attendance, and tithes. It is a subtle way to apply a remarkable amount of pressure. The subversive hard sell, if you will.<br />
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"I’d like to invite you to" is often followed by the words "prayerfully consider." It manages never to feel like a true invitation, however. "I'd like to invite you to" is too often churchspeak for "This is what you should do if you're on God's side."<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(Can be used interchangeably with "I would challenge you to," though this usually references immaterial things like quiet time schedules, attitude adjustments and <em>Every Man’s Battle</em> meetings.)</span>stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-23050620556160885942011-08-31T23:06:00.000-07:002011-09-01T08:51:32.458-07:00#220 Dave Ramsey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBqI132-7kCjSp8CpRmURHbVWX6S_UYpJSjhVNvzn2wQa9PqlHcWYHKtaHy8uzgiHlUys58nfsxu2eWKUPrEQB2jagA186j_87_wpWyDCHB-JRqfSv46RTmJEw6RC63UpDRaC5wynBIu6/s1600/doublescissors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBqI132-7kCjSp8CpRmURHbVWX6S_UYpJSjhVNvzn2wQa9PqlHcWYHKtaHy8uzgiHlUys58nfsxu2eWKUPrEQB2jagA186j_87_wpWyDCHB-JRqfSv46RTmJEw6RC63UpDRaC5wynBIu6/s400/doublescissors.jpg" width="400px" /></a></div><br />
Dave Ramsey is the financial guru of Christian culture. He is to American evangelicals what Oprah is to the untoward penurious masses who lean to her, begging her folksy utile wisdom, except Dave is Oprah in this scenario and he mainly talks about money. In that sense he’s like evangelical Suze Ormon but 100% less lesbionic and his advice is coated in Bible verses. This makes him irresistible to Christian culture.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dave Ramsey: credit card assassin</td></tr>
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Every evangelical worth their salt has at least one copy of Dave’s books, usually <i>Total Money Makeover</i>, and has partaken in his Financial Peace University one of the times it was hosted by their church. Most protestant churches in the U.S. have Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University posters somewhere on their walls. They are very, very excited about him. He tells you how to attack your debt and ratchet up your emergency fund using proverbial (literally) gazelle-like intensity. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0t-y4cFtQuru49IWKFc_9ZFB2fKbPuQ35Woo0K3i1eV6nRtCl2fA0k-1OkInk6eSoGNzfU7n3rhCjaFIXDVxes2RnSdE7SwVAoTOmcdywNI_fH4okZVWQGsvTG5BrXtLpfIsQwrWb1DF/s1600/livescissors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0t-y4cFtQuru49IWKFc_9ZFB2fKbPuQ35Woo0K3i1eV6nRtCl2fA0k-1OkInk6eSoGNzfU7n3rhCjaFIXDVxes2RnSdE7SwVAoTOmcdywNI_fH4okZVWQGsvTG5BrXtLpfIsQwrWb1DF/s400/livescissors.jpg" width="400px" /></a></div><br />
It’s common sense and really pretty rad. You do your debt snowball and dart around like a gazelle and soon you have a nice little pile of financial peace. Well, maybe. There’s always something, isn’t there. Some people say the more money you have, the more problems go along with it. I think that’s how Biggie put it. Dave has probably figured that out by now with everyone after him about his expensive houses and cars, but we’ll get to that in a minute. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The patented gazelle-skin Dave Ramsey Wallet™</td></tr>
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One way to identify a Dave Ramsey devotee is by their Dave Ramsey branded wallet (see above). It isn’t cute, but that only bothers people who are capable of getting upset about accessories. Maybe Dave should have a follow-up workshop called The Total Wallet Makeover. I would like to suggest this one:<br />
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Dave likes to say that while you're paying down your debt "If you will like no one else, later you can live like no one else." This could be taken to mean that for now you're living strangely by budgeting so that one day you can live strangely with financial peace. By this logic, financial peace is equated with having a lot in savings. It sounds about right, and no one seems to wonder if it will actually bring financial peace.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvq5DzX56oN18PH_rmwuNKNgTkU1rXRQwTDBiCUcGssL9VRysH53_F0mWU5DNQezKZEe4AOcnyKEaOMRcj_ig3qfDfXrzEIyTVkoh6jPrZBIgTAzsKjEVKB1U6xxWjdwZy9MJgVxl2XypL/s1600/livelike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvq5DzX56oN18PH_rmwuNKNgTkU1rXRQwTDBiCUcGssL9VRysH53_F0mWU5DNQezKZEe4AOcnyKEaOMRcj_ig3qfDfXrzEIyTVkoh6jPrZBIgTAzsKjEVKB1U6xxWjdwZy9MJgVxl2XypL/s320/livelike.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
Dave Ramsey isn’t just for Christian culture anymore. He’s branching out and crossing into the mainstream like Amy Grant and Jars of Clay by buying advertising on celebrity gossip pages and such. You can hardly go to a nice stupid site like PerezHilton without seeing Dave’s visage leering at you like Jack Nicholson through a splintered door, holding a dastardly credit card whose seconds are numbered. That credit card has been up to no good. Time to get yourself some financial peace.<br />
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People have been talking about Dave Ramsey even more since he bought a $4.9 million house. The opinions are pretty polar; everyone is either proud of his success or disappointed that he professes Christianity from his 13,000 square foot home with a bath that has an alleged 18 shower heads. I will let you absorb this. When people ask him how this aligns with the faith he professes Dave has responded with "Most of the patriarchs in the Bible were wealthy,” “You're managing money for God” and “The Bible doesn’t tell you to be poor.” <span style="font-size: xx-small;">[<a href="http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/the-gospel-according-to-dave/Content?oid=1194744">1</a>] </span> Christian culture seems to swallow this just fine.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIH2mr42WRpkwZBpb2QrDKmAwvR-pW7b5RlA6bGIzAtCTMQkkMbq9F-vqvP5SMyXvdOmF5kfX9MLaY0wwJd1cZuFeN2OSOYcC-blxMN2do2W6-doBOrql6iW2KCDl-RyAQ55hmgy10ZRYG/s1600/dave-ramsey-mansion-house-nashville-tennessee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIH2mr42WRpkwZBpb2QrDKmAwvR-pW7b5RlA6bGIzAtCTMQkkMbq9F-vqvP5SMyXvdOmF5kfX9MLaY0wwJd1cZuFeN2OSOYcC-blxMN2do2W6-doBOrql6iW2KCDl-RyAQ55hmgy10ZRYG/s400/dave-ramsey-mansion-house-nashville-tennessee.jpg" width="400px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Casa de Ramsey</td></tr>
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In the <a href="http://www.coolsprings.com/news/dave-ramseys-house/">comment thread for this article on Dave’s house</a> a woman named Melissa said: “I can't believe he could not come up with something better to do with his money…I have 340 poverty kids that need help where I work - what's the chance. Food banks are over burdened by the needs, I'm trying to find a way to get handicapped access playground equipment…18 shower heads, shame on you.” To this some of Dave’s supporters replied “Melissa, stop being a HATER!” “Dave Ramsey has worked his butt off for everything that he has.” “Get a life, just because you don’t have the common sense to save doesn’t mean you can bash someone who does.” “Can we say jealous?...I’m sorry, but this is America, if you work hard and succeed you may do as you wish with YOUR OWN profits. You people who point a finger and say selfish and wasteful, take a look at how much percentage wise Dave donates and how much you yourselves donate and I feel the three fingers pointing back at yourself will clear up who is in the wrong” and “He earned it. If he wants to live in a 10 Million dollar house, thats is fine. This guy gives more money to charity than a host of Americans.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Vwswlwf0JIPfJAQ7X6Sxz1DoOesvAT1Rnmqt_mjO88V7Gk2-2p9Vq0Q6klpkoH27ljha6s94u0vZbSVc6DsvcDerviNbnrz8rsZDM3hA28Q5I0FIAmZ2t7WdPj8LDUqwZt0nRxUgJxrD/s1600/liveactioncardcutting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Vwswlwf0JIPfJAQ7X6Sxz1DoOesvAT1Rnmqt_mjO88V7Gk2-2p9Vq0Q6klpkoH27ljha6s94u0vZbSVc6DsvcDerviNbnrz8rsZDM3hA28Q5I0FIAmZ2t7WdPj8LDUqwZt0nRxUgJxrD/s320/liveactioncardcutting.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
Dave <a href="http://www.biblemoneymatters.com/dave-ramsey-comments-on-my-post-about-his-new-house-his-debt-philosophy-and-giving//">responded to some of the criticism in this article</a>, saying it's none of our business but that he tithes ten percent and has a family foundation to which he gives a huge percentage. This kind of answer is plenty for Christian culture. Their thinking goes something like, “Hey, he has been more than generous to tell us he tithes the Old Testament mandate of the first ten percent so everyone get off his godly hind-end.” (While they're thinking this they think hind-end, not ass.) Christian culture doesn’t tend to wonder whether it really isn't their business what another Christian does with their multimillions. They have flexible boundaries when it comes to talking about sexual purity with acquaintances and inquiring after strangers' eternal souls, but fellow Christians' finances are a different story.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMLIUKiqndMx8wYUvON8bL4yVSSb8tK_CVNaOlykErCI_iys4aG_7M8Q87VCnR9aM-_kUx4Roo2GEPnCqGmOrmuJLjvq4qZYVCJtuV0hJsHZJvTowpja1A9nYP4g89avv1gy_9eaPShz3/s1600/scissorsblackturtleneck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMLIUKiqndMx8wYUvON8bL4yVSSb8tK_CVNaOlykErCI_iys4aG_7M8Q87VCnR9aM-_kUx4Roo2GEPnCqGmOrmuJLjvq4qZYVCJtuV0hJsHZJvTowpja1A9nYP4g89avv1gy_9eaPShz3/s400/scissorsblackturtleneck.jpg" width="400px" /></a></div><br />
It’s reminiscent of that one time (at band camp) when the rich young ruler asked Jesus how to be his true follower and Jesus said “Sell everything you own and give it away to the poor. Then come, follow me." Because he was so rich he got really sad, and seeing his reaction Jesus said, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who have it all to enter God's kingdom? I'd say it's easier to thread a camel through a needle's eye than get a rich person into God's kingdom."<br />
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So basically, it sucks to be a rich Christian. Or could getting rid of your stuff also get rid of a lot of your problems, like Biggie said? There’s got to be a reason monks take vows of poverty and can have joy. If you don’t have a bunch of money you have to trust more and that isn’t a fun activity for humans. It’s also just weird. If we don’t go with our straight-line way of thinking and use the paradoxical power Jesus taught that looks for all the world like weakness (what Luther called left-handed power), it seems illogical. Or did Jesus’ weird directives and backwards ways of teaching with parables actually show us some of who he is because they are so counter-intuitive? If you say you follow the teachings of someone who said his followers must give what they own to the poor, you've got a dilemma because no one wants to take that literally. It says the rich young ruler walked away very sad because he was very rich. Of course he did. Can you really have that kind of material wealth and follow someone who said to give it all away?stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com105tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-40896039089797259512011-08-09T16:23:00.000-07:002011-08-09T16:23:12.587-07:00#219 The word "hubby"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg49g8ut90zd7buVQ5eSsa8OeDyzMyITqNXGNyq2Pg5XZC2KedoElg_8LEVHtBkwknBLrToMpjUM-V-JUblU_gip86PQa361zYYySLiBO-Rga9wwl_6E5J3wSt5FekbwwBNtE57g9rpyNUX/s1600/hubbybenjerryssq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg49g8ut90zd7buVQ5eSsa8OeDyzMyITqNXGNyq2Pg5XZC2KedoElg_8LEVHtBkwknBLrToMpjUM-V-JUblU_gip86PQa361zYYySLiBO-Rga9wwl_6E5J3wSt5FekbwwBNtE57g9rpyNUX/s400/hubbybenjerryssq.jpg" width="310px" /></a></div><br />
"Hubby" isn’t often said by neurosurgeons, rocket scientists or most self-respecting intellectuals, but within Christian culture you hear it all the time. It runs rampant in Young Marrieds ministries, amongst pastors' wives, and on stay-at-home-mom blogs which feature lots of Bible verses and recipes. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>"Hubby" is rarely spoken in seriousness by anyone outside of Christian culture. Most people outside Christian culture have only heard it in the context of Ben & Jerry's or from British tabloids, and in extreme cases, from an older, socially-challenged female relative. But in the Christian culture vortex you are subjected to this word and all its incarnations ("hubs," "hubby hubs," "hubski") and qualifications (most often "hunky," "hot" and "godly") early on and very often.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3SKwQo-Nq6kOysNjeEQ9e4t9SJGu67xBG4dPZK39oM8u9SZBQdcCIewKObGln5NCw4sgKdxFo99JLZGSHG0C2Xv2RmAPjOywWcn7stsmoKR3CSQaudhdUg-ypduShEnsyiy5AHEldfZds/s1600/hubbyfb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="101px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3SKwQo-Nq6kOysNjeEQ9e4t9SJGu67xBG4dPZK39oM8u9SZBQdcCIewKObGln5NCw4sgKdxFo99JLZGSHG0C2Xv2RmAPjOywWcn7stsmoKR3CSQaudhdUg-ypduShEnsyiy5AHEldfZds/s320/hubbyfb.JPG" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
The one hard and fast rule concerning "hubby" is that it is never uttered by a man. Christian culture does have its pride, however ambiguous. stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-48717278733194511752011-08-02T11:05:00.000-07:002011-08-02T13:39:01.917-07:00#218 Michele Bachmann<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8cEjdWFVJMRWVMYzii2tZiD1GGvY6Pv4fYDzD25v62MEOZxx4Idwe2Llk6XuBbe8BizYiWboT4gZJIcB_S1OFdTj6KEWFNpzCknKBsGqUjuoIsmKECzPhm5pEJmIHxIyQErrDeGM2uF0/s1600/Rep_Michele_Bachmann_Official_Photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8cEjdWFVJMRWVMYzii2tZiD1GGvY6Pv4fYDzD25v62MEOZxx4Idwe2Llk6XuBbe8BizYiWboT4gZJIcB_S1OFdTj6KEWFNpzCknKBsGqUjuoIsmKECzPhm5pEJmIHxIyQErrDeGM2uF0/s400/Rep_Michele_Bachmann_Official_Photo.JPG" t$="true" width="262px" /></a></div><br />
Christian culture is so excited about Michele Bachmann. A self-proclaimed constitutional conservative and founder of the House’s Tea Party caucus, her presidential candidacy nomination has given them renewed hope that America might be reclaimed from the liberal left who are about to capsize this country with their secular socialist agenda. <br />
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Christian culture believes that only a born-again leader can keep this country from combusting like the Roman Empire, but the leader must not just <em>say</em> they are Christian (like a certain president who's probably Muslim). They want a leader with all the Christian cultural markings, and Michele has got them: great hair, <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2009/12/111-oral-roberts.html">Oral Roberts</a> degree, <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2008/08/23-having-lots-of-kids.html">lots</a> of <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2008/08/4-homeschooling.html">homeschooled</a> kids, Republican congresswoman, Tea Partier, <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2009/05/82-not-environmentalism.html">global warming skeptic</a>, <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2009/07/91-not-obama.html">Obamacare</a> opponent, intelligent design enthusiast, <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2008/11/52-not-legalizing-gay-marriage.html">same-sex marriage contender</a>, and a gaydar-enacting husband who runs his own Christian counseling practice. This political résumé is the stuff of which evangelical dreams are made.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpGuZte-EmD4hklACRpDj8-nI6pFsfKBEPUdbtwzk0JV1saLZDmTjS6gGq-l-vq2lPSO1ARl4Pz7WXxi-ZD__MzhOpTLrldvmKjXs2e8BFyRN41lH48qzYO1hv5ajRh3OQ4EdnQeJeytDA/s1600/untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpGuZte-EmD4hklACRpDj8-nI6pFsfKBEPUdbtwzk0JV1saLZDmTjS6gGq-l-vq2lPSO1ARl4Pz7WXxi-ZD__MzhOpTLrldvmKjXs2e8BFyRN41lH48qzYO1hv5ajRh3OQ4EdnQeJeytDA/s400/untitled.jpg" width="400px" /></a></div><br />
Michele says she's committed to fixing Washington’s broken ways by advocating for America’s adherence to the Constitution and would like to bring God back into our government. (This of course presumes that he at one time was there and was ousted.) Christian culture believes God was a sort of honorary founding father who's been kicked to the curb and that the Constitution is based on Christian principles. They generally won't acknowledge the absence of Christian thought in the Constitution, much less any evidence that the founders didn't intend to create a Christian nation. (Christian culture does not like discussing the Deist, Freemason and Unitarian beliefs of the founding fathers—and the Catholics and Anglicans are often put in the non-Christian box as well—nor that separation of church and state means anything besides keeping the state out of the church’s influence within public institutions, but that's another blog post for another day.) <br />
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With Michele's MILFy goodness leading the way, Christian culture has renewed hope that this country can be wrested back from the organized resistance groups who have succeeded in undermining their cherished American values and have publicly ridiculed any reliance on their Creator as the sole source of all our national blessings and prosperity. Because to allow that wouldn't be constitutional at all, now would it.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-65900018254535079652011-06-25T22:06:00.000-07:002011-06-27T21:06:41.213-07:00#217 The Ungame<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSDRY1JNvnlMnqfmIbdkTo2ClWeXJ5ell-lTsNvpW06z3GKSKVtJxGglQH8G7Et4LGcFeLaUjCnkV4SnEh1jyih0c2Soq7LPJN52d5VhA3vK0bsbZEIrCUwsvLtIk0Ss-6GBxYRDYzXX_/s1600/ungame1975.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSDRY1JNvnlMnqfmIbdkTo2ClWeXJ5ell-lTsNvpW06z3GKSKVtJxGglQH8G7Et4LGcFeLaUjCnkV4SnEh1jyih0c2Soq7LPJN52d5VhA3vK0bsbZEIrCUwsvLtIk0Ss-6GBxYRDYzXX_/s400/ungame1975.jpg" width="400px" /></a></div><br />
The Ungame is a non-competitive non-game that enjoys rabid popularity in Christian culture. It exists solely to spark conversation, permits no losing, and is basically a G-rated version of "Have you ever?” in board form. The Ungame manned the helm of Christian culture social gatherings for the entire length of the 1980s secondary to James Dobson’s enthusiastic recommendation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh2IscTDtcXJ_S78YypUyr26WdDPYUi_cvhy2PU4uUMXubIvSMywbkDmGahKEICy7LTBwDVD8eBqnljHzNLDrl118_g0zf3boBGgjhpWSy9dCzMJ1-0BuloL7_NkXXXw1tu8XuYTNilKpL/s1600/dobson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh2IscTDtcXJ_S78YypUyr26WdDPYUi_cvhy2PU4uUMXubIvSMywbkDmGahKEICy7LTBwDVD8eBqnljHzNLDrl118_g0zf3boBGgjhpWSy9dCzMJ1-0BuloL7_NkXXXw1tu8XuYTNilKpL/s320/dobson.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christian culture's Good Housekeeping symbol</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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The Ungame board features a bucolic microcosm of various emotions and life trials rendered in idyllic cartoons. To play you draw cards that dispatch you to places like the Cheerful Chalet and Worry Wharf, and once you get there you are asked things like “When do you get angry?” and “If you had to move and could only take three things with you, what would you take?” <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZp26sMdxnqWaD3CK7JJpXXl0GWtw4MQ5tdF4xUz3eQf6NFFVrLO_iWpIcm_vxlVzkmXFN-dI-FWrEuj3HyJQH0WqiHqCRPFNw1RlJi4VJzO_tG8yDwRatW_3F884uynPJgsU8N3kB2ZWz/s1600/worrywharfcollage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="135px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZp26sMdxnqWaD3CK7JJpXXl0GWtw4MQ5tdF4xUz3eQf6NFFVrLO_iWpIcm_vxlVzkmXFN-dI-FWrEuj3HyJQH0WqiHqCRPFNw1RlJi4VJzO_tG8yDwRatW_3F884uynPJgsU8N3kB2ZWz/s400/worrywharfcollage.jpg" width="400px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fearful Forest, Worry Wharf and Friendship Farm await you</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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Your game piece hops around garnering introspective questions and though you're assured there are no wrong answers, you know better than to answer “Do you like to pray?” with “not really.” If the card asks if you've been unhappy today and you answer in the affirmative, you are sent to the Happy House for a time-out and must forfeit a turn. Such mixed messages, this Ungame.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfYOi30hqWvhpi9RokqXfpdOTtecZ1e3GYVVQZnksSH59t3dZmCQ62fatiUkZMelCEBJ94Jb4F3_XonUpqv3A6yxVFXHJlIZ8bY6Gc_44bIKsd3qgJWdowatfrIdijL4TFR2siUnpD6deH/s1600/familiesversionallwhitepeople.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="255px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfYOi30hqWvhpi9RokqXfpdOTtecZ1e3GYVVQZnksSH59t3dZmCQ62fatiUkZMelCEBJ94Jb4F3_XonUpqv3A6yxVFXHJlIZ8bY6Gc_44bIKsd3qgJWdowatfrIdijL4TFR2siUnpD6deH/s320/familiesversionallwhitepeople.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">White people playing white people games.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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For the evangelical on the go there’s a travel version. Speaking of mixed messages, at first glance they look like boxes of condoms.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkjeY-6BO8c6atTS-oiUuWShIhSv7Cz94uaybGKYMUliWIckpiyf30QryHtSYwdFDtxMc_nLu59DYLoLXs-RMbxwp71Yz_j5cCnaQAUZUn4JAHzd_fMs45W_Hn4M1wvT_7bX-a1XGjv9pL/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkjeY-6BO8c6atTS-oiUuWShIhSv7Cz94uaybGKYMUliWIckpiyf30QryHtSYwdFDtxMc_nLu59DYLoLXs-RMbxwp71Yz_j5cCnaQAUZUn4JAHzd_fMs45W_Hn4M1wvT_7bX-a1XGjv9pL/s400/7.jpg" width="308px" /></a></div><br />
Though Christian culture finds the regular Ungame adequately <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2011/05/blog-post.html">edifying</a>, there is an actual Christian version in case you really want to get down. The Christian version has two sets of question cards, one for junior highers and one for <i>mature </i>Christians. These questions include “If Jesus knocked on your door today what would you do?”, “Name three significant advantages a Christian has over a non-Christian,” “What is your strongest Christian virtue and how do you use it to advantage?”, “What part of the Christian’s armor was the most valuable to you today?”, “Make a statement about wine” and “Identify a spiritual lesson that can be learned from a fox.” I am not making this up.<br />
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The board says “answer honestly” all over it, but can you imagine if you did? Question: “Tell of a time no one else knew about when you were tempted. What did you do and what you would do differently if you had it to do over again?” Better not answer that one out loud in mixed company. “Who is your favorite New Testament Bible character and why?” New Testament, you say? Social decorum demands you say Jesus. “What weakness in Christians most hinders non-Christians from accepting Jesus and why?” Um, maybe believing that you have at least three significant advantages over non-Christians has something to do with it. And you want to know why? Maybe because Jesus didn’t quantify people in that way. “You serve on a philanthropic organization board and recommend Christian ministries worthy of support. What criterion do you use?” Well. They definitely can’t support anything remotely gay or pro-choice, but if they say they give at least 10% of their firstfruits to charity even though their founders live in huge houses, that meets all of Christian culture’s criteria for support worthiness. And last but not least, “Talk about something you like to eat.” As. If. Have a straight guy answer that honestly and Christian culture will rise up and break his ass in half. Let’s work it clean, people. Christian culture says they want your truth but studies show they cannot handle it.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-74101593136164427892011-05-24T10:11:00.000-07:002014-07-23T16:22:06.223-07:00#216 Things that edify<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Christian culture wants to edify and be edified. Edification is mentioned several times in the New Testament, basically saying we should do stuff that edifies ourselves and each other. It’s a lovely concept and Christians want to take it seriously. But the Bible doesn’t give a whole lot of specifics as to what is edifying and what isn’t. Christian culture wants to know exactly what that means, so they have filled in the blanks.<br />
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Christian culture has guidelines about which sorts of things are edifying and which aren’t. There will be instances in which you find something to be edifying that your Christian culture compatriot does not, and you’ll be afraid to tell them because they are swift to express their concern. In the same breath they are likely to cite Romans 14:19, I Thessalonians 5:11, II Corinthians 12:19, Philippians 4 or Ephesians 4 as scriptures which reference edification. This is a good start to an <i>edifying</i> conversation, for real, but should you persist in your contrasting opinion then they are likely to pull out I Corinthians 10:23. Christian culture likes to keep this verse holstered. It’s their trump card. It says “all things are permissible but not all things are beneficial” and it’s often the last word in a ruction such as this. Christian culture doesn’t give much credence to the “all things are permissible” part. Surely Paul didn’t mean that. He says we have freedom in Christ but that is kind of ridiculous. They give weight to the “not everything is beneficial” bit. It usually ends the discussion (and puts a damper on any relationship that was taking place) by quieting the mistakenly-edified party with a familiar dose of shame.<br />
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Everyone within the wide expanse of Christian culture knows exactly what is considered edifying. The ideas are so specific and far-reaching that you’d think they’d sent out a memo, yet they’re mostly unwritten and the whole of Christian culture holds to them with remarkable tenacity. For one, everyone understands that you need to choose your friends carefully. This is a big one: you need edifying friends. Common sense dictates this anyway, but when Christian culture says it it’s code for “Christian friends,”or more specifically, “friends active within Christian culture.” The unwritten rule says you may speak with unsaved people or Christians of a weaker stripe but you shouldn’t linger except for intentional, directed witnessing. You should also be an edifying fixture in your workplace. Your coworkers should be aware that you are a Christian, otherwise any edification you might bestow on them would not receive its due as being explicitly sourced in Christ. <br />
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Edifying movies and television programming are insisted upon. Edifying speech is another big one. There is to be no gossip (except by the <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2009/11/102-gossip-via-prayer-request.html">prayer request loophole</a>) or <i>coarse joking</i>. Dick jokes are verboten. Helen Keller jokes are pushing it. Your speech is to be edifying in the manner that Christian culture says they are edified by. This is why you hear people say “I’m really ticked” or “P.O.’d.” (Christian culture knows nothing of the Greek word <i>scubula</i> aka shit which Paul used with the Philippians, but that’s another blog post entirely.) <br />
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Edifying music includes Christian radio, new country, Celine Dion and Coldplay. Carrot Top is edifying. Neil Hamburger is not. The <a href="http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/">Stuff Christians Like</a> blog is edifying. This one, not so much. Worship leaders work their tails (not asses) off to bring you the single most edifying worship experience every Sunday. At conferences they urge fellow worship leaders to examine the songs they lead. First off, they say, are the words Biblical? Does it teach about the Gospel? Is it Christ-o-centric? Does it stir my soul to worship God? Have I myself worshiped the Lord in listening to this song? I guess NWA and Gwar are getting crossed off the worship roster. No gosh-darned way. The worship leader says he is opening up more to other styles “but if the end result is that if I’m not worshiping the Lord as I listen to this song, if it does not stir me one bit, if the truth isn’t solid, and if the melody doesn’t match well with that truth, I don’t know why I would lead it at my church.” <a href="http://theresurgence.com/2011/05/10/a-conversation-with-worship-pastors-on-reformed-theology">They really say that</a>: the melody must match well with that truth. Bet they won’t be singing “Come Thou Fount” to the tune of “Killing in the Name,” even though that’s a well truthful song. <br />
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Abstract art isn’t considered edifying. The abstract scares Christian culture. They aren't edified by anything not overtly literal or immediately accessible. They prefer art that is easy to “get,” especially if it represents creation. Talking about one’s sinful past does not edify unless it’s for the sake of <i>sharing your testimony</i>, never for the sake of reminiscing. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling? That seems a little crazy. Better stick with the culture’s ideas of what’s edifying just to be on the safe side, and school those who get it wrong. You can’t possibly be edified by that. Would you use that language if Jesus were here? You’d watch that movie if Jesus were sitting next to you? No you would not. Christian culture is sure that they <i>know</i>. It’s what they do.<br />
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Here are some handy graphics to guide you in your next interaction with Christian culture. <br />
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Here's one more thing Christian culture finds edifying:<br />
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...but this picture makes them nervous.<br />
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stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-69310537957776542772011-04-26T16:22:00.000-07:002011-04-26T16:22:30.190-07:00#215 Not secular humanism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrunAniJJeRFEC1ZpEZx4qZteCTWsjllpMugKIHgqrq56kQai8-OsETQ5tNf0AxtSm2yazRugiTNRujLPJsSbsrD0xB2RnKCAjZST44TzkiijXc4_R3ynzhnjsLes5AfWph2rC9cICj10q/s1600/sechum1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrunAniJJeRFEC1ZpEZx4qZteCTWsjllpMugKIHgqrq56kQai8-OsETQ5tNf0AxtSm2yazRugiTNRujLPJsSbsrD0xB2RnKCAjZST44TzkiijXc4_R3ynzhnjsLes5AfWph2rC9cICj10q/s400/sechum1.jpg" width="342px" /></a></div><br />
Humanism is the most fearsome philosophy known to Christian culture. The only thing more frightening than humanism is secular humanism. It is right up there with socialism and voodoo. <br />
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Secular humanists are considered by Christian culture to be extremely dangerous. Once someone is called a secular humanist by an influential entity in Christian culture (i.e., famous pastor, head of your household, a book by Zondervan) anything they have to say will be dismissed out of hand. It’s a perfect example of ad hominem reasoning.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com43tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-54034652908595864002011-04-21T15:57:00.000-07:002011-04-21T16:32:29.073-07:00#214 The Dove AwardsIf a Christian tree wins a Dove Award in the forest and only Christian trees are there to hear it, did it make a sound?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYESWhQ6-ZCgUxciMyD1Y4t7DCesQp0nskWmdUsgilZaJEBTJEPUxhHr864wlZROPL_JyRnfj_ySv1sCjmP_wAjwDZWB-oR5aQmH9wNJIXBQOrE8-trzgFLR00ZW4fjzntTLRNM8wBPB5D/s1600/dove8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYESWhQ6-ZCgUxciMyD1Y4t7DCesQp0nskWmdUsgilZaJEBTJEPUxhHr864wlZROPL_JyRnfj_ySv1sCjmP_wAjwDZWB-oR5aQmH9wNJIXBQOrE8-trzgFLR00ZW4fjzntTLRNM8wBPB5D/s320/dove8.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
The Dove Awards are Christian culture’s version of the Grammys. Grammy Awards are given to secular artists and Dove Awards are given to musicians in the Christian music industry®. But as we’ve discussed in previous posts, when Christian culture makes their own version of something secular it turns out a bit gimpy. It kind of hobbles around like a clone of a clone of a clone. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrTC09pb_CvX8vbMZNt-zMzbf9ozxbbyWUIOUaQ0DPU7gfgi85pWgHg4je7O0mdMohXjtenIX5JCUJz3Ei3tbahfxIzK2N1YbsBNjlC-dX42oP09MCHGmDwKxG_lrbUEjtqboxoEu3nOX/s1600/dovetobymac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrTC09pb_CvX8vbMZNt-zMzbf9ozxbbyWUIOUaQ0DPU7gfgi85pWgHg4je7O0mdMohXjtenIX5JCUJz3Ei3tbahfxIzK2N1YbsBNjlC-dX42oP09MCHGmDwKxG_lrbUEjtqboxoEu3nOX/s400/dovetobymac.jpg" width="400px" /></a></div><br />
If people within Christian culture think the quality is inferior, they don't say it out loud. But non-Christians are baffled by the quality and content of contemporary Christian music. My atheist friend said today, “I just never understood why contemporary Christian music has this weird slick sheen over it...it just always sounds so sterile and soulless. Seems like an odd way to express spiritual hunger. Jars of Clay should be called Plastic Jugs of Urethane.” <br />
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Sometimes Grammy and Oscar winners refuse their awards because they don't believe in ranking beauty and art. Maybe that is more spiritual than Christian culture award ceremonies. Because in the kingdom of heaven, my worship song about God is no better than anyone else’s song about God, because in the end it is about God, right...? Why are they ranking and awarding each other? <br />
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This is a Sears commercial, right? Not professional enough to be JCPenney, but A for effort, gang.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-58322832658264242832011-04-18T14:27:00.000-07:002011-04-18T14:27:49.873-07:00#213 Forbidding your husband to have female friends<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVJuuNSuegWbnc7UtG3iIH0_SFqQJelNiE-NANgNhvodkWaGim-TrhsWOLJj5RxRhCq3XZ70stfUZJlGK6RhrPJfaiDI7fCrTRB329wUv7XfBwu6W_n-40JDutJ4yzmPym4tgoXpiTmPI/s1600/unfriend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVJuuNSuegWbnc7UtG3iIH0_SFqQJelNiE-NANgNhvodkWaGim-TrhsWOLJj5RxRhCq3XZ70stfUZJlGK6RhrPJfaiDI7fCrTRB329wUv7XfBwu6W_n-40JDutJ4yzmPym4tgoXpiTmPI/s400/unfriend.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Married men in Christian culture commonly experience wifely pressure to lose their female friends. Many married men outside of Christian culture feel the same pressure for the same reasons, but with different enforcement tactics.<br />
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When married couples suffer spousal insecurity or distrust the standard methods they employ include threatening, ultimatums, and passive aggression. Christian culture couples do all of these too but can also play their trump card: divine retribution.<br />
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When men of any religious or non-religious stripe get married their female friendships often become endangered, but it’s a certain breed of endangerment that’s exclusive to Christian culture. Christian culture has submerged them in the thought that all women pose a threat to fidelity and therefore to a marriage. Either by wifely influence or of his own cautious volition, the newly-minted husband becomes standoffish with the female persuasion. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjxP1cEqOmCWBzHHazAgLzVCeRI1DeZR31c_t5iyYT1ulFwrcCbE3UKcVdty7ZV86Sh7D9SeD_dqMEXMk9pyhLYYu2YBZi3GCHzrlsNnffxGtqyRIlB-uJdyl5G8VyiBlNy9wti-1_3eW/s1600/misery1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjxP1cEqOmCWBzHHazAgLzVCeRI1DeZR31c_t5iyYT1ulFwrcCbE3UKcVdty7ZV86Sh7D9SeD_dqMEXMk9pyhLYYu2YBZi3GCHzrlsNnffxGtqyRIlB-uJdyl5G8VyiBlNy9wti-1_3eW/s400/misery1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Once married the husband is rarely seen without his wife hovering at his elbow. Saying little, she shadows him in the foyer before and after church and stands extra close if he talks to girls. Opposite sex relationships in Christian culture become strained around junior high, when the youth groups are segregated by gender and warned against the wiles of the other. From that point on they view each other with conflicted suspicion. Under the right circumstances they could be overtaken by their sin nature and destroy their entire future in one moment! Hence the extreme caution. The newly married friend soon becomes almost impossible to even say hello to. Once he’s unfriended you on Facebook, you’ve officially lost another friend to the marital abyss.stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-24553691651245981272011-04-06T12:10:00.000-07:002011-04-06T12:33:27.553-07:00#212 Growing Kids God’s Way aka Babywise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2j_DUwFumlXrPiLFvmBGx43Vj3tO8dSmFW8jBdx0DLUPRd5BKHKqGVK8s8Bv8LGZ_2dJy-v6t3CsTKFWiLk_ifovwI-lCTzk5CSo68MlK1MWuS0cJe2OxYomplnJ21-zv5_Otc-EpjUAo/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2j_DUwFumlXrPiLFvmBGx43Vj3tO8dSmFW8jBdx0DLUPRd5BKHKqGVK8s8Bv8LGZ_2dJy-v6t3CsTKFWiLk_ifovwI-lCTzk5CSo68MlK1MWuS0cJe2OxYomplnJ21-zv5_Otc-EpjUAo/s400/1.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><br />
96% of parents in Christian culture own a copy of <em>Growing Kids God’s Way</em> by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo. The alternate version, <em>On Becoming Babywise</em>, is the secular edition, written by the same people but with all the God stuff taken out.<br />
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<em>Growing Kids God’s Way</em> enters your house by way of a church friend who loans it to you with ecstatic recommendation. “You can finally get some rest once your baby sleeps through the night! It just takes some discipline at first but it pays off!” The exhausted parent likes the sound of this. That baby sure is needy. Wakes them up every few hours to eat and stuff. The parents would like some sleep too so they don’t feel like fried hell all day. Plus, it’s God’s way. It says so right in the title. The Ezzos’ infant management plan (as they call it) enacted that very night.<br />
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It sounds reasonable enough. Put your baby on a schedule, what’s wrong with that? Schedules make children feel secure. But to schedule-ize your newborn you must let it cry. A lot. The Ezzos instruct you to be strong and not give in. They believe babies begin to show their sin nature early by crying for multiple feedings and encroaching on the parents’ schedule. They say that if you feed the baby when she cries, you are teaching her that the family revolves around her. And that’s not God’s way. (Or is it?)<br />
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Earnest Christians in the subtle trappings of Christian culture want to follow everything their church recommends, especially if it’s deemed to be God’s way. Per the counter-intuitive Ezzo guidelines, the baby is not fed when hungry but is woken from sound sleep so it will get on the mom’s schedule. The Ezzos reassure you that eventually the baby won’t cry so much and you’ll get eight hours of sleep a night by the time she’s two months old. But…why? The book’s implication is that the rest you get and control you’re exerting over your household will make it worthwhile. No validation is given to the primal mothering instinct. You can’t explain instinct. To the black-and-white thinking that sovereign in Christian culture, instinct is to be mistrusted and if at all possible, disregarded. There is no discussion about why God would endow mothers with such a strong instinct, either. No thought seems to be given to the emotional connection between parents and their children that is formed through “inconvenient” nighttime feedings and the like. No assertion that Jesus said serving others, especially the least of them, is serving him. No credence is given to the ways parents grow as people through the trials of parenting. Christian culture wants themselves a schedule and by golly, a schedule they shall have.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBLOT0nWcDfQcxStom3h5b8V2npuM2WMOFpupVXhCsszVkOL_4yXNYgzf9wuHfXWQ25S7DiK7kc_BInJkT8IR3X33bJa8_9JIe4R25ZV5zk5jAE7L97HFGdIV1Y-NCgK8tbuNNc4KBleJH/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBLOT0nWcDfQcxStom3h5b8V2npuM2WMOFpupVXhCsszVkOL_4yXNYgzf9wuHfXWQ25S7DiK7kc_BInJkT8IR3X33bJa8_9JIe4R25ZV5zk5jAE7L97HFGdIV1Y-NCgK8tbuNNc4KBleJH/s320/4.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><br />
People enjoy books on what the Bible says in lieu of reading the Bible itself. It’s a daunting study, the original languages and contexts at all. People are content to believe what they are told about contexts and interpretations rather than go to the actual texts themselves. <br />
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<em>Babywise</em> may be the epitome of Christian culture mentality, coaching you to change your instincts or at least ignore them.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Further reading: Reviews and professional analyses of <em>Babywise</em>, <em>Growing Kids God's Way</em> and other Ezzo-authored material </span><a href="http://www.ezzo.info/babywise.htm" http:="" reviews.htm="" www.ezzo.info="" “=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">. LHJ article </span><a aney="" href="http://www.ezzo.info/Aney/ladieshomejournal.pdf" http:="" ladieshomejournal.pdf”="" www.ezzo.info=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">. Salon article </span><a href="http://www.ezzo.info/Aney/salonmagazine.pdf"><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">. Two YouTube videos from Babywise-endorsing mothers </span><a 4jixx6b6rre”="" embed="" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JixX6B6rrE" http:="" www.youtube.com=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span><a embed="" h6_earnqar8”="" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6_eARNQAr8" http:="" www.youtube.com=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span>stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776387418775994830.post-1453159680923582532011-03-28T15:14:00.000-07:002015-12-24T14:11:25.148-08:00#211 Taking pictures with poor foreign children during missions trips<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Christian culture’s preoccupation with third-world countries has fostered many a missions trip. Homelessness and hunger are right under everyone’s nose but the social dichotomy in North America allows you to stay reasonably oblivious to it. Besides, it would be a little obnoxious to conduct a slideshow for your church using pictures of yourself with the vagrants in your own town. But <a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/2010/07/168-africa.html">Africa</a>…now there’s a slideshow worth mentioning in the bulletin. <br />
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So the earnest Christian sets about raising support to travel to Togo or Kenya or Guatemala or what have you. The trip is around $2500 per person. That could go a long way to help the hungry in their hometown, but they want to experience a different culture, like that of Africa or Tijuana or Central America. They want to visit a culture that has drastically fewer possessions and heavier pigmentation than they’re used to. You couldn’t do that in your hometown. Or could you? Staying in a shelter or on the streets with the needy in your zip code would be a giant culture shock to your privileged ass. But still. <br />
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Back from the odious mission field, the earnest Christian brandishes the trip photos online and displays them to the congregation via church service slideshow. The impoverished people in the pictures appear overcome (understandably). The missions-minded gringos appear well-fed and dressed to play golf.<br />
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Now that they’re home they seem really interested in talking about the Great White Hope they presented to the unsaved savages and the schools they built out of cinderblocks. They seem so invested in your knowing what they’ve been up to it seems they’ve had nary a second for self-reflection. But who really knows. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7GOVzvhLIDerYkZog-cYf2eJOaJOdhIBHE3OeQBlZwDIHA4lH2lQ_ubEADVM6A6gwkDDxz5tHUp7g9b2kWqvoFkNqvohDMMBObozHw2160wasZpSWxJd_uGoGHcWND4aRWYOKk5LAKUTt/s1600/india1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7GOVzvhLIDerYkZog-cYf2eJOaJOdhIBHE3OeQBlZwDIHA4lH2lQ_ubEADVM6A6gwkDDxz5tHUp7g9b2kWqvoFkNqvohDMMBObozHw2160wasZpSWxJd_uGoGHcWND4aRWYOKk5LAKUTt/s400/india1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Meanwhile the local needy, the hungry and impoverished and lonely and scarred remain just down the street from the megachurch that sponsored the pricey missions trip. Admittedly, it’s harder to drop that demographic into conversation when you’ve just spent time helping them, whereas an overseas trip is good for a Facebook photo album and the aforementioned slideshow. We can’t know for sure what their motives are, but something seems a bit off. When Jesus said to help the needy, what did he mean?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTQ9DymmiSmse00uM1sDyKd6ukp02-Q-9Lg_K8t06thSVAyhO22KXJqX8NYixu27MrLYHdNob7KvF-W9dkxi4moX1V4Ujbk-HuxRDb76ag4I5n1A29_VR_phw8DgqWlfwn_u3zUPnIugma/s1600/jars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTQ9DymmiSmse00uM1sDyKd6ukp02-Q-9Lg_K8t06thSVAyhO22KXJqX8NYixu27MrLYHdNob7KvF-W9dkxi4moX1V4Ujbk-HuxRDb76ag4I5n1A29_VR_phw8DgqWlfwn_u3zUPnIugma/s400/jars.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
stephyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047873385595074389noreply@blogger.com104