Stuff: This One Time at Band Camp

There’s a great post over at Stuff that talks about the horrors of “straight camp”. You know, the places where LGBT kids are sent by parent who refuse to acknowledge their kids are different from them.

According to the post:

Something I’ve always been both amused and horrified by is the concept of “Straight Camp”. In the US, these are places that parents can send their kids when they tell them they’re gay for the purpose of – and I quote – “finding freedom in Jesus Christ from sexual and relational sin”. What the f**k?!

Personally, I see such places as thinly veiled concentration camps where people who are struggling with their identity are brainwashed to live a lie; they should be outlawed.

More at Stuff!

WWJD?

I believe Jesus would have befriended members of the GLBT community and only after getting to know them would He have ever told them He didn’t accept their lifestyle. At this time, I want to further that thought and delve a bit deeper into the actions of Christ during His time on earth and explore how He treated other, shall we say, diverse parts of society in His time.

In the story of the Samaritan woman, John, Chapter 4, Jesus was traveling with His disciples from Judea to Galilee. His disciples were not pleased when they ended up in Samaria and told him, “surely you made a wrong turn” for Samaria was a part of the House of Israel that most Jews wanted to avoid due to “less than honorable” citizens there (Higgs, 2004). What must be understood here is that the Samaritan woman, named Sychar, was what we now call a slut or a tramp. It must also be understood that there was a very well known well in Samaria, Jacob’s Well, and it still stands today in the Middle East. The journey from Judea to Galilee was long and the weather was hot. In Bible times, they didn’t have canteens they could put water in to carry along with them. Travelers depended on wells such as Jacob’s well for survival during long journey which could only be made on donkey, camel, or by foot.

More at: Freeonesoft.com!

WWJD If Invited to a Gay Wedding?

I’ve recently been invited to a couple of gay weddings. So — what with being Christian and all — I asked myself the famous question, “What would Jesus do?” (Which I don’t too often ask myself, actually, since Jesus could, for instance, raise people from the dead and turn water into wine, whereas I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning and/or turn water into coffee. Safe to say lots of His options are none of mine.)

Wondering what Jesus would do naturally enough led me to the New Testament. And therein I found these quotes:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24); and

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13); and,

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” (Matthew 23:15); and, last but hardly least:

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” [said Jesus]. “There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31)

When I next went looking for anywhere in the Bible where Jesus says anything — and I mean anything — about homosexuality, I learned that Jesus spent about as much time talking about gays and/or lesbians as I spend talking about button collecting and/or sea horses: none. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Jesus did say crucial things about homosexuality, but that when he did (curse the luck!) no one around him just then happened to have handy an ostrich feather, sappy stick, or whatever it was they used for pens back then. Which would make sense, actually. If you’ve spent any time at all reading the New Testament, you know that Jesus’ disciples weren’t exactly Johnnies-on-the-spot. They were just normal, everyday guys.

Kind of the whole point! Jesus most surely did love him some everyday people.

More at: Huff Po!

I Survived the Christian Right

One day I was enjoying a beer with a friend in a popular pub near my home when I noticed someone who went to my former evangelical church. After I picked myself off the floor due to shock from seeing him in a bar, we greeted each other and I asked if he still attended.

“I finally left last year,” the man said.

“Do you mind me asking why you left?” I asked.

“I got tired of jumping through hoops.”

What an apt way of describing what I also experienced in the majority of the six or seven evangelical churches I attended over the years. Why do some churches make our faith journey into an obstacle course on a field of required religious practices and doctrines? Could legalistic control have something to do with it? Again, there are some admirable exceptions, but as Brennan Manning once said, “the American church accepts grace in theory, but denies it in practice.”1

Evangelical Christians largely conform to a performance-oriented approach to God: Regularly attend church to worship God our way, pray and read the Bible daily, go to a home group, adhere to a particular statement of faith, believe the right dogma and the future return of Christ, be pro-life, dress modestly, don’t drink (or if you do, please don’t do it in front of us), avoid risqué movies, don’t put swear words, sex scenes, or questionable doctrines in your books,2 refrain from producing music on a secular recording label, and whatever you do, don’t vote for a Democrat. And those are the more moderate rules! In summary, avoid contamination by the world, heretics, and liberals and insulate yourself in the squeaky-clean alternate evangelical world we created.

More at: Homebrewed Christianity!

Jesus is Ready to Beat the Hell Out of You

The religious right, who commonly refers to a “gay agenda” which supposedly encompasses the LGBT community as trying to “recruit” people into being one of us…has decided to take the recruitment effort to a new level for their own benefit.

It would appear the religious right needs a boost in membership as well as a boost of testosterone and what better way of getting both than kicking some ass?

It looks as though the Bible is not the only thing anti-gay evangelicals are beating today, but according to the following post found on New York Times, they’re literally beating the ‘Hell’ out of each other…

“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”

The young man was a member of a fight team at Xtreme Ministries, a small church near Nashville that doubles as a mixed martial arts academy. Mr. Renken, who founded the church and academy, doubles as the team’s coach. The school’s motto is “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.”

Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low. Mixed martial arts events have drawn millions of television viewers, and one was the top pay-per-view event in 2009.

Recruitment efforts at the churches, which are predominantly white, involve fight night television viewing parties and lecture series that use ultimate fighting to explain how Christ fought for what he believed in. Other ministers go further, hosting or participating in live events.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

So there you have it…the new wave of Macho, anti-gay evangelical Christians…coming to a ultimate fighting match near you!

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