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From Waging War to Washing Feet: How do we move forward?

Wednesday’s post, “How to win a culture war and lose a generation,” shattered every record in my blogging history. In two days, the site received over 105,000 visits, and readers shared the post a whopping 35,000 times on Facebook. I say this not to brag—because it certainly wasn’t the writing that made that post go viral—but to let those of you who identified with the call to end the culture war against gays and lesbians know that you are definitely no... read more

How to win a culture war and lose a generation

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When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next most common negative images? : “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics.”) In the ... read more

A Non-Zero-Sum Conversation Between the Traditional Church and the Gay Community

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Today I am excited to share a guest post from my friend and fellow blogger, Richard Beck. Richard is Professor and Department Chair of Psychology at Abilene Christian University and the author of Unclean: Mediations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. His blog, Experimental Theology, was one of the first I followed and really connected with online. I had the pleasure of meeting Richard (and his delightful wife Jana) when I spoke at ACU earlier this fall. In fact, Richard and I participated in... read more

Ask a Gay Christian...(Response)

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In our interview series so far, we’ve featured an atheist, a Catholic, an Orthodox Jew, a humanitarian, a Mormon, a Mennonite, an evolutionary creationist, and a Calvinist. When I asked who you wanted to hear from next, many of you requested an interview with a gay Christian. I’m so glad you did! Last week I introduced you to Justin Lee, the director of The Gay Christian Network (GCN), a nonprofit organization serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians a... read more

Review: “Love is an Orientation” by Andrew Marin

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I get a knot in my stomach every time someone asks me if I think homosexuality is a sin. It’s a loaded, closed-ended question that requires making a sweeping pronouncement on a group of people that is far too diverse and varied to earn a single label. It’s a question that instantly lowers the level of discourse by casting the complicated continuum of human sexuality into sharp, black-and-white terms. And it’s a question I’m desperately afraid to answer for fear of losin... read more

God Hates?

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I couldn’t help but chuckle at this photo of a protestor protesting the protests of Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas recently. Gotta give the guy points for irony! But then I noticed the little boy holding the “God Hates Fags” sign in the background and stopped laughing. It’s so sad to see children participating in events like these, so troubling to think of how such memories will affect them as adults. Now, I'm not a huge fan of crowds, but over the past few y... read more

The Gospel (in 10 words) + Gay Conversion

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Two stories caught my eye this week…both of which are bound to generate some comments The Gospel (in 10 words) The first is from a blog called Fallen and Flawed, where twelve bloggers were asked to summarize the gospel in ten words or less. I thought it was interesting to see how many of the summaries focused exclusively on Christ’s death, without mention of his resurrection or future return. Hmmm… Of course, a ten-word limit presents quite a challenge, especially co... read more

Six Things that Actually Threaten the Sanctity of Marriage

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This hasn’t been a good week for marriage. From Jon and Kate Gosselin’s divorce, to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s infidelity, to the embarrassing exploits of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berluscon, the headlines have been a painful reminder of how troubled modern marriages can be. As I’ve mentioned before, I personally think it is counterproductive to spend time and money trying to mess with the constitution so that it restricts the rights of U.S. citizens und... read more

Guest Post: Adele on the Sex-Crazed American Christian Subculture

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I'm just a few days away from finishing the manuscript for my book, and am so thankful for friends willing to pick up the slack on the blog! Thanks to Adele for contributing this post, originally published on The Ooze. I know that not all of you will agree with her perspective, but she's a great person, so please show respect with your comments. Sex Crazed: The American Christian Subculture by Adele Sakler Remember how much of the world outside the U.S. laughed during the Bill Clinton/Monica... read more

Dan's Blog, Your Blog, and The Prop 8 Musical

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Not to be outdone, my husband Dan just launched a blog of his own! Visit www.escapetradition.com to read it. It touches on Dan’s wide range of interests—from self-employment, to tech news, to investment opportunities, to stories about how wonderful and gracious and beautiful his wife is. Not a lot on theology or politics or social action...Dan said he thought I had that covered. Another interesting online phenomenon is the now viral Prop 8 Musical video. What was your reaction? Som... read more

An Evangelical's Response to Homosexuality

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My husband Dan walked into a local car shop the other day, inadvertently interrupting a serious conversation between the store’s manager and another customer. After an awkward pause, the manager looked at Dan, and in his thick East Tennessee accent asked, “Sir, would you be offended if we continued our conversation about homosexuals?” A little taken aback, Dan replied, “Well…I guess that depends on what you’re saying about them.”(He expected the worst. ... read more

When the Bible Bothers Our Conscience

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Our last conversation about William Webb’s Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals certainly generated a lot of responses, particularly concerning the role of women in church leadership, which means the post accomplished its purposes of highlighting the challenges of applying the teachings of Scripture in today’s culture. Today I want to focus on Webb’s “redemptive movement hermeneutic,” specifically as it applies to those tricky passages of Scripture that leave us scratchin... read more

Picking and Choosing, and Letting the Bible Interpret Us

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In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes, “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” (I Timothy 2:12) This little verse has made big waves in the evangelical culture, and all my life I’ve heard it used to enforce restrictions on the positions women can hold in church leadership. And yet, just three verses before this one, Paul says, “I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly... read more

Gays, Buddhists, and Scientists: Will Evangelicals Change Their Minds?

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In the 16th century, John Calvin argued on theological grounds that anyone who believed that the earth moved in space was “motivated by a spirit of bitterness, contradiction, and faultfinding; possessed by the devil.” * In the 17th century, both Catholics and Protestants systematically executed Anabaptists for holding to the “heresy” that a confession of faith should precede baptism. Here in America, the original Southern Baptist Convention was organized, in part, b... read more

Selective Literalism II: Who Would Jesus Stone?

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In the book I’m reading, The Year of Living Biblically, author A.J. Jacobs is trying to figure out how to handle the Bible’s capital punishment laws, and has taken to tossing pebbles at adulterers and Sabbath-breakers. At this point in his year-long quest to obey the Bible literally, Jacobs has yet to deal with the New Testament, and it’s too bad because I think it would take some pressure off if he could read Jesus’ words that “he who is without sin can cast the fi... read more

Selective Literalism

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I’m reading a really funny and engaging book called The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. In it, Jacobs tries to follow the Bible as literally as possible for a year. His journey yields unexpected epiphanies and struggles, and highlights the challenges associated with biblical literalism. For me, it has served as a reminder of how often I pick and choose which portions of the Bible I decide to take literally and how dependent I am on selective literalism. So, what exactly is ... read more

No gay jokes please

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The other day, a co-worker told a “joke” about physically hurting gay people. It was his third gay joke of the day, (he’d already cracked two about women), so I decided I ought to let him know it bothered me. No one else in the room objected to his remarks. I’ve found myself in this awkward position several times before, especially when working with my more conservative evangelical clients. It seems that among this group, gays are fair game. Now, I understand that there i... read more

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