Reads of the Week
1) The Theology of Johnny Cash: Part 8, A Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree by Richard Beck
"The biblical imagination, like the God it is trying to describe, is like that whirlwind in a thorn tree. The biblical imagination cannot be codified or systematized. The biblical imagination is going to be wild and untamed."
2) Walking the Second Mile: Jesus, Discrimination, and 'Religious Freedom' by Rachel Held Evans
"And yet despite enjoying majority status, significant privilege, and unchallenged religious freedom in this country, we evangelical Christians have become known as a group of people who cry 'persecution!' upon being wished 'Happy Holidays' by a store clerk."
3) When Life Gets Quiet and I Can't Deal by Shannan Martin
"Getting here was the easy part. Letting roots fall down into the earth is a lazy girl's labor. Growing them out takes muscle and grit and quite possibly more time than I'd like to share. I don't know if Relative Inactivity was ever logged on God's calendar, or if I'm dealing with my familiar refusal to do the hard work."
4) I Don't Have My Shit Together by Micah Murray
"I don’t want to be a Christian writer, if it means writing from the heart and then hitting backspace until it feels safe again. I don’t want to be a Christian writer, if it means pretending that faith is something other than what it is – brutal, clumsy, fragile, ugly. I don’t want to be a Christian writer if it means that we need to act like we have all our shit together. Because the truth is, we don’t."
5) What If Jesus Had Been More Like The Arizona House of Representatives? by Zack Hunt
"Remember that leper Jesus embraced and healed? No more miracle service for him. Lepers in the Bible get leprosy because they sinned or their parents sinned. So they must be avoided at all costs, for their own good and the good of the community. The woman caught in adultery would have died, pummeled to death under a pile of stones. She was a sinner and undeserving of any advocacy service Jesus could provide her."
Honorable Mention
The Consoled, the Insiders by D.L. Mayfield
To All of Us on the Fringe by Andrea Levendusky
On Growing Up in Bill Gothard's Homeschool Cult by Micah Murray
Tweets of the Week
"I got 'A doctor in Portugal named Angela Valença' in Buzzfeed's Which One Of Earth's 7+ Billion People Are You Quiz" - @celebrityhottub
"Just typed JESUS and my phone auto-corrected to TELL ARIZONA I DON'T HATE GAY PEOPLE." - @denisleary
"Should I tell the barefoot kid in the Lipscomb Starbucks that he's a sellout, or should I just let the world tell him slowly and painfully?" - @Jesse_Baker
On Pop Theology Week in Review
On Pop Theology Podcast: Episode 51 - Exodus w/ Terence Fretheim
"This week on the show Sebastian continues our journey through the Bible with the book of Exodus."
Grace Is Waiting by Lyndsey Graves
"On a retreat this weekend, my mind wandered the way it can amidst the sudden freedom of escaping the city: I don’t have any idea what time it is, and it doesn’t even matter."
The Ethics of Information by Dominick Dodgson
"Currently, there are tens of thousands of human rights violations taking place throughout the world."
Song of the Week
"Game Shows Touch Our Lives" by The Mountain Goats
Peace,
Ben and Sebastian
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