by Ben Howard and Sebastian Faust Reads of the Week 1) On Faithfulness (A Brain Dump) by Rachel Held Evans "And so I stood, vulnerable once again, in that most infuriating and miraculous contradiction of the Christian life: that the Church wounds and the Church heals. I’m still not sure what to do with that." 2) Jesus On the Under-Arc by Shannan Martin "I'm not good at making sense of the world I'm in. I've tried. And in this harder, ordinary state of living, hope is found when we cobble together a few broken pieces and shape them into something whole and new. We re-frame our expectations for the zillionth time and wonder all over again why we ever thought black and white were real. Almost all we ever see is gray." 3) In Prison With Ann Voskamp by Richard Beck "Steve and I start talking about what eucharisteo looks like in a maximum security prison. About where an inmate might find "one thousand gifts" in his day to day life. And we talk about how that practice of thankfulness, gratitude and grace has been spiritually transformative for Steve. And while Steve and I were talking about how Ann Voskamp is changing his life I began to grow uneasy in my heart. For I had misjudged Ann Voskamp." 4) Confessions of a Religious Asshole by Micah Murray "They say the Bible is like a mirror, and when I catch a glimpse of myself in its scattered fragments I realize I’m just the same as the people I’m so quick to denouce. I speak out against shame, but I shame those who disagree with me. I speak out against borders and walls, but I’m quick to turn “us” against “them” when “them” make me angry. I speak of love, but only when it’s easy." 5) If We Are The Body, I Might Be The Thumb by Sarah Joslyn "I like grown-ups. I like the ones with gritty pasts and messy, grace-laden presents and dream-filled, wild futures. I like the ones who are broken and disheveled, like me. Who aren’t afraid of real talk and swear words." Honorable Mention Holy Relics: A Plan of Salvation Bead Bracelet by Martyn Jones For Your Own Good by Gretchen White In Which a Homeschooler Tries to Write Contemporary YA by Hannah Ettinger Tweets of the Week "Happy B-day Kierkegaard. You lived a bitter life and died alone. Now anyone who quotes you loses all their friends too." - @_lxnx "George RR Martin's hat versus Pharrel's." - @TheAlanNoble "How am I supposed to explain Michael Sam to my kids? I don't want them confused by his two first names lifestyle." - @EmmaWilson511 On Pop Theology Week in Review No Honest Song Besides These Blues by Hannah Paasch "1961. New York City. The scene opens on an ill-lit, smoky bar, crowded with mesmerized listeners huddled around cafe tables and bottles of beer." The Problem of Evil: Devils, Aliens, and Doctor Who by Laura Brekke "Cultures across human history have struggled with the problem of evil." Song of the Week "Sleep" by Little India
Peace, Ben You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to help us pay the bills, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
Contact us at onpoptheology [at] gmail.com. You might also like:
by Ben Howard and Sebastian Faust 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 You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to help us pay the bills, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
Contact us at onpoptheology [at] gmail.com. You might also like:
by Ben Howard Reads of the Week 1) The Scourge of Moral Liberalism by David Sessions "Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a devastating mentality for the left to embrace. I left behind the religious conservatism I grew up with partly because I saw, over the first 20 years or so of my life, the self-defeating absurdity of movement orthodoxies and the obsession with moral shibboleths. There is some basic part of humanity that resists imposed conformity, especially when it claims the authority to judge even one’s individual inner experience." 2) False Future of Ideologies by Nate Pyle "Ideaologies promise something they cannot deliver on: a perfected future. Pick your '-ism' and you will find a promised future free of the evil causing the need for the ideology. Feminism promises a future free of inequality between women and men. Socialism promises a future free of inequality between the rich and the poor. Nationalism promises a a future where ones nation embodies the best the world has to offer while surrounded by evil nations." 3) How I Became a Jesus Feminist by Micah J. Murray "There are a few phrases of Scripture that ring in my ears when we talk about feminism – words about doing justly, about loving mercy. Words about letting justice and righteousness roll down like rivers. And most of all, those words about how every valley will be exalted and every mountain and hill made low." 4) Thinking Outside the Middle Class Box by Christena Cleveland "More often than not, the low-income people who attend predominantly middle-class churches are marginalized as 'recipients' rather than invited in as 'irreplaceable participants.' They’re directed to apply for benevolence fund money, but they’re rarely seen as individuals (with insight, perspective and skills) that can contribute to the central life of the church. As a result, they aren’t seen as 'influencers' and are often overlooked for leadership positions in the church." 5) Living More With Less by D.L. Mayfield "I just want to share this with you as a way of extending the conversation here. Lord knows it’s a truth I need to sit with awhile. I love having a few lifestyle choices in the bag that ensure I am following Jesus–like only shopping at thrift stores. It’s a neat thing to say that makes me different from people, possibly even holier. But in reality, in the trenches here, I am finding I don’t have the time, energy, or gas to go thrift shopping." Honorable Mention My Eyes Are Up Here by Emily Maynard On Humility and Privilege by Richard Beck Lessons From a New Orleans Playground by Sarah Richardson Song of the Week "Hard Fall" by The Wallings Jr.
This week on the show Ben talks with blogger and friend Micah J. Murray
about writing, the importance of aesthetics, and the lessons he learned
growing up in a fundamentalist tradition. We'll discuss journaling on
Xanga, why websites should be pretty, and Micah will drop a Nacho Libre
quote about his scripture memorization skills. Join in as we talk about
the process of growing and developing an adult faith when that process
is on display for the whole world to see.
You can download the podcast by clicking here.
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Ben
If you have any questions, comments, or if you just want to say hi, you can contact us at onpoptheology [at] gmail.com.
Reads of the Week 1) Deciphering Missions by Jamie Wright "While I was virtually paralyzed by
depression and anxiety, I used Missionary Code to turn every
innocuous coffee date with a friend into 'discipleship time'.
Hours spent circling Facebook were important to 'support
development', and everyday interactions with grocery store clerks
and bank tellers suddenly became meaningful when referred to as 'intentional relationships'." 2) Everybody's a Little Bit Racist: Why Being Called Racist is Not the Issue by Dianna Anderson "This understanding of one's own privilege is the baseline for communicating about race,
sexuality, gender, and everything surrounding marginalization. Your privilege will give you blind spots. And you
don’t get to determine the lengths of that privilege." 3) A Letter to Abercrombie by Micah Murray "For the sake of everyone that has ever felt marginalized, excluded, or
uncool, I wish I could make you eat your words. I wish I could denounce
you with righteous indignation. For being so insensitive, so
discriminatory, so crassly materialistic. But I can’t. Because if I’m
willing to look in the mirror you’re holding up, I’m forced to admit to
myself that I’m not as different from you as I’d like to think." 4) Psalm 55 - Betrayed by Registered Runaway "But a part of us dies too. A part of us remembers that even in
the arms of our brothers and sisters in Christ we are not guaranteed
goodness. We are not guaranteed love. Protection. Comfort. Christ
doesn’t always speak from the pulpit." 5) Is God's Presence Limited to Scripture by Rachel Held Evans "When we become more committed to
the testimony than to the Person to whom it testifies, we are likely to
miss the presence of Jesus even when it’s right in front of us. Probably
because it took some form we weren’t expecting. Probably because it
showed up outside of our boundaries." Honorable Mention "We Have A Better Version of the Gospel" [Diversity Repellent] by Christena Cleveland You Don't Have to Be Good by Addie Zierman The Problem of Evil is Hanging in Your Closet by Zack Hunt Line of the Week "Maybe Mark Driscoll was playing a game of truth or dare ten years ago, and he chose "dare." And, boy, was it a good one." - Jason Boyett (@jasonboyett) On Pop Theology Week in Review On Missing the Point: Gatsby, Zero Dark Thirty and Obsession by Ben Howard "These lessons, the ones that are most difficult to hear, the ones that rock us to our core, are the most important." Screaming Obscenities: How Derek Fisher is Like Substitutionary Atonement by Ben Howard "I spent most of last evening screaming obscenities at a middle-aged man for doing an unimportant thing poorly." Derek Fisher and Atonement Theory: Part Deux by Ben Howard "It's not that the theory isn't useful, it's that it's being asked to do too much." Anselm Gets in the Game: Atonement Theory, Part Three by John Thornton Jr. "We would do well,
however, to continually question the games we play, and how we seek to wrangle
Christ into them, as well as what rules we use Jesus to validate and what plays we draw
up." Let's All Talk About What We're Tired Of (A Response to Tony Jones) by Lyndsey Graves "My race, gender, socioeconomic class, regional background,
and religion are all aspects of my identity others have used to dismiss me – to
disempower me." Song of the Week "Comes and Goes (In Waves)" by Greg Laswell
1) Most of Them Are Mothers by Saskia Wishart "I wonder for their children. I wonder what story they will be told about
their mother. Will they one day learn that she was forced to sell her
body? Or that she decided to do it because she thought it would give
them a chance for a better life?"
2) The New Legalism: Missional, Radical, Narcissistic, and Shamed by Anthony Bradley "I continue to amazed by the number of youth and youth adults who are
stressed and burnt out from the regularly shaming and feelings of
inadequacy if they happen to not being doing something unique and
special. Today’s Millennial generation is being fed the message that if
they don’t do something extraordinary in this life they are wasting
their gifts and potential." 3) Choose Your Own Apocalypse by Lane Severson Choose Your Own Apocalyptic Adventure from Premillennial, Postmillennial, Amillennial, Zombie, Robot or African. Enjoy! 4) Did Anyone Actually Read "The Great Gatsby"? by Zachary M. Seward "Yet so many people seem enchanted enough by the decadence described in
Fitzgerald’s book to ignore its fairly obvious message of condemnation.
Gatsby parties can be found all over town. They are staples of spring on
many Ivy League campuses and a frequent theme of galas in Manhattan." 5) Why I Love the Internet and Jesus Does Too by Micah Murray "We are a generation that lives our lives online, with friends
we’ve never met who we love with all our hearts. And I’ll fight anybody
who says that’s not a beautiful thing."
1) Ashamed by Rachel Held Evans "I am ashamed of the bumper stickers, the t-shirts, the
logos, the fog machines, the light shows, the celebrities, and that paralyzing
fear of Silence we’re so bound and determined to avoid that we keep shouting
and shouting and shouting at one another till our words are just clanging
cymbals echoing off church walls." 2) Beware of Thinking Biblically by Micah Murray "Words are important. And “thinking Biblically” is very important. But
all my life I’ve been told lies carefully footnoted with stacks of Bible
verses, mistakes and opinions and dangerous words all cloaked in the
sacred garb of “Biblical thinking”. And now I find myself recalling
these words one by one and carefully examining them, deconstructing my
religion brick by brick until all that’s left is Jesus." 3) In Which Art is Like Manna by Sarah Bessey "I believe the freedom to create – or to “spend it all” as Annie Dillard
says – is in direct connection to our trust in God’s provision. Do we
believe, even in our art, that he is the giver of all good gifts, the
provider, the El Shaddai, my God of more-than-enough? Or are we in
charge of hoarding it for ourselves and our carefully crafted outcomes
and desires?" 4) Christian College Fires Woman For Not Getting Abortion by Fred Clark "If this woman had gotten an abortion, she’d still have her job. That’s
what San Diego Christian College apparently wanted her to do. That’s
certainly the incentive they’ve built into their 'community covenant.'
And that incentive is doubly reinforced by the double-standard in how
that 'covenant' is enforced for women as opposed to for men." 5) The Good, Racist People by Ta-Nehisi Coates "In modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely
villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and
orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist." Honorable Mention
