by Ben Howard and Sebastian Faust Reads of the Week 1) Sermon on How Hard It Is Being Spiritual Without You by Nadia Bolz-Weber "Of course I wasn’t thinking about God’s love much when I was away from you guys. Because as inconvenient and at times, unreliable as it might be – other people are the most common way of knowing and experiencing the love of God in Christ. And you guys are my other people. As much as experiencing the love of God in Christ though meditating alone on a mountain might sound awesome, that’s not what Jesus sent his disciples to do after he left. He told them to love each other as he loved them." 2) If Evil Has a Best Friend, It's Apathy by Jamie Wright "I've spent the last 12 months trying to get my head around the language of modern day slavery and the fact that when we are using these words - word's like sold, smuggled, traded, transported, brokered, abused, starved, beaten, broken in – we're talking about human beings. Actual human beings. The kind with names and faces and families. The kind with dreams. The kind with hearts and souls. Real live people." 3) 'Send Them Away': A Homily for the Loaves and Fish (Proper 13A) by David R. Henson "The priest, though, shrugged and offered the bread to him anyway. Now, it would have been easy for the priest to simply send Jeff away with a blessing only and not with the bread. It was technically the right thing to do. But by placing the thin wafer of Christ’s body onto Jeff’s tongue, the priest broke church law and, to some Catholics, violated the Sacrament itself." 4) I Don't Always Tell You by Rachel Held Evans "I don’t always tell you about the mornings I wake up and feel the absence of God as though it were a presence—thick and certain, remembered all over again the way you remember in the morning that someone you love has died. Or about the days when the idea that a single religion can stop the CNN crawler from reporting one more missile strike, one more downed plane, one more bombed hospital, strikes me as freshly stupid, dangerously naïve." 5) "I Used to Believe X for Reason Y..." and the Failure of Intellectual Imagination by Derek Rishmawy (Note: Read the comments) "This, as I said, is a failure of the intellectual imagination, and for reasons I’m not entirely sure of (and I’d love others to weigh in on), it’s one that seems increasingly common. I will say that I’m fairly sure it has something to do with the narcissism of human experience. The story we know best is our own and our human tendency is to shrink the world to fit our experiences. We take our personal stories, and instead of seeing them as one, particular, unique experience, we expand them out and unjustifiably universalize them." Honorable Mention Mark Driscoll and Me and Our Desperate Desire To Be "Okay" by Ben Moberg
Tweets of the (Last Two) Week(s) "I've seen a lot of Jesus billboards on this road trip. Call me crazy but I don't think he likes being hung up on display to make a point." - @primaawesome "HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA, CLIMBING FROM THE BLOOD PITS, HOWLING THEIR AWAKENING TO THE VOID BETWEEN THE STARS, LISTENING TO THEIR REPLIES" - @hottestsingles "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a guy, asking him for all the money in the cash register." - @lindzeta
"You can do anything if you put your mind to it and are willing to disassociate and become a goddamn monster" - @ashfein
"Maybe I'm reading this chart wrong, but according to my weight, I'm 7'3" tall." - @Thing_finder
"I violently wiped all the fingerprint smudges on my iPad and I think I accidentally earned an online degree from the University of Phoenix" - @MeetGreg
The Best Things You Could Have Hypothetically Read Last Week
On Pop Theology Fortnight in Review On Pop Theology Podcast: Episode 58 - Arts & Entertainments w/ Christopher Beha "This week on the show Ben talks with author Christopher Beha about his new novel Arts & Entertainments, his Catholic faith, and the nature of the novel of ultimate concern." On Metaphors and Summer Breaks by Lyndsey Graves "It has been ten weeks since I last attended church. I didn’t plan it this way, and there are a hundred reasons why this is a terrible state of affairs, but it is how the summer has turned out." Chaos and Fictional Theology by Ben Howard "As a writer who occasionally has opinions about Christianity I am required by divine fiat to have a definitive position on the issue of the afterlife." How The Bachelor Illuminates the Falsehoods In Our Lives by Emily Joy Allison "I get a lot of scornful, “I can’t believe YOU watch THE BACHELOR” sort of comments from my friends when they find out about my obsession. Granted, if you know me even a little, it’s a bit surprising."
"A photo of a man holding a limp child lit up my computer screen as I clicked on the Twitter link. The boy was one of four Palestinian children playing on a beach, killed by an Israeli airstrike." Song of the (Elongated) Week "Secrets" by Mary Lambert
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 Evil at Our Borders: Migrants, Refugees, and the Spiritual Crisis of Immigration by David R. Henson "For conservatives, it is an immigration crisis, demonstrating the failures of the U.S. immigration policy and the need for militarized borders. For liberals, it is a humanitarian crisis, demonstrating the failures of U.S. economic policy, the immediate need for aid, and the necessity of immigration reform. For me, while I agree with progressives here, it is also a profoundly spiritual crisis. It is a crisis of faith, and right now, we are not the bearers of liberty, hope, democracy, or good news. Rather, we are the bearers of evil." 2) Re-thinking Communion by Christena Cleveland "It seems that the way we do communion in many churches is too easy, too convenient, too painless, too safe, too inorganic, too separate from actual reconciliation work, and too individualistic. I’m starting to think that the way we do communion is not scandalous enough to represent the cross." 3) Hebel, Grace and the Art of Andy Goldsworthy: Part 2, Living as a Sacrament by Richard Beck "Here's what I mean. Today each of us will wander out into the world. And around us we'll find all sorts people and all sorts of situations. It's a fractal, messy, and chaotic world out there. And it's not all bad. There are beautiful things, like flowers, out there. But there is also sadness and brokenness, conflict and deadness. And what we'll try to do today (or what we should be doing today) is very similar to what Goldsworthy does. We will try, given what we find out there, to bring grace and beauty into the world." 4)Authentic Modesty: Compassion Over Shame by Saskia Wishart "Imagine if we, as women who love, started talking about how we deal with harassment from men on the street instead of slut-shaming women for drawing the harassment. My hope is that we learn to look with compassion, not lust. That we can place value, rather than casting shame. My hope is that we understand that body parts are only the start of the story, and there is so much more to be known about an individual." 5) "Why I Use Birth Control": 11 Women Speak Up by Rachel Held Evans "Opinions about the ruling aside, I’ve been stunned by some of the misinformation circulating around social media about contraception, the most unhelpful of which characterizes women who use contraception as 'entitled,' 'sluts,' 'moochers,' and 'whores.' I’ve shared my own thoughts on contraception in a post entitled 'Privilege and the Pill,' but today I wanted to yield the floor to ten women whose stories challenge these unfair caricatures. I am incredibly grateful for their bravery and honesty in stepping forward to tell the truth of their experiences. Please, listen." Honorable Mention The Saddest - and Classiest - Soccer Fan by Jason Morehead How Secrets Made Me Sick by J. Gettin' on the Mat by Diana Trautwein Tweets of the Week "An exclamation point is like a tiny little crutch for your joke." - @bazecraze
"God was dead. But the show had to go on. His doppelgänger Göd stepped in, executed the Apocalypse to rapturous applause." - @VikramParalkar
"Crossfitters are the Boy Scouts of the adult world." - @chettarcheese On Pop Theology Week in Review Because I Know You: Friendship and Tom Cruise by Charity Erickson "The other day, I went to see Edge of Tomorrow, the newest addition to Tom Cruise’s rather extensive sci-fi repertoire." Elephants in the Room: Israel, Palestine, and the Nature of Oppression by David Creech "My natural disposition is to side with those who are oppressed. I also prefer to hear people tell their own story rather than insert my opinions from the outside. Enter the Israel-Palestine conflict." Song of the Week "Lanterns" by Birds of Tokyo
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) 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 Day I Knew I, Too, Could Murderby Bronwyn Lea "It was the day I knew I could murder. The day I knew I, even I, was capable of the most terrible depravity. After years of theological lip service to the fact, it was the day I knew I was a sinner. Horrified and humbled, I sat in a cold sweat on those sun-baked steps and wondered how it was that I could call myself a Christian while longing for the death of the three men who had snaked off into the night and left my most beloved in shreds." 2) The Charism of the Charismatics: Part 6, The Heart Has a Way of Knowing by Richard Beck "Emotions make our world. And if emotions make our world then attending to the emotions is a critical, perhaps even the central, task of Christian discipleship. Discipleship is more a matter of training our emotions than of changing our minds." 3) The Ministry of Watching Sparrows Fall to the Ground by D.L. Mayfield "Is this witnessing? Is this being a witness? I don’t get to use a whit of my degree in Theology. Instead, I am burrowing deeper and deeper into the forgotten parts of our world and I am trying to keep my spirit and my eyes open. Really, when it comes down to it, I am not the famous missionary or preacher or theologian I always yearned to be. Instead, my ministry is about watching the birds. His eye is on the sparrow. I know this because he has asked me to be the witness to it, to be his eyes and ears and hands on the earth. And I am here to tell you, they are falling to the ground in droves." 4) The Best Faith Film You'll See All Year by Rachel Held Evans "While the debates rage on about whether Noah is biblical enough, Heaven is For Real true enough, and God is Not Dead profitable enough, Philomena delivers a quiet, understated, and powerful portrayal of the actual human experience, where clear-cut lines between good and evil, heroes and villains, right and wrong might be good 'story-wise' but don’t reflect the reality most people of faith actually live in." 5) Why Sarah Palin is Right About Baptism by Waterboarding - #AmericanBaptism by David Henson "But, in truth, Palin is right. Waterboarding — along with other torture and human rights abuses like drone warfare and indefinite detention — was how the United States baptized the world into its new creation — the war on terror. It was simply an American baptism instead of a Christian one. We baptized 'combatants' with waterboarding. They became new creations that raised to life through outrage and injustice new enemies and violence." Honorable Mention Classical Music Makes Me Sick and Joyful by Mary DeMuth Crossed Paths by Jamie Wright If I've Survived to Achieve It All by Kenny Pierce Tweets of the Week "sorcerers are usually not named Dan" - @jon_bois "I have mixed feelings about the sun. I like that it makes my belly warm, but I do not like that it can make my belly too warm. I am a bear." - @A_single_bear "Son, we don't play Hungry Hungry Hippos for "fun." We play it to learn how friends turn on each other in moments of desperation and scarcity" - @longwall26 Song of the Week "Algiers" by The Afghan Wigs
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 Reads of the Week 1) Church in the Canyon by Esther Emery "I catch a glimpse sometimes, a little nod and a reassurance that this is, in fact, exactly how it works. We are supposed to do this: to rub up against one another, even in our differences. Sometimes this work is long and slow like sand on the beach. Sometimes it’s all crushed up and wild like a storm. We bump against each other and we strike each other, and it wears away the stone to show the flesh beneath." 2) In Which I Admit That I Didn't Like Paul by Sarah Bessey "But as I worked my way through the passages of Scripture that I used to hate, I began to see Paul more clearly, to understand Scripture even better. I began to see his wisdom, his subversion, his heart. When I looked at his full ministry – how he praised and esteemed women in leadership in the Church, how he turned household codes within a patriarchal society on their head, how he used feminine metaphors, how he subverted the systems, how he passionately defended equality – the verses that used to clobber me began to embrace me." 3) When World Vision Drops Me by Benjamin Moberg "Though I understand that World Vision essentially had a gun to its head after evangelical leaders incited a mass backlash of dropped funds, it doesn’t make what they did right. Their reversal hurts more than anything I read from the evangelicals ranting. It was the kiss of Judas. And in the end, this was simply wrong and ungodly and deeply defeating." 4) Burnout by Hannah Ettinger "Fuck everything, is all I can manage to say, half the time. I hear these stories and I hear the shame and the fear and the massive amounts of cultivated codependency for the sake of crowd control, and that’s all I’ve got. Fuck everything. Here we go again." 5) Hearts of Flesh by Rachel Held Evans "Fundamentalism erases people. It erases their joy, their compassion, their instincts, their curiosity, their passion, their selves. And then it celebrates this ghosting, this nulling and numbing, as a glorious “dying to the self,” just like Jesus demanded." Honorable Mention When Christian Women Cheat or Kinda Want To by Grace Biskie I Don't Know If I'm a Christian Anymore by Micah Murray Holy Relics: The Offering Plate by Martyn Jones Tweets of the Week "Tweeting funny jokes on twitter dot come sure is a nice distraction from the imminent march of death." - @ashfein "Growing up I never had a father figure. I was a kid. Why would I have the body of a father as a kid? I'm not even male." - @mrsjohngoodman
"Things took a dark turn at the Kids Choice Awards when the kids voted to declare martial law." - @CelebrityHotTub On Pop Theology Week in Review On Pop Theology Podcast: Episode 54 - Leviticus, An Interview w/ Baruch Levine "This week on the show, Sebastian continues his exploration of the Biblical texts with the book of Leviticus." The Meaning in the Music by Hannah Ettinger "I grew up listening to four musicians. Stephen Curtis Chapman, Out of the Grey, John Michael Talbot and Bob Bennett." A Series of Outright Lies About Millennials by Ben Howard and Sebastian Faust "With the fundamental ethos of the internet in mind, we bring you A Series of Outright Lies About Millennials.Opening Line." Song of the Week "Blue Moon" by Beck
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:
