motherhood, politics, faith & whatnot

Starting this fall, Yale is offering a handful of classes online for free. I’m eyeing the Old Testament one.

Yale to Make Select Courses Available on the Internet

of Amazon.com: Jesus for the Non-Religious: Books: John Shelby Spong interviewed on the radio yesterday.
I loved everything he said.

Here’s a linkto a blurb about him and the audio file of the interview.

We were out eating dinner tonight at a local pizza place.  The TV was on headline news and they were doing a bit about “Purity Balls.”  Have you heard of them?

At Purity Balls, 11-year-old girls and their fathers go together in formal attire for an evening of dancing and dinner.  The high point is when the fathers sign some statement to be men of integrity for their daughters and pledge to fight for their daughter’s purity, or some crap like that.  While I don’t think the girls actually have to sign anything, they apparently lay white roses underneath a cross to symbolize a pledge to remain abstinent until marriage.

Is that just creepy or what?  Have a father-daughter dance?  Fine.  Have fathers promise to take care of their families?  Fine, whatever.  Have fathers publicly show their affection for their daughters and be an example of the kind of stand-up guy that a girl should eventually choose in a mate?  Fine.  Celebrate girls’ coming of age?  Fine, people have been doing that for both boys and girls for a long time.

But, what this is really about is trying to keep the girls from having premarital sex, but dressed up in the pageantry that’s usually reserved for romantic events — weddings, proms, etc.  There are all sorts of good reasons for waiting at least until you are more emotionally mature and in a long-term relationship before having sex, but because Daddy got all dressed up, learned some ballroom dancing and signed some stupid pledge. . . creepy.  Why is it creepy?  It blurs the line between sexual love and parental love.  Is Daddy all dressed supposed to be the substitute that gets you through until you get married, when your own husband will get dressed up and dance with you? 

Fine.  Tell your daughter that you’d like her to remain abstinent until marriage and explain why, but don’t conflate your concerns about her “purity” with romantic love that she will naturally desire and seek.  Your love for her is not meant to be a substitute for having sex before marriage.

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http://online.historicebenezer.org/mysite3/PastorRobertsBio.htm

the retired pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church (Martin Luther King’s church) spoke yesterday at our church.    He talked about how the African, African-American, and Asian Christian churches, as well as the Latin American read the Bible differently than those in the European/American tradition.  They read it more as the inspired word of God, literal.  Supernatural elements such as miracles and healings are believed and not explained away.  He was pointing out to us liberal Christians that we can’t dismiss other ways of viewing the Bible.  We read the Bible from privilege, not oppression.  For those who have been oppressed the Bible reads quite differently.  

He pointed out that it used to be that these views could be dismissed easily because the African ministers, for example, did not have any theological training.  That has changed, he says.

It really puts the liberal Christians of the reformed tradition in an interesting spot.  Our church is quite liberal.  We pat ourselves on the back for inviting African-American speakers to our church, for incorporating spirituals into the service, but is our faith more about our politics than true faith.

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xta: why we love durham: a list