Sundays are Still the Worst – A year ago here we linked to a website dedicated to stories of servers in restaurants who are forced to deal with an influx of church-goers whose behavior is abominable. Sundays Are The Worst still gets submissions, but this recent one shows in great detail what all this looks like from the other side. "I wasn’t expecting a tip, but I also didn’t expect any of the nasty notes (calling me a whore, slut, telling me I’m ugly and too stupid to do anything besides serving, that I was incompetent, that I was going to hell, etc.) from the women. Some of them even finished off their notes by stating that they’d ‘pray for me to better myself.’ But the icing on the cake? The notes from the husbands of three of the women who left their phone numbers for me. This was the experience that ended it for me. In tears, I collected all of the notes, finished clearing up the table, went to my manger and showed him the notes, and told him that I quit, and that I wouldn’t be coming back."
Essay of the Week: Tradition vs. Nostalgia – "Michael Spencer, having been rooted in Baptist traditions in the American South, used to write just as strongly about churches that were little more than memorials to the 'good old days' of the post-war era, when people wore suits and dresses to church, sang the 'old hymns' (actually, fairly recent revivalistic gospel hymns), filled age-graded Sunday School classes, heard 'real preaching' from the King James Version, and went forward for the invitation. Lots of good in all that, I’m sure. But Michael had seen how wistfulness for all that had killed churches dead. Real dead."
You Should Feel Like a Room Without a Roof – "I am increasingly convinced that Christianity is an inherently optimistic—and even happy—faith. Now I get it, even as I make that assumption more than a few of you are objecting to it. Your objections are most likely rooted in your view of the depravity of humanity, or your eschatology that believes some level of impending doom is imminent. It also might be true that you know of human suffering—particularly the suffering of other believers who live under regimes and find themselves at the wrong end of the wrath of various non-believers. I won’t contest any of those realities, but I still contend that our faith ought to be optimistic."
Well Remembered but not Remembered Well – The FBI released 250 pages of documents relating to Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church. On the one hand, "Multiple FBI bulletins describe Phelps as 'keenly aware of what his rights and limitations are … He and his followers carry a video camera with them to film those who attempt to stop them from demonstrating.'" On the other hand, "The feds also suspected they were dealing with a mental case, according to a 1987 document that stated: '[Fred] Phelps was felt by office of origin to be in need of psychiatric care as a result of persons interviewed claimed Phelps to be irrational.'"
Creating Environments for Sex Abuse Recovery – Responding to a past article here at Leadership Journal: "In more than a decade of research, almost every article I’ve come across addressing sex offenders in church communities reveals pastors and leaders focusing exclusively on the sex offenders—the theological grounds for their presence, the church’s obligation to care for them, how to support them, how to monitor them, how to protect ministries from potential lawsuits due to their presence, and so on … But offenders are not the only ones in need of a welcome in our churches. Too often when victims/survivors are considered, it is offender focused. Survivors are told they are required to forgive or reconcile with offenders … we must find true empathy for victims/survivors and how sexual abuse has affected them."
Definitely Not a Midweek Service – A look at a church in Syracuse, NY which holds one of its weekend services on Thursday night: "I started our Early Weekend Service (Thursday, 6:30 p.m.) because I realized what a huge need there was for it. A third of the American workforce works on the weekend. At least 60% of families with children between the ages of 6-17 participate in organized sports, with many of those having weekend events. We are located in an area where a large number of people have camps/vacation homes that affect their attendance during the summer. Throw in both parents working and chores to be done, lawns to be mowed and families just wanting to spend time together, and church on the weekend wasn’t always making it on the calendar."
Religion and America's Top Office – "There are arguments for and against our need to know what presidential aspirants believe … Not so long ago, it was enough for most Americans that our culture’s vibrant religious traditions fostered personal morality, civic virtue, public-spiritedness and a commitment to the common good. We expected our presidents to adhere to some faith, but few were obsessed with parsing out his views on specific doctrines … The trouble with making presidents’ religiosity just another weapon in our ongoing ideological war is that we may have ruined religion for presidents themselves."
Kids, Death and Funerals – The author of this piece notes that, "the biggest segment of disenfranchised grievers are children. Children are disenfranchised for two reasons: their parents haven’t confronted death on a personal level and have become so frightened of it that their natural reaction is to shield their children from the perceived “monster of death.” And two, parents simply repeat the evasive clichés and religious euphemisms they’ve been taught, leaving kids to believe that the deceased is just “sleeping” or “gone to be with the angels.” Clichés act as an unintentional defense mechanism that often keep the children from full death confrontation and thus grief." He then offers ten ways to involve the children.
Does This Make Me Look Pious? – "Luma [Simms] opens saying that one of the reasons that she converted to Roman Catholicism was so she could wear a mantilla. She states, 'The mantilla is a lace veil women have worn over their heads while worshipping God since the time of the New Testament Church.' But was it? While women did wear head coverings in the New Testament Church, the mantilla is a more recent, fashionable custom that originated from Spain and seems to have made its way into the west around the 1960’s. Women in the New Testament church were not wearing lace."
The Moral Neutrality of Mathematics – "Surely there’s one thing Christians and atheists can agree on—math. Like dirt and rocks, it's not good or bad—it's just a tool. 2 + 2 = 4 no matter what you believe. You don’t need the Bible to appreciate and use tools properly … right? I’ve often heard Christians, even Christian teachers, say that some aspects of our lives, such as math, are just tools, neither good nor bad. No “Christian perspective” is required to fully understand and use them … The argument that math is neutral like rocks ignores the fact that God called all creation, even the rocks, good when he created them on the third day."
Paul Wilkinson blogs at Thinking Out Loud and reminds you that Wednesday March 5th is the opening night of a very limited run for The Drop Box movie in major U.S. and Canadian cities.
