Category Archives: politics

The Christian Decision to Rejoice or Weep Over the Past Weekend

The apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans of his day has been described as an “all-encompassing…[summary] of the Christian faith,” at least by the Devotional Study Bible I’ve held on to since I was a child. As a result it contains a number of passages that will be all too familiar to the present and former church-goers among you. Romans 10:9, for example, is a pithy primer on salvation for the would-be evangelist, whereas 8:28 is a verse that’s often brought to bear in tough or uncertain times. A particular section that’s been weighing on me is more broad in its usage: Romans 12:15.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

Photograph kindly shared by Erin Latimer. Photo credit: Christopher Katsarovluna (@catsarov)

Photograph kindly shared by Erin Latimer. Photo credit: Christopher Katsarovluna (@catsarov)

It brought to mind an event from several years ago, in the hazy span of time between my tween years and my early twenties. My family was all together for a summer in Toronto, and it was the weekend of the city’s Pride Parade. I remember it raining that Sunday, and hearing my mother muse aloud that it was a good thing the weather had taken a turn for the worse as it would undoubtedly put a damper on the festivities. She intimated that for her this was a time of great sadness.

I couldn’t help wondering if she felt the same way at the beginning of this week.

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The Greatest Loss in Online Christendom: RIP, The Babylon Bee

I’ve never been ashamed to openly admit that I’m a Christian (or that I was a virgin, for that matter, way back in 2011 when I still updated this blog on the reg). That being said, the truth is that I spend precious little time in faith-related spaces on the internet. I might pause mid-scroll when I spot an interesting thread from /r/christianity, but the majority of my engagement with religious writing online comes from Facebook, where a friend will share a link to a Relevant article or a rebuttal from a Professor of Theology at Wheaton College to a write-up on how his school has become too “woke.” But that wasn’t always the case. There was a point in time, almost exactly six years ago, when the faith-related internet content I read and enjoyed was of a decidedly different bent.

The Babylon Bee, March 17, 2016

The Babylon Bee was launched on March 1st, 2016, and by all accounts was something believers never even knew we wanted: a Christian version of The Onion. In its early days we were treated, and I write this with complete seriousness, to such satiric bangers as “Worship Leader Caught In Infinite Loop Between Bridge And Chorus” and “Witty Church Sign Sparks Revival.” These were articles clearly written with the kind of inside baseball that is so integral to comedy, deftly lampooning the life experiences of countless Christians. And, just like The Onion, The Babylon Bee was an immediate hit on platforms like Facebook, where the headline alone is enough to sell the joke.

As the years went by, however, I noticed that not only were fewer members of my various circles linking to the site, but those that were yielded stories that were less and less focused on (sorry about the alliteration) critiquing contemporary Christian culture and more and more focused on…politics.

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Hey Conservatives – Could We Talk Real Quick?

Let’s get right to business here, folks.

I’m sure most of you are aware that, last Monday, Late Show host Stephen Colbert joked about Trump’s mouth being Vladimir Putin’s “cock holster.”

This prompted outrage among many conservatives, and lead to the Twitter hashtag #fireColbert, along with calls to boycott CBS advertisers. Today, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission, for our non-American readers) announced it was starting an investigation into Colbert’s joke, “following up on complaints” of obscenity/indecency/profanity. As much as that sucks, it’s not the FCC I want to call up to the dock today. It’s the folks who got them involved.

Conservatives (who might accidentally stumble across this blog) – let me address y’all directly:

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Many of you have cited that the joke was homophobic:

I gotta ask ya, Conservatives –

– since when do you give a **** about homophobia?

A sizeable chunk of the past twenty years has been dedicated to the battle to stop gay marriage, which was – to hear you talk at least – the breaking of the seventh seal. I mean seriously, we have had millions and millions of dollars and countless work-hours poured into this battle. Gays were, as you once claimed, destroying the moral fabric of the nation with the indecent and immoral behavior. To sanction it as a nation was to spit in the face of God!

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Unlike rejecting refugees, widows, orphans, and the poor, of whom the Bible makes absolutely no mention.

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The Unbearable Whiteness Of Being (Part II)

Last week, I asked what exactly it meant to be White. Today, I’d like to step back and show you what it was that brought up this question in the first place.

It was this image here:

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Now that got posted by a friend of mine. Good guy, but with a habit (in my opinion) of reposting whatever liberal dreck pops into his FB feed without taking the time to question it. Allow me to break down why that image is such festering garbage.

First and foremost, it’s unbelievably racist. Not white-hoods-and-burning-crosses racist (we’ll get to them in a minute) – we’re talking the condescending, insidious racism of White liberal elites.

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“Because I’ll endorse Obama and speak at the Women’s March, but **** Asians and Palestinians.”

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Buddhism Is ****ed Up Too

This was the image I stumbled across as I was pondering what to write about today:

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Click image above for the actual imgur post.

“The world is not only for Muslims.”

That was the focus of the person who posted this image, but I found his Islamophobic sentiment to be a whole lot less interesting than the way he chose to show it.

There’s any number of pictures out there that could convey the same sentiment, but he zeroed in on the one with men in saffron robes. Why?

“When even Buddhists don’t like you – you know you’ve ****ed up.”

Because they’re Buddhists, right?

Everyone knows Buddhists.

They’re the nice people with the shaved heads and bare feet. The ones with that perpetual look of serenity and profound wisdom. The ones who practically ooze peace and goodwill out of their chakras.

It’s the thing that Jack Kerouac and all the beatniks fell in love with. The thing that melded so beautifully with the hippies in the 60s. Love, altruism, placidity – that’s what Buddhism is, right?

Or maybe it isn’t. Continue reading

The Madness of King Donald

“King Donald?

No, that can’t be right.

This is Rome, after all. Yes, Rome in all her grandeur. And the year is 36 AD, if I knew what ‘AD’ meant. Anno Domini, they say, ‘The Year of our Lord.’

Not that I have any idea what you’re talking about. Our lord is, of course, the great and glorious Emperor Tiberius. But this you surely know.

They whisper in the streets that Tiberius only rose to power because his step-father was the mighty Caesar Augustus, but if you were to only see the man, you would know that this is not the case. Indeed, you may find many here who would disparage the great emperor as a fool at best and a madman at worst, but these are nothing but false reports!

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Of course, you may not have the good fortune to see Emperor Tiberius. He is away presently, as he so often is, at his villa in Capri.

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But just because he’s off in some pleasure villa doesn’t mean he’s not working tirelessly to make Rome great again! Granted, our historian Tacitus has recorded the emperor as a temperamental man who goes on rants (such as decrying the Senate as ‘men fit to be slaves’), but do you know what? I can appreciate an emperor who says exactly what’s on his mind.

Not like these purveyors of wicked falsehoods! Continue reading