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Posts from the ‘Church’ Category

Oct 7

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[Tripp York] Five Questions with Amy Laura Hall

Tripp recently moved his blog, Amish Jihadi, to The Other Journal.  This interview originally appeared on his page.

TY: What’s it like having double x chromosomes?

ALH: Tricky, scary, and fun. I learned during my first months in the ministry that people aren’t scared of me. People would talk to me about the mess of their lives, maybe because it was really obvious that my life wasn’t all picture princess perfect. I think also it is because I am not only XX, but short. So, God seems sometimes to use me to help people be honest with themselves about their problems — their fears, vices, desires — and this somehow can, with pastoral wisdom (which sometimes God throws my way) help lead to a bit more self-awareness and even, eventually, healing for others. Read more

Oct 1

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My encounter with a mountain lion

This is the first in a series of entries toward a book of dispatches from the strange world of divorce and dating.  I am juggling three different titles for the book — Please Enjoy the Music (While Your Party is Being Reached); Cheap, Pray, Love; and, finally, Agnes Louise and Ethel Mae’s Granddaughter gets Divorced.

I am dating a bear who goes over the mountain, to see what he can see.  When he introduced himself to me at Beyu Cafe, he told me he is a “traveler,” and that seems quite to be the case.  Preferably on foot.

I was determined to learn to hike, and to keep up.  I took on the challenge as something of a dare, and friends who have seen me in action know that I am quite the dare-devil.  But I am also not terribly keen on the great outdoors.  There are lions, and tigers, and bears, and trees that grab your clothing.  This Dorothy is better generally when perusing the streets of the Emerald City. Read more

Sep 19

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An Open Letter of Pastoral Admonition to Governor Rick Perry

Dear Governor Perry,

 

I am concerned that you are encouraging a climate of fear, and, perhaps inadvertently, participating in a culture of death.

I am a Texan (born in Graham), a Methodist, and an evangelical.  I am also, by conscience, a pro-life Christian.  I care deeply about Christian ethics, and I pray daily for the state of our country.  I am writing to you with these matters in common, hoping that my appeal to you will find a hearing.

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Sep 9

Matt Morin: The good gift of the game

Our guest writer is Matt Morin, a native of Milwaukee who now studies at Duke Divinity School. Before coming to seminary, Matt was a fighter in Mixed Martial Arts – a “cage fighter.” He is thinking through a number of related questions involving masculinity and gender; competition, domination and submission; classism and economic rhetoric. It’s such a joy to welcome Matt to these pages.

Last Sunday, Mark Oppenheimer wrote a piece for the New York Times in which he shared the story of a tennis player who had recently become aware of his own growing competitive streak. The article raises interesting questions about the Christian’s relationship to the world of sports—and more broadly calls attention to the ways in which each of us is formed by the widespread trope of “competition.”

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Aug 27

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Don’t stop believing

I had never been to a Big Rock Concert before in my life. Really. Not one. In high school I saw George Strait at the San Angelo Rodeo Hall, or rather I had been to dance with cute cowboys at George Strait concerts, but we didn’t really “see” George Strait so much as appreciate him while two-stepping. I don’t even like Journey or Foreigner, but when a friend offered me a “VIP” ticket to the concert in Raleigh and a pass for the “Meet and Greet” event beforehand, I jumped at the chance. And, dear people, it was loud. Transcendently loud. I stood in the fourth-row seating with my mouth wide open, not even daring to dance for a long while. I stood for at least fifteen minutes with my hand holding onto my sternum, feeling how my chest had music going through it, and down to my fingers and toes. (Yes, people looked at me then like I was weird.)

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