Yesterday afternoon we met two women who both work on healing in the Brownsville community: one a curandera and the other a medical doctor. An outsider, particularly an Anglo Seattleite outsider like me, might think that Maria and Marsha would be very different: a faith healer and an MD, a trance medium and a pediatrician. Instead, I was struck by the similar themes in our two visits.

Both women have a deep love for the community in which they work: the poor, Mexican-American, often undocumented population in this borderland. Both women connect spirit and health: Maria, deeply rooted in Catholic religion, is a medium for the spirit of a 19th-century healer; Marsha brings her background in theology to her work as a doctor. Both are affected by interacting with the illness affecting this community: Maria is exhausted after working and has to expel the bad energy she has received; Marsha spoke several times of the deep rage she feels over the injustice of the border, and needing an outlet for this rage “besides four-letter words.”

Most strikingly, though, was the way both women address the fear of the people here. People often come to Maria and other curanderas to heal illnesses which to me sound like symptoms of a community under enormous stress: overwhelming fright, panic, nervousness, upset stomachs, and many others. Marsha told us of the high level of fear affecting this community, affecting people who are effectively trapped here between the U.S.-Mexico border and the border patrol checkpoints 70 miles north of it. Wouldn’t you get sick if you were afraid to drive, afraid of being separated from your family, afraid of losing your job, afraid your children will have no future?

Follow the link to view President Jones’s uncut contribution to Project Union Responds:

Friedrich Schleiermacher: "I totally told you that like almost 200 years ago!"

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Paul Wallace at the Religion Dispatches reception at the American Academy of Religion meeting in Atlanta. He’s a lovely man and his wife is equally charming as he. I sincerely recommend his writings at RD to anyone interested in the science-religion dialogue.

His most recent piece deals with something that’s often on my own mind: whether science and Christianity can coexist. I am sympathetic to Paul’s journey through Buddhist thought to arrive at a harmony of Christianity and science. My own Buddhist experience has shed much light on my Christian faith. It is not, however, entirely necessary to make such a detour. I often find that my experience with other faiths does not cause me to import new ideas into Christianity. Rather, it causes me to reflect on what I already knew.

To whit: science and religious belief. There was a copy of On the Origin of Species on the bookshelf in my childhood home and while it never sat literally next to a Bible, the image is almost too much to resist. I don’t know that my church had a specific answer to the seeming conflict between worldviews. I do know that my parents and their friends (biologists, physicians, mathematicians and clergy) were able to find a way to navigate this divide. What I want to mention here, however, is not that as much as it is something much much older.

The fact is, Christianity had room for the evolutionary worldview 20-30 years before Darwin published his major work.

Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote in The Christian Faith, 2nd edition:

Further, since divine omnipotence can only be conceived as eternal and omnipresent, it is inadmissible to suppose that at any time anything should begin to be through omnipotence; on the contrary, through omnipotence everything is already posited which comes into existence through finite causes, in time and space.

In other words: the Christian faith cannot hold that we came to be through God’s omniscience and omnipotence directly. We came to be indirectly through finite causes that, yes, were put in place by God. This is not Intelligent Design. This is theology making room for Darwin before he asked for it. Evolution as a finite cause in time and space has been thought of as not just compatible but necessary to Christian theology since the 1830s.

This is not at all to say that Paul is wrong in his journey through Buddhism. He just took the scenic route.

The following is a copy of the reflection offered by Barbara L. Rice. Ms. Rice has a master of counseling and is a first-year, master of divinity seminarian here at Union. Her employment portfolio includes working with LGBTQ youth. As a community, we are graced by her presence and voice.

—arb

A Love that Would Not Let Me Go

When Zach was a child I loved him. When Elizabeth was a child I loved her. When Luke was a child I loved him. When Erica was a child I loved her.

[Hosea 11:1–12] is one of those passages of scripture that I have always been drawn to, never fully knowing why. I’m sure my 16-year-old interpretations of this text were age appropriately simplistic and egocentric. But there was something in my initial and naïve draw to the passage that was innate—that was calling me back to some womb-like recognition of my connectedness with a love that would not let me go. I would not have used those words, but there was a desire to ingest these images into my being. I wanted to know that type of security, that type of love. I wanted to watch an old home movie of God bending down to feed me when I was a toddler. I wanted to see, feel, and touch these cords of human kindness and bands of love. I wanted to know that they would catch me, would hold that space, would keep me safe. And I wanted the people in my life to know and feel that security and love in their own lives.

And I think in many ways those bands of love were very real in my heart and in my life. At the risk of being stereotypical, I was very much a tomboy, and it was considered cute to run around in my baseball uniform all year long. And I was always picked fairly quickly in the process of choosing kick ball teams in elementary school. I would occasionally be called dyke, but had no idea what it meant, and I didn’t care. I had friends because I learned early in life that if you listen to people they tend to like you. So, I could fit in pretty well and for the most part was spared the personal pain of bullying.

As I grew into adolescence I had that familiar gnawing sensation that many of you can relate to – that sense that something about me just wasn’t right. And it would creep into my thoughts now and then, this utter terror, that there might just be some tiny chance I was gay. This nightmare sat in the back of my mind and would rear its head, and I would think that if this is in any way true then I probably didn’t deserve to live. This belief that, if I were indeed gay, I would be unworthy of taking up space on the earth, mostly came from my family narrative which was passionately homophobic in the name of following Jesus. So, if this secret, this nightmare, was possibly true then it would mean that I was beyond the point of any repair.

And so I would sit with these images that I sought out in the Bible—pictures from Isaiah of loving protection amidst storms and scary things, the intimacy of Mary washing Jesus’ feet and his defense and love for her, and then this one in Hosea of having been known and loved intimately since babyhood regardless of my attempts to escape. And I would try to connect with that love and tell myself that this was enough, and tell myself that I could get through this life devoting all of it to God, and that I would be given the strength to keep myself together (i.e. not fall to the temptation of living in that ‘lifestyle’) until I died and could experience ultimate union with the Divine. My life was full of sports, friends, mission trips, school work, and service clubs. By all appearances I was a pretty happy teenager and as long as I could keep the terror silenced or distant then I was OK.

I wasn’t externally tortured for being gay, but I was internally tortured. I’ve thought about this a lot these last few weeks. I can’t imagine what I would have done if there had been this added layer of ostracism, of being targeted, or being ridiculed. I truly do not know that I could have survived that, and I look around at my friends in this room, not knowing each story, but knowing that for many of you it was a struggle that words can’t capture. And I sit with gratitude and awe realizing you have survived.

In my therapy practice in Greensboro, NC, I had the privilege of working with many teens and adults struggling to come to terms with their sexual orientation. Their struggles were often based on their understanding of what religion or the Bible said about same gender love, but they inevitably faced peer and family ostracism. In doing trauma work with my clients incidents of extreme bullying would often come up, and these memories would be so vivid that, as they were described to me, I felt like I was there. It was as if in their description I could see, hear, touch, smell and taste the terror, the fear, the punches, the tears, the shame. As if their spirits had been branded like cattle, we would work together to deconstruct the internalized messages left by these incidents. We would work to untangle and heal those messages, until they could become scars as opposed to gaping wounds, and we would work to take away the powerlessness of the memories.

However, the consequences of some of these marks can’t be avoided. I think about a 26-year-old gay man I worked with who suffered such horrendous bullying and abuse in high school that he stopped going to school to avoid being tormented, which led to him eventually dropping out altogether. He completed his GED and now works a minimum wage job while trying to go to community college at night. He struggles with just making it day to day—not only financially but also emotionally. He stays in relationships with fairly abusive partners because, as he would honestly share, if he didn’t have a partner with whom to live he would be homeless. The bullying and peer abuse that led to him dropping out of school has left its mark and he is trying to dig his way out, and it’s a long, dark path.

I recall checking my voice mails early one morning before work, and listening in heart breaking horror, as I learned that a queer mutual friend of several of my teenage clients had hung herself the previous night. I was familiar with this girl, who had committed suicide, because they both frequently spoke of her. When I saw these two clients that same day, they were both obviously wracked in pain with all the things that go along with the ones left behind by suicide—what could we have done, why didn’t we see this coming, why wouldn’t her parents get her help? But, as if that wasn’t enough, one of the girls, who also identified as queer, sat sobbing on my sofa as she told me how unsympathetic her parents were to this devastating loss. By her reports her parents were not at all accepting of her orientation, and did some ridiculing of their own. So, the night my client learned of her friend’s death she was hysterical, and went to her mother for comfort, only to have her mother respond by saying, “well, that’s what happens to gay kids, they end up hanging from rafters.”

Well, I’m here, we’re all here, to say ‘no.’ That’s not the inevitable fate of gay kids. Swinging from rafters, jumping off bridges, shooting themselves in the head… this is not the unchangeable fate of our queer kids!

How I wanted to transmit to these clients, to my friends, and so many others, a sense of the tenderness of God’s love, of these totally devoted images such as this passage from Hosea. I wanted them to know that they too had access to a love bigger than all this pain; that they too could tap into a love that would not let them go. This is our job – to take this love to the people, to be living examples of this determined devotion.

As some of us have been telling our stories for the video, I’ve wondered about who didn’t make it among us. Who would have been here, sitting with us now if they could have made it a little longer? How has God grieved for the lives cut short due to hate? Who are we missing? What ghosts are among us who dreamed of seminary and theological education, but who didn’t survive the crucible of a queer childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood? Where would they be sitting right now? How would they enrich our community and our lives here at Union? Who would be their boyfriend, girlfriend, their partner? Who would be their best friend on the hall? And so I look out at your faces and am filled with gratitude that you made it, that we have the chance to become the beloved community; that we have the chance to share our stories with each other. I also am grateful to have made it, and grateful that I have been able to cling to my daughtership during dark times.

And out of Egypt I called my daughter. Out of Egypt I called my son. Out of Egypt I called my child. Daughtership, sonship, beloved child…. What does it mean to be called out of Egypt, out of bondage, out of slavery? What does it mean to be called to freedom, to life? Sometimes we prefer the bondage we know over the freedom we don’t know. But we are called, if we can hear – and I believe we can hear when something inside of us is ready to hear – to take the first steps of a journey towards freedom. Sometimes that first step is a commitment to find support, to find somewhere you can be honest.

For me I heard the call towards freedom one day in 1997. I was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship,a conservative parachurch ministry, and I reached a point after years of being in reparative therapy, where I could no longer live with my internal incongruence. I reached the point where I didn’t care if I was indeed going to go to hell, because I was already in hell – my life was hell, my internal struggle had driven me to the brink of again wanting to be on the other side of this existence into the next one, just wanting Jesus’ arms around me. So I picked up the phone and called my supervisor. And, as I suspected, I was asked to resign, I was then asked to leave my non denominational church, which led to loosing most of my friends, and my family relationships experienced a type of death from which they have never fully recovered. And, it was in this wilderness space that I spent a lot of time reading and praying and wrestling with what to do. Regardless of what others said, what did God say? Could I still have a relationship with God and live this earthly life in a way that honored all parts of me, including my sexuality? I had wanted to be in vocational ministry since early childhood, and I thought that dream was over, and I was not sure who I was without this dream. I knew I did not want to live without a palpable connection to God, because to me that has been the only thing that gives life meaning. So, I decided I would take the first step. I would just move forward with what I could, and live, and see what happened. It was kind of an experiment because I was out of options, other than suicide. Of course what I found was more connection with God, and that God did not forsake me, but met me in ways I could have never known without taking that first step.

In this way, I was experiencing something similar to what Hosea describes at the end of the 11th chapter: “They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes.” The freedom of flying, even though you’re trembling. The sense of soaring even though you’re shaking – but heading to your true home. I happen to believe that home is always and only coming home to that love, that Divine love, that claims us and declares us perfectly made. In essence I believe coming home is a kind of coming home inside of ourselves, to rest in the love that waits for us there. As these tragedies in our queer community have moved us to share our own stories, as we have been moved to do anything we can to give a struggling kid hope for one more day, I have come to feel that we can become, that we are becoming the beloved community. And I believe it is from that grounded place that we move out into the world to serve, to stir, to rage, to liberate, to mourn, and to ultimately heal. As Hafiz said, “God revealed a sublime truth to the world, when He sang, ‘I am made whole by your life. Each soul, each soul completes me.’”

When Tyler Clementi was a child I loved him.

When Billy Lucas was a child I loved him.

When Seth Walsh was a child I loved him.

When Asher Brown was a child I loved him.

When we were children God loved us.

—Barbara L. Rice, MS LPC

©2010 Project Union Responds. Reprinting available with permission.

I am overjoyed that Union Theological Seminary students, staff, and faculty have come together to voice a positive and inclusive message to LGBTQ youth. The comments we have received have been heartfelt and grateful. One in particular says “This is the first and only message from Christians about LGBTQ people that I’ve ever heard that was supportive, loving and in the spirit of Christ. I am deeply moved and profoundly grateful for these words today. Thank you and God bless you.”

I am also deeply heartbroken and angry. Over the past week I have heard from friends and family who ask “what is happening all of the sudden?” To them, I reply, “all of the sudden? What do you mean all of the sudden?”

The media has recently started to pick up on the LGBTQ issues, most popular being violence and suicide. They are feeding off of these headlines, which gives them the ability to create revenue and promote themselves. In a few weeks the issue will most likely be dropped. This is another reason why it is important for the Christian community to speak up.

Yes, it took us hearing from the media to get this project going, I’ll admit that, but it comes at a time when we are aware of these two problems:
1. There aren’t many positive Christian messages of inclusion that are being heard and recognized outside of our safe churches and affirming communities
2. The media will use the stories of violence to promote themselves, because it sells, and soon it will all be forgotten. And, we in turn, will shake our heads and move on.

I must confess to being slightly complacent and comfortable on these issues over the past few years, excusing myself for being young and thinking that someone, somewhere was already doing the work. However, I realize that my ability to reach out to the community is supported by the Seminary and I have access to resources for networking and sharing compassionate stories of hope and love. It was most regrettable that there were no headlines from churches or religious leaders across the country speaking against hate crimes, hate language, exclusion, quality of education, equal rights, youth and young adult services, etc, etc, etc… It is devastating.

Please, let’s all work together and create an on going positive Christian message to our communities so we do not have to ever answer “what is happening all of the sudden?”

–Stephenie Stovall

I’ve been surprised to be on the outside of that consideration before. My wife jokes that I’m a “heathen Protestant”, but that’s in good fun. I did have a professor remark that we were all Christians in a classroom, with the aside “or near enough to it” directed my way referencing my Quaker beliefs. Sure, I could have argued that George Fox was pretty thorough-going as a Christian and that the majority of Meetings worldwide are more likely to be mistaken for a Methodist Church than anything outside the umbrella of generally considered “Christian” belief, but frankly I’m tired of doing so. When I first started attending Meeting in the mid-1990s, I had to explain to my mother that yes: Quakers believe in Jesus Christ. Generally. We’re just not compelled to do so by authority. And that’s where it gets complicated.

To my reading of the Gospels, Jesus didn’t lay out too many dogmatic guidelines for a church to follow his teachings. Anything we have that we can turn to for such guidance comes from at least twenty to thirty years after the crucifixion: a very long time indeed in an oral culture. So without firm guidelines, we turn to a version of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in defining the beliefs of others for them. For those unfamiliar, this circular argument runs as follows:

• No Scotsman eats sugar in his porridge.
• Angus from Glasgow eats sugar in his porridge.
• OK, fine then. No TRUE Scotsman eats sugar in his porridge.

And we do this all the time in Christian communities. “No Christian would do or believe X” becomes “No TRUE Christian would do or believe X” when confronted with a Christian who has in fact done or believed X. So Billy Graham’s son has decided that no TRUE Christian can behave or believe as Barack Obama does. Thankfully, it’s not up to Franklin Graham to decide what does or does not constitute a true Christian. And quite frankly if being a TRUE Christian means following Franklin Graham, I’d rather be false.

I admit that I have a very mixed reaction to this kind of announcement. I personally have been a bit of a spiritual wanderer in my day. I was baptized in the United Methodist church, raised Moravian, convinced Quaker, married by a Catholic priest, tried to be in the United Church of Christ for a bit, began a Zen Buddhist practice and settled back down as a Quaker (and Buddhist) again.

I know that there is some irony to my agreeing with David Wolpe, who makes the request in his blog response to “[y]oke your spirituality to a system. Be religious.” I hear in Wolpe’s admonition an echo of Karl Rahner’s thoughts on the church. Rahner advised that it was allowable to leave the denomination or faith in which one was born and raised, but that this should be an absolute last resort. From Rice’s words of frustration it seems like it may be the absolute last straw for her. Of course, Rahner, and I presume Wolpe as well, would rather hear that she’d left the Catholic church for another established church.

What might it mean to be Christian without identifying with Christianity in any of its varied and conflicting forms? Is religion only about an inner spiritual feeling–a purely vertical “I-Thou” with the divine–or is there a necessary community component to it? I can’t help but feel that the latter is true. There must be some horizontal, Earth-bound relationship among believers for “religion” to happen. Falling back on Rahner again, I see this more as a move out of the Visible Church and into the Invisible Church. Or, to quote Max Carter quoting a Quaker advice, “Christianity is not a notion but a way.” If it is a way, then can we believe it without being involved with it even in its messy, shameful progress toward enlightenment and salvation?

The author in 2004

I have taken some pretty good punches this week on YouTube directly and indirectly regarding our Union’s response to Glenn Beck video:

• “I think that first chick missed the part about gluttony maybe? Kinda hypocritical.”

• “This vid is full of fail. The only reason a person who thumbs this up is if they hate GB.
You got a fat white b*tch telling that a class changed her life? Please, do mankind a service and stop consuming so much of our natural resources.”

• “This was very helpful. I now know of one school that my child will NOT be attending. Looks to me to be filled with wombats, freaks, losers, and asexuals.”

• “’You’re actually in a famous room where I took his class 70lbs ago. I want to invite you into this iconic room and just show it to you. Here’s a door. And wood. And oh look a chair. Is it lunch yet’ A lot of winners there at Union”

• “Why don’t you people dress a little better?”

• “Why are Americans fat?”

• “Is she pregnant?”

We have taken hits about our looks, our education, even clear concerns about our sexual orientation… to get straight to the point… some people have still very much missed the boat. I am fine if someone criticizes me or even disagrees with me when it comes to my opinion on issues. I am not fine when attacks are made based on straight-up appearance. This just underscores the heart of the Liberation Theology debate. This is one of the many underpinnings of the problems in our current world, especially here in the United States that clearly needs to continue to be addressed. People judging people based on what they look like. This has been going on for so long and people have been abused, killed, lynched and attacked because of it. Enough already.

Yes, as Mr. Beck clearly states, Liberation Theology has much to do with the two categories of the Oppressor and the Oppressed… but there is so much more to it than just that. And, no, it is not about Communism or even Socialism and Marxism. For me, it is about an attitude of compassion for each other and for the opportunity to allow God’s law to break into the world… not the law of humanity, which in the current state of our world, people are denied their humanity and existence based on externals such as race, skin color, sexual orientation, religion or even what country they originate from – not to mention what they might weigh. No, this is about granting basic human rights to our fellow humans at all costs, no matter what, because all humans deserve their dignity. This country has a poor track record in this department no matter how you decide to twist the historical records, and we white people have quite a lot to still answer for. Including you, Mr. Beck. Including me.

Union has changed my life, and it was not just Dr. Cone’s class – it was an intense, three year, grueling process of insane reading, junk food and New York City pizza eating, intense paper writing, all night-ers, discussions – even arguments and the breaking down of all of the preconceived, unknown and arrogant notions that I walked into this program with. In short, these past three years, although extremely difficult, have forever changed my life on my view of the world, how I view and treat other people, and mostly, how I now view myself as a small part of a greater community of many different types of people.

The term “othering” is seen in two ways. One has a negative quality in which we base a human’s worth on qualitative means such as skin color and “race,” along with other factors such as citizenship, sexual orientation, gender, religion, etc. In this way, we “otherize” another in order to, for lack of a more academic phrase; simply feel better about our own selves, which denies them their humanity and dignity. This is polarizing and divisive.

A more positive view comes from Fred Craddock when he gives a nuanced idea of what it means to come into the space of the “Other” in his aptly titled homely, “Othering.” In this light, we break down such barriers, and remove the boundaries caused by fear that keeps us from really coming to know the real humanity of those we deem “our neighbors” but whom we find different or other than us in one form or another. Especially those who might seem just so frighteningly different from who we tend to think we are.

It is sad that people like Glenn Beck make a living off of instilling these fears into the hearts of our nation and then plays off of them to make a buck, or to promote a form of clever-racism that has the obnoxious lead out of “folks, I am not a racist.” People like him are divisive. He is not one who falls on the side of compassion for others. Instead, he is preaching the poison of fear and the negative connotation of “Othering” that continues to feed a systematic machine in this nation, which only leads to more suffering, poverty, injustice, abuse and a climate of people who refuse to look out for the widow and the orphan in our very own communities – which is in fact what the New Testament teaches us primarily. It is not the widow or orphan that might look like us or think like us that is the only concern. What about those who are totally different from us, believe differently, look differently, and might have a different life style than we do? Do they not deserve humanity and dignity too? It is those others who also, if not more so, deserve compassion from each and every one of us if we are able to extend a helping hand, or at least an acknowledgment of their humanity if we are to truly “love our neighbor as our self.”

These are the things that I have learned at Union Theological Seminary. My belief today in justice for all of my neighbors exceeds race, borders, class, skin color, sexual orientation, gender and religious beliefs… just to name a few.
Today, if there is someone that I can help, I hope to be able to extend that hand. I hope to make it my life’s work.

My fellow students and I have taken some real hits this week, and that is okay. Most had little to do with what we actually said, and were, instead, focused on our external qualities.

For me, it had to do with my current weight.

Being healthy is a very important priority and it should be for all of us.

Well, there are a few things people might want to know about me. You might be surprised to now that I moved to New York City fifteen years ago to be an actress and a model, which I was relatively successful at for ten years. At least my husband is quite impressed with my CV.

I was a member of all of the Unions, and had a pretty extensive and impressive theatre, film, TV and commercial resume as well as a nicely put together modeling composite. Although I was consistently a size 6, and believe me, I worked hard to be that size, I was constantly told by my agents that I was always a borderline “plus size” model… and those are killer words in the modeling business. I have done my fair share of intense exercise, dieting, no carbs, crazy-healthy lifestyle and internal self discipline, self loathing and scolding just so that other people thought I looked “good enough” and let me tell you… I am tired of hearing about what people think I should look like.

I probably could have done pretty well as an actress. I worked hard and seemed to be relatively talented. I left the field of acting of my own accord, however. Though I am sure the business is great for others, I was never happy, regardless of how low my weight was, or what exciting new jobs I had coming up. For me, I had a constant feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction with my life, despite some exciting successes.

Although I have always been a person of faith, over the years my connection to my Presbyterian faith was reawakening, and I was only finding myself truly ever happy when I was volunteering and being of service in my community through a relationship with God, which I very much believe God initiated within me. For me, helping others through my life of faith became the only true happiness that I have ever known. My career as an actress and model offered me no outlet to be of service to my community and I learned in time that I was just in the wrong career. I was always too busy running around completely self-absorbed and worrying what people thought of me to stop and help anyone else out for a change. Obviously, God had other plans for me.

Over the years, I have been able to find some real joy and contentment in my life, just being me, knowing that I am okay exactly how I am today. This faith based initiative I took on personally finally lead me to Seminary, and thank God, I was lead to Union because this institution is a place that instills the idea of service and justice into its students’ lives of faith in a most remarkable and life changing way. It not only changes our lives, it will change the lives of all of the people we help in our lifetimes. Coming here is an amazing experience.

I know first hand that our nation struggles with an obesity problem, but society is not completely responsible, with all of the chemicals we are being force-fed through advertisements. Hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, enriched flour, manufactured wheat, processed sugars, all at cheap costs that undercut any type of organic or non-chemical based product on the shelf, making piles of money for distributors who care nothing about what goes into products and its consumers; only the bottom line. It is hard not to buy the cheap stuff when you are on a budget. Fortunately, it seems like our selections and our consciousness is slowly transforming into a nation that cares about what we eat more than we ever have.

I know from first hand experience. Fast food is cheap… and I am a broke Seminarian pledging a life of service that walked away from a very lucrative career. I will probably just break even monthly once I start paying back my student loans. It is hard to eat healthy and exercise when you are broke, on a budget and on six deadlines. When I do have the time, I am so fried that watching TV with my husband just seems like the better choice. Clearly, there are things that I personally need to work on now that I have graduated.

For me, coming to Seminary and exercising my brain, for a change, these last three years straight, might have caused me to add on several pounds, but the weight I can lose with a healthier lifestyle… what I have learned in the process of getting this degree, I plan to hold onto for dear life. It is incredible for me to read comments about my weight today, so many years after retiring from a career where my weight was what engulfed nearly every waking moment of my self-centered life. I actually really used to care what other people thought and to a fault.

These last few years have been liberating for me. For the first time in my life, I am entirely happy with the person that I am becoming because, in this vocation, I know that I will be spending the rest of my life getting fantastic sleep, knowing that I spent my day helping my neighbor as best I can, whatever my neighbor might “look” like. I may not make my actress salary any more, but my internal joy and satisfaction is well worth the sacrifice. And now that I have my Master’s of Divinity degree… maybe I’ll have some free time to take up jogging again… but this time, only as a way to feel good, staying healthy and sharing a long life with my amazing husband who likes me just how I am.

So, being attacked about my weight might be the catalyst for this response, but my answer is that I might be fat today, but God knows I am finally happy. So for all of you who think that judging people based on what they look like is okay instead of airing on the side of compassion, I say to you… you really need to get a life. I have.

Joel Gretsch portraying Father Jack Landry

As part of the ongoing project that is The Wheat and The Chaff, I want to look not only at the news media’s interaction with religion but also at the popular media’s interaction with religion and religious themes. I owe a shout-out and a hat-tip to the excellent and engaging work of Natalie and Kathryn over at The Moth Chase. Please give them a read.

One of my favorite childhood TV shows was the miniseries/series/reunion TV movie “V”. In it, one watched a post-“Beastmaster” Marc Singer and a pre-“Nightmare on Elm Street” Robert Englund fight to save the Earth from a race of masquerading reptilian conquerors-from-beyond. Seriously.

The show has been re-launched and updated. The main plot seems to be the same: aliens promising peace arrive unexpectedly, some people suspect shenanigans, aliens are shown to be literal monsters, etc. This time there’s an interesting twist: one of our main “freedom fighters” is a Catholic priest.

The title of this post comes from a decision laid at the feet of Father Jack Landry: “You need to decide whether you’re a soldier or a priest”. This line is delivered after it’s revealed that Father Jack knows how to throw a punch because he did two tours in Iraq as an Army chaplain. He’s been running around for four episodes blowing things up and occasionally reflecting on what it means to his faith in God that we homo sapiens are not the only creatures capable of building a spaceship, but finally someone points out to him that there’s a choice involved.

The Ontological Question, theology of violence, military and imperial complicity, explosions, motorcycles and space aliens. This is a show that has it all.

Levity aside, I do think that the presentation of this particular character brings up some issues worth pondering. Does it make any difference to our belief in God that there may be other intelligent life in the universe? When do you put down the crucifix and pick up a gun?

As someone who prefers to conceive of “priestly freedom fighters” in the mold more of Oscar Romero, Ammon Hennacy, Thich Nhat Hanh and Jesus, I am pretty uncomfortable with the idea that violence and ministry can play nicely together. I think that the choice alluded to here is a deep and existential one, and I think that it may be one that goes unasked far too often. Can Christianity be true to itself and still ordain ministers who serve in uniform in areas of military conflict? Is the decision between being a “priest” and a “soldier” strictly either/or or can it be both/and?

In many ways, this blog will attempt to bridge a gap between the journalistic worldview of religion and the academic/seminarian worldview. It will bring the audience to the stories of religion in the news in hopes that we all will think critically about what we’re seeing and reading. Is what’s showing up in the news accurate? Is it unfairly partisan or potentially harmful? What is it telling us about the shape of belief, faith and religion today?  We will be dealing with it socratically, and we ask you to join us, add to the conversation and at times even point the way.