Unfinished

(I John 3:2) Farther along than I was before. A gay Christian's blog.

[worshipgifs]

[austinkleon]

If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you’ve got it half licked.

Henry Miller on aging (via austinkleon)

[azspot]

Mark Twain used his skillful pen to skewer the conservative Christianity of the American South. If Mark Twain wasn’t a believing Christian (and he wasn’t) — he was a prophet to the prevailing Christianity of his day. This was a compromised Christianity in desperate need of a prophetic voice. In seeking to preserve an economy dependent upon slave labor, the southern churches had embraced a fatally distorted faith. Probably without even knowing what they were doing these Christians had quite effectively used Jesus and the Bible to validate their racist assumptions and protect their vested interests. They went to church on Sunday. They got saved. They loved Jesus. They waved their palms and shouted hosanna on Palm Sunday. But like the crowd in Jerusalem eighteen centuries earlier they didn’t know the things that make for peace. And Jesus wept over an America headed to hell. The churches were full and slavery continued…until the Civil War. Then 750,000 people died for the sins of America.

When America Went To Hell (via leteveningcome)

My one problem with this narrative is that it refuses to acknowledge that slavery had almost always been seen as legitimate the vast majority of Christians until the very recent past up to that time. The slaveholders didn’t have to ignore Scripture or Tradition to validate their economics. Much of the Church tradition on slavery already did. What they did have to do is ignore the Spirit and Christ’s command to love as well as the necessity of change in an institution that had proven itself to be incapable of meeting the pretty rudimentary standards that Scripture and the early church placed on it, as well as the core teaching of Jesus, which was, in the end, a rebuke to slavery.

I make this point because it’s important for us to remember that the work of God calls for us to sometimes subordinate Scripture and Tradition to the Gospel of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. Calls us to reject things that aren’t core to the gospel, though deeply cherished, when they prove to be harmful or destructive to other human beings, marring the image of God. When we forget this, or deliberately portray things differently, we make it difficult for future generations to know how or when to change or reform Christian thought and practice,especially when the bulk of the Tradition is propping up the status quo.

(via franiel32)

[hecallsmelovely]

If Jesus were walking the earth today, and a group of homosexuals and heterosexuals ran up to him and asked him what he thought of the Supreme Court ruling, I bet he would pause for a bit, and then say just one or two sentences. And those one or two sentences would cut to the heart of those gathered, and make them realize that the darkness in their own hearts was more threatening than any Supreme Court ruling. And some gathered would leave in anger, plotting against Jesus, and some gathered would be grieved about the evil in their own hearts and marvel and say “Truly this man is the son of God.”

(via hecallsmelovely)

[blakebaggott-deactivated2017041]

Jesus asked to have his cup of suffering removed. It wasn’t removed. The world, as such, was saved through unanswered prayer.

A.J. Swoboda (via tblaberge)

[micdotcom]

Caitlyn Jenner just showed the world how to use privilege for good 

During her ESPYs speech, Jenner went out of her way not only to talk about the struggling, bullied transgender youth every where but the challenges facing transgender women of color specifically. She mentioned advocates like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, but also those whose lives we’ve lost like Mercedes Williamson.

[but-is-it-gay-tho]

Stop comparing sexual orientation to lust. Lust requires orientation. Orientation does not require lust. Coming to terms with my sexuality does not mean I am embracing sin. It does mean that I am being honest about my experience. Regardless of what we believe about what I should do with that experience (the morality question), that honesty should be fostered and celebrated.

Matthias Roberts (via gay-son-of-a-pastor)

[glamorousfaith-deactivated20170]

Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t gay. Which is weird, because its taught me so much and the growth its spawned has made me so much of who I am. 

Sometimes, I wish I never knew Jesus. Life would be so much more blissful. Superficial and short, but a lot less stressful. But much like being gay, life with Jesus has also taught me so much and spawned so much growth. 

I guess it depends on how much we value personal growth, but sometimes I wish I could just rest and feel at peace with myself.

[renloras]

[davidunfinished-blog]

[mroverstanding]

“I removed the flag not only in defiance of those who enslaved my ancestors in the southern United States, but also in defiance of the oppression that continues against black people globally in 2015, including the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the Dominican Republic. I did it in solidarity with the South African students who toppled a statue of the white supremacist, colonialist Cecil Rhodes. I did it for all the fierce black women on the front lines of the movement and for all the little black girls who are watching us. I did it because I am free.” Bree Newsome.

[krxs10]

But no you guys are right, the flag has nothing to do with racism it’s all about that war you lost.

[chocolatecakesandthickmilkshakes]

this is the very first time I’m reading this and I consider myself well informed.

[farfromreverend]

Episcopal Priest and Dean of Washington’s National Cathedral, Rev. Gary Hall says: “We must now have the courage to take the final step and call homophobia andheterosexism what they are. They are sin. Homophobia is a sin. Heterosexism is a sin. Shaming people for whom they love is a sin. Only when all our churches say that clearly and boldly and courageously will our LGBT youth be free to grow up in a culture that totally embraces them fully as they are… It’s more than tragic—in fact it’s shameful–that faith communities, especially Christian ones, continue to be complicit in putting our children at risk and abetting the attitudes that oppress them, thereby encouraging the aggressors who would subject our children to pain, humiliation, and violence.”

[ayjay-deactivated20161206]

Even if there were borders to my empathy, those borders would most certainly extend into South Carolina. Several of my African ancestors entered this continent through the slave market in Charleston. Their unpaid toil brought wealth to America via Carolina plantations. I am descended from those who survived racial oppression as they built this nation: My 4th great grandfather, who stood on an auction block in South Carolina refusing to be sold without his wife and newborn baby; that newborn baby, my 3rd great grandmother, enslaved for 27 years on a plantation in Rembert, SC where she prayed daily for her children to see freedom; her husband, my 3rd great grandfather, an enslaved plowboy on the same plantation who founded a church on the eve of the Civil War that stands to this day; their son, my great-great grandfather, the one they called “Free Baby” because he was their first child born free, all in South Carolina.   You see, I know my history and my heritage. The Confederacy is neither the only legacy of the south nor an admirable one. The southern heritage I embrace is the legacy of a people unbowed by racial oppression. It includes towering figures of the Civil Rights Movement like Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and Ella Baker. It includes the many people who rarely make the history books but without whom there is no movement. It includes pillars of the community like Rev. Clementa Pinckney and Emmanuel AME Church.

Bree Newsome, who was arrested for taking down the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse. (via ayjay)

[contrariansoul-deactivated20180]

If we want to cultivate hopefulness, we have to be willing to be flexible and demonstrate perseverance. Not every goal will look and feel the same. Tolerance for disappointment, determination, and a belief in self are the heart of hope.

Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection (via contrariansoul)

[davidunfinished-blog]

Shout out to all the straight boys at Pride with their girlfriends, pawing at them constantly so everyone knows they like chicks.

[e-sigh]