Smart people saying smart things

Last updated on: May 14, 2012 at 7:30 am by Fred Clark

Smart people saying smart things 2012-05-09T23:02:53-04:00 Fred Clark

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Joan Chittister: “Silence about the global treatment of women is disquieting“

You have to wonder, don’t you? What have they been told about women by the religious men who catechized them? What snide jokes and demeaning theology are still being taught about women by patriarchal religions? By the actions of exclusion and control and invisibility and domination and subordination of women by church men and holy elders everywhere? Even here. Even now.

From where I stand, it seems to me that male “protection,” paternalism and patriarchal theology are not to be trusted anymore because the actions it spawns in both men and women have limited the full humanity of women everywhere, and on purpose.

Isn’t it time for us all to really be converted, to say the real Truth about women from our pulpits, from our preachers, from our patriarchs, until both they and we finally believe it ourselves?

Vicki Escarra: “Charity Can’t Do It Alone“

For the one in six Americans at risk of hunger, food banks and their local agency partners are truly the first line of defense, and many times the only resource standing between being able to put food on the family dinner table and going to bed with an empty stomach. However, the charitable food assistance network cannot meet the needs of these families alone. It is only through our public-private partnership with the federal government — through programs like TEFAP, CSFP, CACFP, and SFSP, and sustained support for SNAP and other programs in the nutrition safety net — that we are able to protect families from hunger.

T.M. Luhrmann: “Do as I Do, Not as I Say“

If you want to understand how evangelicals conceive of their political life, you need to understand how they think about God. I am an anthropologist, and for the last 10 years I have been doing research on charismatic evangelical spirituality — the kind of Christianity in which people expect to have a personal relationship with God. …

What someone believes is important to these Christians, but what really matters is becoming a better person. As I listened in church and participated in prayer groups, I saw that when people prayed, they imagined themselves in conversation with God. … They imagine God as wiser and kinder than any human they know, and then they try to become the person they would be if they were always aware of being in God’s presence, even when the kids fuss and the train runs late.

… When evangelicals vote, they think more immediately about what kind of person they are trying to become — what humans could and should be, rather than who they are.

… If Democrats want to reach more evangelical voters, they should use a political language that evangelicals can hear. They should talk about the kind of people we are aiming to be and about the transformational journey that any choice will take us on. They should talk about how we can grow in compassion and care. They could talk about the way their policy interventions will allow those who receive them to become better people and how those of us who support them will better ourselves as we reach out in love. They could describe health care reform as a response to suffering, not as a solution to an economic problem.

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