CBF’s New Hiring and Personnel Statement

Sam Harrelson on February 9, 2018

Here are results from the 18-month long Illumination Project that the CBF launched to address its controversial anti-LGBTQ hiring policy back in 2016.

Thomas and I did an episode of Thinking Religion last night to share some thoughts if you’d like to know where I stand.

To reflect the practice of most of its congregations, the procedure states: “Among other qualifying factors, CBF will employ persons for leadership positions in ministry who exhibit the ideals set forth in our hiring policy, have gifts appropriate to the particular position and who practice a traditional Christian sexual ethic of celibacy in singleness or faithfulness in marriage between a woman and a man.” For other positions on the CBF staff in Decatur, applicants will be considered who meet the qualities set forth in the new hiring policy, including Christians who identify as LGBT.

Source: CBF Governing Board receives Illumination Project recommendation, adopts Christ-centered hiring policy | CBFblog

James C. Scott’s New Book

Sam Harrelson on February 2, 2018

James C. Scott is one of the scholars I always enjoy reading. I was introduced to his work Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts while in a (wonderful) seminary class on the Parables. The insightful connection that our beloved professor made between Jesus’ acts and words in his performance of the parables with the essence of what Scott described as “public” and “hidden” transcripts still resonates with me today anytime I read the Gospels.

I’m excited to read this work as well. Although it seems to have a similar topic as many scholarly takes on the how’s and why’s civilizations collapse, (anyone else notice how both academic works, as well as the entertainment world, is fascinated by dystopias and doom-and-gloom in this Age of Trump?) one of my ongoing fascinations and points of interests is the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia as well as the later “Sea Peoples” of Egyptian history. It looks like both of these topics make an appearance in Scott’s new work:

What if the origin of farming wasn’t a moment of liberation but of entrapment? Scott offers an alternative to the conventional narrative that is altogether more fascinating, not least in the way it omits any self-congratulation about human achievement. His account of the deep past doesn’t purport to be definitive, but it is surely more accurate than the one we’re used to, and it implicitly exposes the flaws in contemporary political ideas that ultimately rest on a narrative of human progress and on the ideal of the city/nation-state.

Source: Steven Mithen reviews ‘Against the Grain’ by James C. Scott · LRB 30 November 2017

Do We Really Want Our Government Run Like a Business? | Sojourners

Sam Harrelson on January 30, 2018

In the Easter sermon at my own church, the priest commented that Jesus was killed by the 1 percent, in the form of an empire that exploited its citizenry for the sake of profit and growth. While this sentiment might not be surprising where I live in liberal Northern California, it’s also present throughout the Bible. President Trump, whose own religious beliefs remain puzzling, vague, and nearly impossible to parse even among theologians and religion journalists, has repeatedly pushed policies that are the opposite of many of Christ’s messages even in his short time in office.

Source: Do We Really Want Our Government Run Like a Business? | Sojourners

The Day the Music Died

Sam Harrelson on January 19, 2018

We’re all suffering from something and we should all be able to admit that without feeling the need to keep on performing for people. It’s a serious deficiency of our American culture that we elevate fake stoicism.

But gosh, I do love some Tom Petty music. Sad read but maybe it’ll help at least one person seek some help:

ON THE DAY HE DIED HE WAS INFORMED HIS HIP HAD GRADUATED TO A FULL ON BREAK AND IT IS OUR FEELING THAT THE PAIN WAS SIMPLY UNBEARABLE AND WAS THE CAUSE FOR HIS OVER USE OF MEDICATION.

Source: The Official Website of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Finding your column ain’t easy

Sam Harrelson on December 28, 2017

“Symeon selected a three-metre-high column in the Syrian desert near Antioch, and there he stood day in, day out, eventually attracting such a crowd that the noise caused him to build his column higher, bringing him closer to God and 16 metres off the ground. Symeon managed to live like this for 30 years, and many other monks began to follow his example so that a whole stylite movement developed which was still going strong in the 11th century CE.”

via Byzantine Monasticism – Ancient.eu

I don’t care what Thomas says…

Sam Harrelson on August 25, 2017

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (96.0MB) | Embed

https://samharrelson.com/thinking Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

… it’s a good show 🙂

Can’t believe we’ve done 118 of these… but here’s my podcast with Thomas that was published today:

Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson discuss the uncomfortableness of whataboutism and its interplay with American Christianity and continue the Bible Bracket Challenge semifinals.

Thinking Religion 118

Follow along with the Bible Bracket Challenge here.

39

Sam Harrelson on August 22, 2017

white_light_corona

I wrote this back in 2008 as I was turning 30:

However, turning 30 still scares the hell out of me because I don’t want to loose my idealism which is tied so close to my own identity.

via 29 – Sam Harrelson

Today I turn 39. I feel like I’ve changed so much in the last 9 years. I feel like the world itself has changed so much in the last 9 years. But, I look back on my writings and notebooks from this period and realize that the core of me is still there. It’s developing but it feels and seems familiar.

Our conceptions of time and age and landmarks in our own personal histories remind me of the signposts of life that Merianna frequently talks and preaches about. We all like to erect little monuments of memory so that whenever we pass by the same spot, we’ll recollect either the joy or pain or astonishment or fear that marked that particular point in our journey.

We mark years by orbits of our planets around our solar system’s star. Yesterday, I was able to experience the totality of a solar eclipse in the backyard with my wife, our young son and two daughters. I couldn’t have predicted that in 2008. The 30’s have been a mix of the greatest of pains and the greatest of joys. Birth, death, divorce, marriage, moves, career change(s), personal realizations… all those experiences are signposts that I often revisit through reflections as in a mirror, dimly.

Whatever happens in the next 10 years before I turn 50 will also come as a surprise to me when I look back on the paths that were trodden and those not trodden. But future Sam who is reading this in 2027 and turning 49 with eyes that vainly crave the light, of the empty and useless years of the rest with me intertwined in the new signposts that I currently can’t see just yet, keep the question and the Answer close by. Let’s contribute a verse.

Out of the blackstar comes new creativity and new expressions of light and new ways of looking at the world. A perfect black to put distance between ourselves and our assumptions and then a perfect white to answer the question of whether we still belong in a previous existence.

The Cyrus President

Sam Harrelson on August 7, 2017

It’s not uncommon for clergy to laud political leaders; religious groups celebrated President Barack Obama as well. But the tenor of recent days is distinct: evangelical leaders such as Lance Wallnau—an avid devotee of dominionism who participated in Trump’s meetings with pastors during the campaign—wholeheartedly endorsed the Cyrus comparison for Trump. In December 2015, he declared that God had anointed Trump “for the mantle of government in the United States,” adding, “He’s got the Cyrus anointing.” David Barton, head of “biblical values” group Wall Builders, also said in June 2016, “[Trump] may not be our preferred candidate, but that doesn’t mean it may not be God’s candidate to do something that we don’t see.”

via Why Christian nationalists love Trump – ThinkProgress

“It is not Christianity”

Sam Harrelson on August 3, 2017

Interesting piece from the Sr. Editor of The American Conservative Rod Dreher (also a big fan of St. Benedict).

The rapid erosion of American Christianity is a reality that sincere “Church Going People” (as we call them here in SC) need to accept. I personally believe it’s a societal net-positive to have a large number of Americans get out of bed, put on dress clothes, and hear a good sermon that tells them to love another and that they are not the center of the universe once-a-week. That’s not the reality of many / most churches of course… but I do like to romanticize the Sunday morning experience. We can’t pretend that’s the norm in 2017 and beyond and that our young people and young families will eventually go back to church any more than we can hope that they will find the joy of telephone landlines in the near future.

Whatever “comes next” after American Christianity will be shocking, “not normal” and “not my type of church” if the Age of Trump is any inkling…

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a pseudoreligion that jettisons the doctrines of historical biblical Christianity and replaces them with feel-good, vaguely spiritual nostrums. In M.T.D., the highest goal of the religious life is being happy and feeling good about oneself. It’s the perfect religion for a self-centered, consumerist culture. But it is not Christianity.

via Trump Can’t Save American Christianity – The New York Times