Ladies First |
Today's category: Men vs. WomenLadies First A journalist had done a story on gender roles in Kuwait several years before the Gulf War, and she noted then that women customarily walked about 10 feet behind their husbands. She returned to Kuwait recently and observed that the men now walked several yards behind their wives. She approached one of the women for an explanation. "This is marvelous," said the journalist. "What enabled the women to achieve this reversal of roles? Replied the Kuwaiti woman: "Land mines!"View hundreds more jokes online.Email this joke to a friend |
Pat Sawyer: What is CRT and Should We Be Concerned? |
The first of three posts on Dr. Sawyer's thoughts and concerns about CRT. As a faculty member in the social sciences in a state institution, critical social theory (CST) is the water I swim in, the air I breathe. As an academic and conscientious Christian, justice concerns drive much of my scholarship and all of my praxis (activism). Consequently, critical race theory (CRT), a prominent critical social theory concerned about racial justice, has a place in my teaching, scholarship, and praxis. I say this to underscore that while this series will be net critical of CRT, that doesn’t mean that CRT has nothing to offer to social analysis and that some of its insights aren’t genuinely instructive when it comes to our racial history in the U.S and our current racial zeitgeist. Indeed, some aspects of CRT are notably discerning and percipient. It is an injustice to truth to deny this or act otherwise. Please keep this in mind as you move through my analysis.In this article I want to give an overview of CRT and mention some of its unifying ideas. In the second article, I’ll offer five important cautions relative to how its claims can be received and embraced. In the final article, I’ll offer three more cautions, a salient concluding point, and a final exhortation.Before I move into an overview of CRT, I want to make a final point by way of introduction. Where there is disagreement about CRT in the professed Church, we should make every effort to ensure there is no hateful speech, no ad hominem attacks, and no slander. The nuance and care needed with this topic should underscore the importance of sticking close to Christ’s commands regarding our speech and how we communicate with one another (Matt 12:36-37; Eph 4:15, 29-31; Col 4:6; 2Tim 2:24-25). In many respects, the Enemy ...Continue reading...   |
Lent Lifts Us Up Where We Belong |
These 40 days of self-denial might seem painful during a pandemic. But the habits of “tedious love” are just what we need right now. After the world shuttered last March, I turned to my kitchen. I made cinnamon rolls and blueberry muffins. I fried doughnuts and braided Finnish coffee bread. For many, bread-baking was our collective, cloistered privilege. We had time to watch something rise.But those days, dusted in flour, now seem remote. Hundreds of thousands have since died. Businesses have closed, never to reopen. Many children have never returned to school. Many churches, including my own, have never re-opened for corporate worship. Our pandemic year, while experienced differently, has whittled all of us down and apprenticed us in losses of many forms.It begs the question: How can we rouse the will to practice Lent—its deprivations, its renunciations—after a long Lenten year?On the surface, these 40 days of self-denial might seem like the very last thing we need. And yet I would argue the opposite. Our pandemic lives have brought us face to face with the same temptation that plagued the monks centuries ago—the sin of acedia. It’s the inability to “rouse yourself to give a damn” as Kathleen Norris writes in Acedia & Me. In that context, the structure of Lent offers us not a millstone but a lifeline. It provides a way out of the dark waters of acedia.During the fourth century, Evagrius of Pontus identified the first formal list of eight deadly vices that were common to the desert hermetic. Among that list of recognizable sins—gluttony, lust, greed, pride—Evagrius also included sadness and sloth, which centuries later came to be understood together as acedia.Rebecca DeYoung explains in Glittering Vices that acedia is not laziness as we might traditionally conceive of it. It comes in twin forms. It’s ...Continue reading...   |
‘The Mandalorian' Can Teach Us How to Navigate Crises of Faith |
The Golden Globe nominee shows us what happens when “the Way” really isn't. The galaxy can be a complicated place.Din Djarin, the title character of the Disney+ show The Mandalorian, learns this quickly. Played by Pedro Pascal, the stoic gunslinger has led Star Wars fans into unexplored corners of the much-loved franchise and become the world’s favorite foster dad.As Din travels to various planets tracking down the mysterious alien child Grogu (better known as Baby Yoda) and eventually seeking a good home for him, he meets people whose beliefs severely challenge his own. Din’s soul-searching becomes the heart of the show, and his willingness to question his worldview makes a good example for us as well.Trained as a bounty hunter by a secretive religious community of Mandalorians on a backwater planet, Din thinks he knows everything about his culture and his personal convictions. His people even have a mantra to remind them to hold fast to their beliefs: “This is the Way.”But what, exactly, is the Way? Is it protecting the Mandalorians’ covert on the planet Nevarro at all costs? Is it keeping his face hidden from even his own people? Is it caring for foundlings, orphans who are rescued and reared to preserve Mandalorian culture? What if fulfilling one of these tenets jeopardizes another? Worse, what if some of them aren’t essential for a Mandalorian to follow?Suddenly, Din feels pretty relatable. As Christians, we may be confident in our convictions until a leader we admire is exposed as not the role model we knew them to be. Or until we meet people who challenge our private stereotypes. Or until a community we belong to starts expressing values we don’t hold. We find ourselves feeling pulled in two directions, torn between beliefs that no longer agree or ...Continue reading...   |
The Bloody Conflict Dividing Ethiopia's Christians |
A shared faith isn't sufficient in preventing ethnic violence. In 2019, prime minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee noted that he had given amnesty to thousands of political prisoners, discontinued media censorship, fought against corruption, and legalized previously outlawed opposition groups. Ahmed also received attention for his religious reconciliation work which included mending a split in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and bringing together Christians and Muslims. The son of a Muslim father and Orthodox mother, Abiy is a Protestant Pentecostal, or “Pentay,” like many Ethiopian politicians.But, as of late, things have been tense. Last November, CNN reported that scores of people were murdered by whom survivors believe are soldiers from nearby Eritrea, whose presence they blame on the Ethiopian government. The massacre occurred in the Tigray region, the northern part of the country and one which shares a border with Eritrea. It came just weeks after the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front attacked Ethiopian military forces and the central government responded violently in return.Ethiopia has a long and extensive Christian history. The second country in the world to officially adopt Christianity, for 15 centuries, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has survived estrangement from Rome, the spread of Islam, and repeated colonialization attempts. There’s also millions of people, like Abiy, who identify as Protestant.Desta Heliso was born and raised in Ethiopia and has served as lecturer and director of the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. He currently resides in London but continues to coordinate the Centre for Ancient Christianity and Ethiopian Studies at EGST in Addis Ababa. He is also a fellow of the Center for Early African ...Continue reading...   |