Wow, you sum up my issues with going to church. The rector where I've been going (she's now on sabbatical) insists on bringing "current events" into her sermons though she apparently reads and hears nothing but the sleaziest propaganda. And guess what? she used the phrase "most vulnerable" in her last sermon, apparently decrying the outlawing of wrong-sex hormones and mutilating surgeries for minors. This is a liberal Episcopal church; now contrast that with the religious tract I found on my windshield one Sunday that specifically condemned gender identity. What a world!
I sometimes wondered if the US Episcopal churches (in which I was raised) were going over the top with the Pride flags, but it was only over here in a cousin congregation that I started hearing the unquestioned language.
As fate would have it, I have just been asked to read the whole of Gen 1 on Sunday, so I guess I’m going back.... and meant to be there!
I feel adrift. I like the priest at St Thomas, but I do wish she'd stay away from current events. She had to bring in the "most vulnerable" when she was speaking about being quiet. I could do 20 sermons on being quiet and knowing God without once mentioning the "most vulnerable"! And I like the point made online by an evangelical pastor -- I never thought I'd say that -- that believing people are born in the "wrong bodies" is blasphemous.
Does anyone mention Bingo? I'm referring to the Fetish Priest, not the game!
I hear you. I’ve thought a lot about “born in the wrong body” ... or not honouring or accepting the life one is given. Wishing I had someone else’s life/body is something I have been guilty of since I was a kid. It’s not that a person can’t live a life of love and service outside the confines of traditional gender norms. I have no doubt that God shines on all His children, from the most conventional to the drag queens.
But gender ideology and queer theory have taken a divine reference point out of the equation and made an idol of identity. Without humility, the end game is material self-interest. It would take a ton of tact to convey that in a sermon or general pastoral care, but drumming up the false demon of a genocide certainly doesn’t strike me as loving.
I am so sorry that you wish you had had someone else's life / body. I am lucky in that I realized when I was a child that everyone seems to be in some sort of pain. In seventh grade I watched a so-called popular girl cry because she was wearing the wrong colors (it was school color day, and though I wore the colors I refused to take part in a competition); she had to go home! Then in eighth grade I saw a girl who was very snooty and snotty at school walking home through a very rundown part of town; jeezums, was that revealing!
I still answer NO GENDER when asked because like most of us I do not fit into traditional sex stereotypes. I don't know if I've ever personally met anyone who did, and this new-fangled version of trying to squeeze people into little boxes is deeply offensive.
Ah, humility. Absolutely necessary to live any kind of meaningful life. I am so thankful I live surrounded by Nature which is very humbling.
Wow, you sum up my issues with going to church. The rector where I've been going (she's now on sabbatical) insists on bringing "current events" into her sermons though she apparently reads and hears nothing but the sleaziest propaganda. And guess what? she used the phrase "most vulnerable" in her last sermon, apparently decrying the outlawing of wrong-sex hormones and mutilating surgeries for minors. This is a liberal Episcopal church; now contrast that with the religious tract I found on my windshield one Sunday that specifically condemned gender identity. What a world!
I sometimes wondered if the US Episcopal churches (in which I was raised) were going over the top with the Pride flags, but it was only over here in a cousin congregation that I started hearing the unquestioned language.
As fate would have it, I have just been asked to read the whole of Gen 1 on Sunday, so I guess I’m going back.... and meant to be there!
I feel adrift. I like the priest at St Thomas, but I do wish she'd stay away from current events. She had to bring in the "most vulnerable" when she was speaking about being quiet. I could do 20 sermons on being quiet and knowing God without once mentioning the "most vulnerable"! And I like the point made online by an evangelical pastor -- I never thought I'd say that -- that believing people are born in the "wrong bodies" is blasphemous.
Does anyone mention Bingo? I'm referring to the Fetish Priest, not the game!
I hear you. I’ve thought a lot about “born in the wrong body” ... or not honouring or accepting the life one is given. Wishing I had someone else’s life/body is something I have been guilty of since I was a kid. It’s not that a person can’t live a life of love and service outside the confines of traditional gender norms. I have no doubt that God shines on all His children, from the most conventional to the drag queens.
But gender ideology and queer theory have taken a divine reference point out of the equation and made an idol of identity. Without humility, the end game is material self-interest. It would take a ton of tact to convey that in a sermon or general pastoral care, but drumming up the false demon of a genocide certainly doesn’t strike me as loving.
I am so sorry that you wish you had had someone else's life / body. I am lucky in that I realized when I was a child that everyone seems to be in some sort of pain. In seventh grade I watched a so-called popular girl cry because she was wearing the wrong colors (it was school color day, and though I wore the colors I refused to take part in a competition); she had to go home! Then in eighth grade I saw a girl who was very snooty and snotty at school walking home through a very rundown part of town; jeezums, was that revealing!
I still answer NO GENDER when asked because like most of us I do not fit into traditional sex stereotypes. I don't know if I've ever personally met anyone who did, and this new-fangled version of trying to squeeze people into little boxes is deeply offensive.
Ah, humility. Absolutely necessary to live any kind of meaningful life. I am so thankful I live surrounded by Nature which is very humbling.
Great post. Chincoteague has better campgrounds than Assoteague but take bug spray.
Luv it Ben! thank you for so eloquently expressing what I can’t!