Where I’m Actually Coming From As A Progressive Evangelical | Patheos
For people who grew up in the height of the culture wars in the eighties like me, we heard evangelicals make a lot of hyperbolic, paranoid claims about rock music, homosexuals, and non-believers in the world which were then contradicted by our direct encounters with such people. We were told that Democrats were evil satanic baby-killers, but then we met Democrats who weren’t. We saw evangelical leaders who had the Bible half-memorized behave hatefully, treacherously, and greedily towards one another. Most of the theological caricatures and straw men that conservatives accuse us of making up actually come from sermons we really sat through.
He was buckled into the backseat of my Toyota, still too little to sit up front. At seven he had already moved more times than the total number of years he had been on the earth. And this time, like the times before it, he moved with his belongings in a trash bag. A suitcase, at least, would have added a small degree of dignity to the whole affair – to being “placed” in another and another and yet another foster home before reaching the 3rd grade. Trash bags break, you know. Trash bags can’t possibly support the contents of any life, and certainly not a life as fragile as this. They break from the strain, eventually.
A Letter To The People Who Hate Us Because Of What Happened To Our Gay Son | Linda Robertson
We tell our story to anyone who will listen for one reason only: We are trying, in our own small way, to do something right. By exposing our own grave errors, we pray that others will learn from us and treat their own children differently. We pray that it won’t take them six long years and losing their child to drugs and the streets in order to wake them up to the truth that every parent must love their children without any condition. Our children learn to love themselves through the love that we have for them. And a child who is told “I love you, but I do not love your sin” does not hear love. He does not learn to love himself or that God loves him. Ryan did not. None of the thousands of gay children who have written to me has heard love through those words. None.
9 Clueless Things White People Say When Confronted With Racism | Daily Dot
“You’re racist for making this an issue of race.” More often than not, when a person of color brings up racism, chances are there’s something problematic happening. It’d be naive to assume that people of color simply exist as opportunists who pounce on any single chance to make a big deal about racism. If you’re tired of hearing about racism, how tired do you think people of color are from having to live surrounded by racism in the first place?
The Uncomfortable Truth In The Giving Tree | The Week
Orphans are the embodiment of every childhood fantasy and fear. The moment we become aware that we are separate beings from our parents, we begin to experience conflicting desires. We long to escape our parents as well as never leave their side. We revel in the comfort they provide us, but also fear their power. We worry about what might happen should we become independent, yet we struggle to gain freedom. When a child loses her parents, the perils of dependence, as seen in The Giving Tree, are gone and she becomes an individual. In most children’s literature this works out for the kid, who tends to be rewarded for their moxie with love and riches.
