Mike Clawson here again… I’m sure many of you are familiar with those horrendous/disturbing/hilarious “Chick Tracts” – those, little cartoon tracts that express some of the most extreme Fundamentalist theology out there; e.g. Catholics aren’t really Christians and the Pope is the Anti-Christ, role-playing games are a recruiting tool for full blown witchcraft and Satan worship, “Christian” rock musicians have sold their soul to Lucifer, STDs are God’s punishment for having sex outside of marriage, etc. Even as a Christian… Read more
Hey, Mike Clawson here again. Sorry I’ve been scarce around here this past year. Between going back to graduate school (working towards a PhD in Religion/History), and taking care of the kiddos so my wife could work on her book (Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices, now available on Amazon!) and travel for speaking gigs, I haven’t had much time to keep up with all the interesting conversations going on here at Friendly Atheist, much less post… Read more
Mike Clawson here again… Eugene Cho, an emerging church pastor from Seattle, has commented on the atheist bus ads soon to come to his city over at Sojourners’ God’s Politics blog. In this post, as well as two others at his own blog, he rolls his eyes at fellow Christians who get all reactive and bent out of shape over these ads, and then lists three reasons why he sees these bus ads as good things: 1. Christians shouldn’t feel… Read more
Mike Clawson here… My wife has a new post up at the God’s Politics Blog (Jim Wallis’ organization) on a recent Washington Post editorial by Robert McElvaine suggesting that there ought to be a way for Catholics to impeach the Pope. She uses it as a springboard to talk about whether and how more progressive Christians should stand up to the extremist voices in our own religion that are giving all of us a bad name. She gives a shout… Read more
Mike Clawson here… I’m going to try something new. In addition to the typical posts I usually put up, I’m going to start occasionally just throwing out a quotation from something I’m reading or have encountered, sans commentary, and just invite any and all of you to comment, critique or reflect on it as you so desire. No agenda on my part, just stuff that I thought would be interesting to hear others’ thoughts on. So here’s a Betrand Russell… Read more