Mid-City Christian: The Galli Report ~ July 10, 2015

Friday, July 10, 2015

The Galli Report ~ July 10, 2015

July 10, 2015

One of my favorite writers, Leslie Leyland Fields, navigates a course through the gender fog of our times. She avoids the extremes while arguing for what I would call a common sense theology of gender:

Yes, God made woman and man different, but that's not the end of the creation story. Man was made by God, Woman was made from Man, and Man is born from Woman. From the very beginning, we are part of each other. We long for each other. We mirror each other. We reflect the image of God to one another.

And this:

Our identity and self is neither fully contained nor fully explained by our manness or womanness or any shade or stripe in between.

'Grace-Savvy Prison System'

I've noted before the US prison problem, which a number of statistics capture well, such as: "America has around 5 percent of the world's population, and 25 percent of its prisoners" (The Economist). Here's a piece that looks at how Norway has managed to keep their reoffending rate to a paltry 16 percent (versus 70 percent in Europe and the US). One key seems to be an old truth that aligns with Christian ethics: "People do tend to react better to respect/rehabilitation than they do to strictly punitive measures." As the Arne Nilsen put it when he was in charge of BastØy Prison:

"I run this prison like a small society. . .I give respect to the prisoners who come here and they respond by respecting themselves, each other and this community."

Maybe grace is a practical social policy in some instances.

Creation Theology Creep

There is much to praise in Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. I earlier linked to a fine summary of the theology by Kevin Emmert. I had not read a fundamentally sympathetic but also constructive critique until R. R. Reno's The Weakness of Laudato Si. The environment is one of the crucial issues of our day, but Reno reminds us that how we talk about and address the crisis requires more uniquely Christian thinking.

Inventing Children's Church

I admit to having mixed feelings about children's church—segregation means peace and quiet for worship; then again, we're excluding developing Christians from the core gathering of the Christian community. This video by Lutheran Satire appropriately mocks worship peace mongers like me. No matter. You don't have to agree to recognize that it is funny, that humor can teach theology, and that worship might not be about my pious feelings.

Grace and peace,