Masculine and Feminine: Is It All In Our Head?
The other day, Brent (who is a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech and a he**uva Methodist Pastor) wrote this: “By the way, I strongly reject that there are any interesting or meaningful innate differences (aside from sex organs) between men and women. I believe it’s socialized and acculturated to the extent that it may as well be biological, but it’s not. In other words, women are not innately more or less anything than men. And vice versa… except physical strength, but that goes back to differences in reproduction, from what I understand.” Yesterday, Smockity Frocks (who has a real name and so many children she might just live in a shoe) wrote this: “Maybe I

“Male and Female” or “Masculine and Feminine”?
I don’t know about you, but I have all sorts of baggage associated with the very word “feminist”. Most, if not all of it, is unpleasant. See, I grew up in the era of the ERA (the Equal Rights Amendment), and, somehow, in my head I got it tied together with the whole Roe v. Wade thing. When my church talked about politics (which was, admittedly, not very often), these were often mentioned in the same breath and always in negative terms. I vaguely remember Walter Cronkite introducing news footage of women carrying placards in Washington, DC. Being a shallow little ankle-biter, all I really remember is that none of the women they showed were pretty, and they all seemed angry w

Enter the Feminists
I do not like very many people. I know that sounds awful – me being in ministry and all – but it’s true. Let’s just say that God’s still working on me, and that bit about loving my neighbor as myself is one area where I’m in need of remedial help. Not to make excuses, but I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles with this. In fact, there was once a great church leader for whom I wrote a book. A mutual friend told him I might be able to help him, and his first question to my friend was, “Do you think I’ll like him?” My friend’s response was, “Probably at first, but then you’ll get to know him. That’s usually when you stop liking peo

What Are We Waiting For?
Shortly after the release of the song “Waiting On the World to Change”, John Mayer told a newspaper reporter, “I wanted to start a debate. Most of us are happy to wait for things to change.” So, maybe, as some have suggested, Johnny boy was being ironic. Of course, he also reportedly told a concert crowd in Vancouver that this song is as much a political song as “Grey’s Anatomy” is a show about medicine. Who knows? Supposedly, he smokes a lot of pot, so he might not remember what he was thinking when he wrote it originally. Regardless of his original intent, my point is this: there are a lot of people who honestly feel the

Waiting on the World to Change
Me and all my friends We’re all misunderstood They say we stand for nothing and There’s no way we ever could Now we see everything that’s going wrong With the world and those who lead it We just feel like we don’t have the means To rise above and beat it So we keep waiting Waiting on the world to change We keep on waiting Waiting on the world to change It’s hard to beat the system When we’re standing at a distance So we keep waiting Waiting on the world to change Now if we had the power To bring our neighbors home from war They would have nev