Wow. Rachel Held Evans does a great job of refocusing this whole Chick-fil-A appreciation/boycott controversy away from the realm of clashing political tribes and into the realm of personal pious behavior. Speaking to Christian supporters of Chick-fil-A:

Please know that when you post a picture of yourself defiantly holding a Chick-fil-A bag on Facebook, it may send a hurtful message to your LGBT friends who—fair or not—have come to associate Chick-fil-A with anti-gay organizations and anti-gay remarks.  There is no need to cause unnecessary offense to folks who have already been so ostracized by the Church, no need to wave a red and white banner through yet another culture war.  If you really want to love your gay friends and neighbors, shoving Chick-fil-A bags in their faces right now is just not the way to do it.

via Rachel Held Evans | Some words for Christians on both sides of the Chick-fil-A war.

I think she’s right about the timing of the whole thing. Buying something from CFA on Wednesday would sufficiently demonstrate your support for the politics or freedom of speech of the company and its president. Broadcasting your activities via Facebook would be more about high-fiving those in your tribe and stuffing it in the faces of your LGBT friends and acquaintances. This may be a situation where, for a time at least, the loving thing to do is not let your left hand know what your right hand is eating.

Depressing, poignant image from Daniel Florien after his visit to the Aurora shooting memorial at the Century 16 movie theater.

I am back in the car, my pilgrimage behind me. I close my eyes, grateful to have been spared, so far, such tragedies in my life.

As we drive past the Century 16, still surrounded by police tape and containment barriers, I can’t help but think that, in a way, we are all attending our final movie showing.

Life is a theater where we never know when the movie will end. All we can do is, with our friends and family, enjoy it the best we can, until the show is over and the screen fades to black.

via Thoughts on the Aurora Shooting by an Aurora Atheist.

Scary thought. When will my bad guy jump in and ruin this movie for me?

The weeks fly by, but some days take forever.

via Goblinbooks: I’m Glad You Think Marriage Is Important, Kirk Cameron.

Set against the Fundamentalist Christian practice of ignoring or interpreting away entire passages of the Bible that do not agree with their doctrine but then claiming to believe the “whole Bible” there’s this about accepting those passages as part of the Bible and then telling them no.

The reason I am a Liberal Christian is precisely because I think the only Christianity worthy of the name is one that knows what is in the Bible, and is honest about the fact that we do not believe and practice everything it says, that we do not want to do so, and that there are good reasons why we should not do so.

via “Folks Haven’t Been Reading Their Bibles” – Barack Obama on Religion and Public Policy.

Chick-Fil-A’s president made a statement that he and his company support “biblical” marriage. Op-ed columns and advocacy groups swing into action and take sides for and against Chick-Fil-A for the words of its president. Chick-Fil-A then makes a press release that the company is getting out of same-sex-marriage politics. Penultimately, a blogger asks if “believing that a legitimate family consists of a biological man, a biological woman, and children equate to being anti-gay?”

Finally, another blogger responds with a list of the various permutations that straight families take while raising children, including parents, single parents, grandparents, and teen-mother living with her parents and raising her child while her parents are still raising her. Then the blogger asks:

None of this is a problem, right? It’s really just the gayness of it all that makes you fall back on the word “legitimate,” isn’t it? So, yes. If you announce that you believe that the only “legitimate” family is “a biological man, a biological woman, and children,” I’m pretty confident you are anti-gay.

via Squashed, Yes, it really does.

A couple tidbits I thought were interesting from TYWKIWDBI. And I checked: they’re true!

The triceratops and man lived closer chronologically than a triceratops and stegosaurus.

Cleopatra lived closer chronologically to the moon landing than to the building of the pyramids.

via TYWKIWDBI (“Tai-Wiki-Widbee”): “Fun facts”.

This isn’t meant to be a link-thru to a source. I just liked this turn of phrase so I’m saving it.

a “deep pit of self-righteousness and suicidal despair.”

via Required Reading: Growing Up Un-Absurd with The Sword of the Lord « I Love You but You’re Going to Hell.

How do we need to behave inorder to demonstrate to the world who God isor that he is not trapped insome cultural or intellectual box of our devising? For example, given the amount of hatred that exists between Christians, it would make sense to call believers to love those across the various sectarian divides as a way of concretely and prophetically demonstrating that our God is bigger than our pettiness might otherwise lead people to believe. Or we might argue that by loving Muslims we demonstrate in the most powerfulway possible that our God is God of the whole earth and not of Christians only.

From the post Should We Still Love Our Enemies?

Concerning the Christian cliche, “May I tell you a little about my faith?”

Christian evangelism often is the equivalent of a randy young teenager trying to get in good with his new girlfriend. When your personal agenda is more important than the humanity of the person you’re talking to, most people can sense the opportunism from a mile a way.

via Ten Cliches Christians Should Never Use.