With so many states creating laws demonizing LGBTQ+ identities and conservative Christians supporting so many of them with their votes, I’ve been thinking a lot about a dimension of the ways “Christian Nice” subtly theologically demonizes LGBTQ+ people lately. And when I saw a picture of a church sign that flat out said “we are welcoming but not affirming” I knew I had to take on the topic of the way that a church becoming (LGBTQ+) affirming is seen as…
Okay, so we all KNOW a bunch of us get annoyed with the phrase “all lives matter”–for good reason– when it’s abused. A lot of us even know a lot of the reasons it bothers us. But com theory and related research can really help us see why it bothers us in a new light, and since that’s what I study and teach, I hope to explore what happens when seemingly good concepts like all lives matter “go bad,” and…
As I’ve explained before, I grew up in a denomination which many describe as falling *just* on the Evangelical side of what’s known as the Evangelical-Mainline divide among more conservative and more progressive churches in the US. That means I know many people in the US today who claim to be religio-politically moderate. Most of these are polling in the “independent” category on political surveys–but some are more independent than others. I’ll be frank—I believe the country has swung so…