In episode 10 of Drunk Ex-Pastors, “Free Whiskey, Bad Teachers, and Sex Education”, I relate a story about my daughter having her phone taken away in class last year. The issue was that, while her regular teacher allowed phone usage in class, the substitute she had that day did not, so her phone was confiscated. To retrieve the phone, I had to make a visit to the school, which ended up with me inadvertently making a more public stand against The Pledge of Allegiance than I had intended. Again, the full story is available in the podcast below. (My thoughts on The Pledge of Allegiance are also available here.) However, this brings up another question: should mobile phone usage be allowed in class? I have two boys about to graduate high … [Read more...]
Hamster Sex: How Young is Too Young?
I finally finished listening back to Drunk Ex-Pastors #10 yesterday, and I found myself practically wanting a complete do-over (that kind of thing is pretty common for me: "I should have said this"; "I could have been clearer there," etc.). One issue that just wasn't sitting right for me was the point I was making about sex being more than simply scratching a biological itch. The reason I was insisting on this is that humans are not just natural but supernatural beings, a point that any parent tacitly agrees with when he or she says something like, "I don't think my 12 year-old daughter is emotionally ready to have sex." We don't say that of hamsters, because we all know that humans are a higher order of being than animals. Plus hamsters … [Read more...]
To School or Not to School
In our discussion during Podcast #10 about education, I remarked that I don’t remember much, if anything, that I “learned” in school. As a matter of fact, most of what I know and use now, besides the basics, I learned after I graduated. It’s not because I was a bad student. I actually graduated with honors. It’s because, for the most part, I wasn’t learning, I was memorizing. If I learned anything, it was how to pass a test! During the podcast, I brought up “unschooling,” which is a non-traditional philosophy of education. It’s also an easy idea to make fun of because the idea of not attending school regularly is ridiculous, right? That idea is mostly for religious zealots and militia members, right? Sometimes our conditioning gets the … [Read more...]
On Pee-Pees and Hoo-Haws
In episode #10 of Drunk Ex-Pastors, Christian and I discuss the thorny issue of sex education. Now to be honest, I have not actually listened back to it myself, so I don’t remember exactly what I said on the matter. I’ll take a stab at re-presenting some of my thoughts, and you can feel free to push back and challenge them. My main concern is that I am uncomfortable with something of such monumental significance being taught to my children by a P.E. teacher (true story in my case). This kind of education should be happening primarily in the home, with outside sources reinforcing what mom or dad is already communicating. Secondly, what if (that’s hypothetical language, by the way) a family’s values don’t match up with a school’s? … [Read more...]
The News’s Skewed Views
One of the questions that comes up in podcast #9 at 28:45 (available for listening below) is whether or not the news media unfairly represents police officers. If you watch the news frequently, the majority of what you’ll hear about the police (minus the occasional feel good story) is negative: cop beats homeless man, cop shoots black man, cop pepper sprays peaceful protestors, etc. A plethora of these kinds of stories being reported will usually elicit cries of bias and misrepresentation. Really, this is a question that can be applied to any group the news reports on: politicians, bankers, Christians, doctors, etc. When the news reports that a politician is taking bribes, that bankers are manipulating the system, that a pastor had an … [Read more...]
Yes by Might, Yes by Power: Lawsuits and Leadership at Calvary Chapel
As we delve into in episode #9 of Drunk Ex-Pastors, the church that we grew up in (Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa) is embroiled in a bitter lawsuit, brought by two of the now-deceased founding pastor’s children, concerning both leadership and ownership of the church’s vast financial resources. My contention was that in the context of a paradigm where the only way to judge a leader’s authority is by whether or not you agree with him, this kind of in-fighting and lust for power is par for the course. Still, it is disheartening to see church leaders behaving with no more dignity and decorum than secular leaders, and for my part, I can totally see how so many of my friends have lost their respect for the Christian church because of the … [Read more...]
Thank God for Hell!
During episode #9 of Drunk Ex-Pastors we fielded a provocative question we received via Twitter: “Since neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor the early church fathers displayed the kind of urgency that a belief in hell as a place of eternal torment would seem to necessitate, is it possible that there is something wrong with the paradigm that insists that hell is in fact a place of eternal torment?” During the podcast, Christian made an interesting point about how upset many evangelicals get when it is suggested to them that their theory of hell is wrong. They clench their fists and dig their heels, as if the suggestion that God might not spend eternity waterboarding people were actually bad news. What do you think? Do you have an opinion … [Read more...]
Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You?
If you’re like me and you’ve seen the news lately highlighting all the senseless shootings of black men by white cops, or if you’ve ever watched a documentary about any anti-establishment movement (whether about the civil rights protests in the ’60s or the protest in Seattle against the World Bank in the ’90s), then you’ve surely asked the question, “Dafuq is the deal with the po-leece? Does that profession just attract petty men who were bullied in junior high and who need a target for their juvenile aggression?” If that’s you, then you need to listen to the latest episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors. Just saying. . . . … [Read more...]
Racism: For Whites Only?
In podcast #8 (available for streaming and download below), one of the topics we discuss is racism. Jason brings up a quote from the first season of MTV’sThe Real World where Kevin Powell (a black cast member) is accused of racism and in response says, “Black people cannot be racist. We don’t have the power to control. . . .” At first hearing, I dismissed Kevin’s statement as ignorant. After all, racism, to me (a white male), means considering someone to be inferior in some way simply because of their race. While this is a valid definition of racism, it’s not the only definition of racism and not even the main definition. A quick search through the various definitions of racism will show that racism also has to do with the exercise … [Read more...]
My Dateless Existence
What makes someone a picky eater? The reason I ask is that I have endured this label for years, and I have had enough. As I argue in episode #8 of Drunk Ex-Pastors, there’s a difference between actively disliking a particular food on the one hand, and simply not preferring it on the other. So when I say, “I don’t like eggs,” all I’m saying is that while I will eat them in a pinch, there’re 14 other items on the menu that I will choose first (contrast this with something like broccoli, which I actually dislike). But then, it’s possible that the picky-eater label is due to my never having tried certain foods, like olives, mushrooms, dates, or pecans. Yet even this has nothing to do with pickiness, I swear. It’s just that I was already … [Read more...]