We kick off this episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors with a voicemail about how fugly we apparently are, and then we officially put an end to the discussion over baby-soul popsicles. A listener takes us to task over our insistence that the Obama administration was scandal-free, which springboards into a discussion about what, exactly, constitutes a scandal (does it have to be sexual? Illegal? Both?). Another caller laments the fact that none of her Christian friends paid any attention to her until she decided to leave Team Jesus, which invites the question of whether they really cared about her in the first place. We take a call about the supposed double standard when it comes to school dress codes, and then bring on our very own private investigator to file an in-depth report on the topic from the front lines of Chief Kanim Middle School. And lastly, we weigh in on the Orlando massacre, although at this point what more is there to say? You can’t make a Second Amendment omelette without brutally slaughtering a few gay eggs.
Also, don’t be flashing that collarbone and expect not to get raped.
Podcast #121: Trump/Jay Z 2016: Make America Vile Again!
Podcast #238: School Kids, Tribal Elders, and Black Israelites
Podcast #109: Postmodern Polygamy
Podcast #111: Johnny Scissorhands
More Chloe, please!
• How about a backhanded compliment: “You’re not half as ugly as I thought you were, and not half as smart as you think you are.” 😉
• Jor-El was Superman’s dad. #nerd
• I’m watching Justice League cartoons with my kids now.
• “You treat an outside wound with rubbing alcohol, you treat an inside wound with drinking alcohol.”
• Sorry, the greatest Vanilla Ice song ever is the ninja turtle rap.
• Fro-Yo Embryo.
• There is a fan theory that while Han Solo was frozen in carbonite, he dreamed the Indiana Jones adventures. Google it. The Internet is awesome in its inanity.
• Fast and Furious was started under the Bush Administration and should have been cancelled by the Obama administration, but wasn’t. I wouldn’t call it a scandal, so much as a fuck-up.
• Benghazi was not a scandal either. It was an embassy attack. We have several embassy attacks under the last five administrations. This one was unique because the GOP tried their hardest and are still trying to build it up into a scandal to disqualify Hillary Clinton.
• There are three things which, in my opinion, should be scandals, but aren’t: the war on Libya; taking sides in the Syrian civil war, and supplying and arming the Saudi Arabians in their potentially genocidal war on the state of Yemen.
• But since all three of those things involve blowing the shit out of Middle Easterners, the only criticisms of those actions from Republicans is that Obama hasn’t gone far enough in blowing the shit out of Middle Easterners.
• I don’t think the Hillary e-mail scandal really qualifies as a scandal as much as it qualifies as our government, in general, being seemingly behind the times on technology and cyber-security.
• But, of course, she still killed Vince Foster, you know?
• Obama isn’t a real true Christian. First, he’s not a Republican. And he’s not even conservative. He’s not for lower tax rates on the wealthy. He thinks we should help the poor. He’s still on his first wife. He thinks gay people should be treated like equal human beings, for God’s sake. Dude probably doesn’t even believe in the Rapture. I bet he’s Amillennial. Bloody heathen.
• Trump also tried to kick poor rent controlled tenants out of a building so he could tear it down and build another Trump tower.
• Trump is the out and proud racism. The GOP elite prefer the quiet country club racism. It’s more “respectable.”
• Dude, Christian, how’s your walk, bro? The Lord has just really laid you on my heart lately, and I wanted to ask if I could pray with you and just love on you, bro…
• People who use the phrase ‘love on you’ really don’t get just how dirty and inappropriate it sounds.
• Come on, Jason, if you don’t say the right magic words and perform the correct Christian rituals, our omnipotent and loving God just can’t save you or love you.
• Yes, but if you really care about me, you would have talked to me and you would know where I’m coming from, what problems I’ve had with American Christianity, and what doubts I possess.
• How about you just go to uniforms then? My kid’s school district requires uniforms. Eliminate the bias and the problem at once.
• And the problem with guys getting distracted by girls wearing reasonable clothes is totally on the guy, notwithstanding the endless lectures by CCHS folks to the ladies about not wanting to ‘stumble your brother.’
• Look, ladies, if you just wore burqas, we wouldn’t have this problem.
• Well, the man gets off scot-free because we all know that the merest sight of a woman’s skin turns us all into slavering rape beasts.
• “Mad Kenobi…” You’ve raised your daughter well. My little girl wants a Star Wars themed party for her sixth birthday.
• Question everything. Even this.
• German is a cool language because no matter what you say, it sounds like you’re cussing.
• Scheisskopf was my favorite German profanity.
• We don’t need no ferin languages. This is ‘Merica. You speak ‘Merican. Trump 2016.
• http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/hear-scarlett-johansson-read-sexy-bible-verses-on-new-mike-obrien-track-20151028
• If they put out that audio bible. I would listen to my bible every day again.
• I’d only listen for about a minute, but I’d still listen.
• And I’m really going to hell for that joke now…
• I’d go to Iceland, I think. They seem to have their shit together over there.
• Another mass shooting. Another day ending in ‘y’.
• And it’s been eight days now and everyone is over the last mass shooting. It’s gone.
• What are the Kardashians up to?
• Sigh…
• I think it’s easy to say I’m a pacifist. I think it’s easy to say “I trust in God”. In practice, however, we’re still human. We’re subject to the same fears everyone has and we live in a culture that glorifies violence and guns as a solution to problems.
• The entire 80’s action movie genre was based on the idea of one man with a shitload of guns going outside the system and making Them pay. The ineffectual pussies played by the rules. The real man brought justice to the world with his gun.
• This is echoed in the 50’s western genre too.
• Popular culture has tied the concept of masculinity and guns together for some time.
• American Christian culture also lauds the Old Testament stories of warriors killing the bad guys in the name of Jehovah. Joshua is a positive example instead of a genocidal warlord. Samson is criticized not for murdering scores of people, but for his sexual appetites.
• “Guns don’t kill people…”
• Then I guess we don’t need guns.
• We all know that bad things never happened when Europe was a Christian continent under the authority of the Church.
• That meme is stupid. After OKC, the FBI began monitoring people who purchased large quantities of fertilizer. After 9/11, we put in place an entire security apparatus to try and prevent another one from happening. We fought the largest war the United States has ever fought to stop Nazi Germany and we took steps to try and make sure it didn’t happen again. Meanwhile, we have enough Americans murdered by guns every year so that it’s the equivilient of three 9/11s (and ten if you factor in suicides and accidental deaths) and we do jack. Shit.
• I’m out. Peace.
Chloe says “like” as much as Christian. Looks like an apple a day doesn’t fall far from the doctor.
I sympathize with Leah’s voicemail. I’ve had the same experience, which is why I’m not on FB. My giant fundamentalist extended family is too stalkerish. But I agree with Jason that they see this as an attempt to save me from eternal hellfire. It’s just hard to take when it’s your own mom who can’t see you as the person you are or hear anything you’re saying. I would hope that nothing could make me not see my kid or be able to listen to her and engage with her as if she was a rational adult. If treating your kid this way is what your god requires of you then I have no interest in spending ETERNITY with this god.
I’m thinking you guys weren’t paying attention during the “God’s plan for marriage” talks. Or maybe boys got a different talk than the girls did. What I learned is that girls and women have no sexual desires (this was implied, not stated directly) and that female sexuality amounts to being the gatekeepers of male sexuality. So of course it wouldn’t matter what the boys wear to school. They might as well be naked. The important thing is what the girls wear since they are directly responsible for the boy’s behavior. Just one more church experience that left me convinced that something was terribly wrong with me.
When I lived in CA I got used to calling it “the 405,” but all the little regional names drove me crazy. I-5 is just I-5, and it shouldn’t matter where you are or which direction you’re going. How does it make any sense to call the same interstate the Golden State Freeway and the Santa Ana Freeway and the San Diego Freeway? Not to mention that I-5 belongs to the entire west coast, not just CA. And then you move to the Rocky Mtn states and call it a freeway and people are like “wtf are you talking about it’s called interstate 25.” I only use the numerical names no matter where I am now. It’s too much work. But I still say soda, not pop. I can’t get used to that.
After too much wine this past weekend, my mom (who I told I’m not a Christian anymore several months ago), told me she felt like she failed as a parent because I lost my faith. Wtf mom. So that puts me in the position of trying to comfort my mom and assure her she’s not a bad mom at all and despite my position on religion, she did a great job. Jesus Christ….
Ouch….
My parents felt a similar disappointment when I became a Roman Catholic. Religion can cause a deep divide between family members. Saying grace over meals becomes awkward. Discussing Sunday becomes awkward. Just standard conversation about the many things religion touches on becomes awkward. Its a sad hard life and then we die. Just make the most of it while you can
Don’t be too hard on your folks. If they think you are on a path that brings pain & sorrow it can be challenging to speak with such a person patiently. Think of how you might feel if your kids embraced a lifestyle of heroin, prostitution, and joined a Mexican cartel. Imagine them trying to explain all the ways they were just fine and finally happy. Then multiply that X 100 and you have something like how parents feel about apostate children.
If treating your kid this way is what your god requires of you then I have no interest in spending ETERNITY with this god.
Jason and I had a brief exchange last week on whether or not people actually existed who would choose eternity away from God. Your statement here seems to be quite scriptural.
John 3:19-20 – And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”
Romans 8:7-8 – For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God
You aren’t the first to say you would rather not be in heaven with God. Its a common thing. Interesting right? We have a psych evaluation for unbelievers in our holy books lol!!!
https://youtu.be/hV95JQ2SLuQ
So of course it wouldn’t matter what the boys wear to school. They might as well be naked. The important thing is what the girls wear since they are directly responsible for the boy’s behavior. Just one more church experience that left me convinced that something was terribly wrong with me.
The thing is that this is the same at Chloe’s school but she’s almost never even been to church much less a Christian school.
But I think it’s a common thread that runs through our broader cultural attitudes (to a lesser degree) and also through rape culture and purity culture, in a more extreme form. If it’s Chloe and her friends’ responsibility to make sure the boys aren’t distracted, then to some degree they’re the gatekeepers of the male sexuality in their school. Which is a fucked up message to send to girls when they’re just at the point where they’re figuring things out and learning about their own sexuality and they don’t need all that baggage.
On a barely related note, the names Chloe and Fiona were both in my top 5 when my daughter was born, but I went with Quinn. 🙂
I know this is where they’re coming from, and I absolutely bite my tongue most of the time. To me the bigger issue is that they cannot act as if I’m an autonomous person, they can’t allow that I might have my own reasons for making the choices I make, and they can’t drop the constant attempts at emotional manipulation. I think it’s one thing to try to persuade someone but a whole other thing to try to manipulate and control. To me it reflects a total lack of respect and I have a hard time making myself be mentally and emotionally present for that. And why should I? The problem is that then I have this really bad habit that doesn’t serve me well in other areas of my life. You want to have an unpleasant conversation with me? Good luck with that. I peace out in the blink of an eye, and I’ve had to work for years on learning how not to do that reflexively.
On the topic of choosing not to spend eternity in the presence of god… I was kind of joking. God just doesn’t seem all that real to me. But even if he did seem real to me, if he’s anything like the Bible says he is, then I still think no thanks.
I’ve had very similar conversations with my mom. It’s a no-win situation. It’s hard because I think there’s a distinction between wanting someone (who did the best they could in the situation) to feel bad and wanting things to change. I want some of the narratives in my extended family to change because they’re so damaging, but if I push for that then my mom and my aunts all act like I’m trying to put some giant guilt trip on them, when I’m absolutely not. It’s a silencing technique, I think.
My response is to live 1200 miles away.
Also, how come nobody talks about the kind of guns they had at the time of the second amendment? Conservatives love originalism, right? So there’s your compromise. Whatever kind of muzzle-loading firearms they had back in the day – every household in America gets one of those.
I would echo what Rachel said in her response to you. The general lack of respect and unwillingness to really listen is really what causes the awkwardness. I think that dismissive attitude towards an honest discussion comes from years of narcissistic and manipulative instruction from religion.
It doesn’t have to be a sad hard life. If there can just be open dialogue and mutual respect we can spend less time arguing and more time making the world a better place to live in for everyone. That might not be easy, but it should be the ultimate goal. I think more progressive churches are trying to get there just based on the way our culture is heading. What is really interesting to me is how these more progressive churches are struggling with fitting square key traditional christian believes into the round hole of cultural progress.
Sorry about your folks’ reaction. You guys even have the same god and savior and they still feel like failures! That’s incredible.
I agree that it is a silencing technique. I just want my family to see that I have no underlying motives to try and get them to join me in “living in sin”. I just want to be honest and open about what I am feeling and why I don’t believe certain things anymore and if that makes them to start thinking critically about what they believe, so be it. I don’t care either way. Let’s just talk about it like adults.
Jason made a comment that the formation of the religious right resulted from political coalescence of evangelicals around the issue of abortion. A very good case can be made that this is only partly true. The religious right as a political force for the Republican party was conceived by a group of conservative “Christian” bigots who were trying to use religious liberty as an excuse to preserve segregated institutions. In the last year of Nixon’s presidency, the IRS informed Bob Jones University and other segregated institutions that claimed tax exempt status for religious reasons that they either needed to integrate or they would lose their tax exempt status. They refused and lost their tax exempt status during the Carter administration and the case was finally decided by the Supreme Court in 1983. Turns out, if you want to use your religion as an excuse for bigotry, U.S. tax payers don’t have to subsidize your efforts with tax exemptions.
During this period Falwell and other members of the good ole boys club tried like hell to martial evangelicals to speak out against the IRS’s infringement of religious liberty. But they were not particularly successful. However, they had planted the seed for organizing the religious right as a political force, and moved on to the next issue–abortion. The bigots then recruited Francis Schaefer to their cause, and proceeded to martial a large coalition of single issue voters and convince them that the Republican party represented their values.
On a related note, the South used to vote reliably Democrat until desegregation and the Republicans made a conscious play for these votes by pandering to white southerner’s racial discontent.
Southern Republicans and evangelical Christians, two reliable and necessary lynchpins for Republican success in the electoral college. Both groups were midwifed by bigotry. (I don’t mean to suggest that all Southern Republicans and all evangelical Christians, but they have certainly been lead around by their noses by those who are)
Which brings us to Trump, the pandering racist Presidential nominee of the Republican party who is currently courting and meeting with evangelical Christian leaders. He is not a conservative candidate. He is the candidate of the party that actively and consciously made and laid down in a racist bed. This has nothing to do with conservatism as political theory, and everything to do with winning the party politics war at all costs. And oh what a cost.
Back to the beginnings of the religious right as a political force. I’m reminded of 2 things from the Bible. (1) The Jews misread all the signs that Jesus was the Messiah because they were looking for a political savior. (2) Jesus said no man can serve two masters. The Church in America made a huge mistake when it organized politically and submitted itself to the Republican party because of a right to life. Everyone who looks at the issue of church attendance/participation notes that each generation is less churched than the one before. And I strongly believe the foregoing tale is why. Governing is a messy job that requires compromise and prioritizing some principles over others. To try and align religious principles with a single school of thought for political governance is a fool’s errand and your fidelity to your religious principles will necessarily suffer. After watching their grandparent and parents try to walk this tightrope and fail, I believe the youth of today are simply calling bullshit. If a religion can be subverted by politics, the religion is not worth anything. If church leaders care about the next generation of souls, they must get out of the political game.
Incidentally, here’s the primary source for my description of the Bob Jones University story. It’s fascinating http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
Wow, fascinating stuff, Aaron. I’ll check out the link.
But then you aren’t allowed to have the semiautomatic 1st amendment tool known as the “internet”. Sound right?
Oh man I totally relate with you on the “checking out” of unpleasant conversations. Especially when you already know everything they are going to say, the reasons why the will say it, and how futile attempts at reconciliation will most likely be
thats all hogwash. The Christian right had teamed with the republican party as far back as the cold war. Again, in the sixties, and again in the 80s to the present day. Its been a long time partnership that has everything to do with ideology.
Democrats supported slavery, and then Jim Crowe, had a boner for communism, stood against MLK in the civil rights era, and now support abortion (killing children in the womb), abolishing school prayer, same sex marriage, and every other cultural thing that Christians could never agree with.
How could a christian have been a democrat in any of those historical periods? Talk about being born from bigotry. The GOP has been consistently correct in all of those eras and the DNC has consistently failed even the easiest moral questions. Its been a natural partnership. Certainly not one you could peg historically on just one single event or person.
Southern Democrats stood for slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation.
It was Democrats that launched every war of containment on communism. It was the Democratic party that labored for the Civil Rights Act, knowing that it would cost them the South. And sure enough, after the Civil Rights Act was passed, the South turned reliably Republican.
Conservatives lobbied against civil rights. Read the essays of William Buckley and the National Review, as well as articles in Christian magazines of the day. They were staunchly against MLK and his push for equality, sometimes even tying such ideas with communism.
I mean, hell, you were not that long ago pushing the same bullshit state’s and personal rights nonsense that they did in opposition to LGBT rights that conservatives were pushing to oppose the Civil Rights act.
Your ideology blinds you to facts and history.
Wow. So many mistakes. Where to start….
The idea that democrats “labored for civil rights” is an atrocious falsehood. You wont be allowed to rhetorically bury Bull Connors, the longstanding affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, and the pitiless opposition to practically every major piece of civil-rights legislation for a century. That’s the democrat story. Y’all were the anti liberty party and still are to this day.
There is no radical break in the Republicans’ civil-rights history: From abolition to Reconstruction to the anti-lynching laws, from the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, there exists a line that is by no means perfectly straight or unwavering but that nonetheless connects the politics of Lincoln with those of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The National Review, Buckley, and Goldwater were against the civil rights legislation due to constitutional libertarian concerns…. Not because they were racist. Goldwater helped found the NAACP. Besides, they were in the extreme minority within the GOP.
Not the case with those racist Dems. From slavery and secession to remorseless opposition to everything from Reconstruction to the anti-lynching laws, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, there exists a similarly identifiable line connecting John Calhoun and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Thems the facts.
Born of bigotry. Fond of big government, eugenics, and control of minorities. Still to this very day sporting the lingering boner for communism. Just ask Bernie.
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/07/william_f_buckley_and_national_reviews_vile_race_stance_everything_you_need_to_know_about_conservatives_and_civil_rights/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121598863003949317
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights
http://addictinginfo.org/history-democrats-republicans-on-civil-rights-equality/
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/05/conservative-fantasy-history-of-civil-rights.html
I could go on, but since reality has a liberal bias, I’m sure it won’t matter.
And, of course, I should point out that once again, you were making the same arguments that Buckley and company were just a few threads ago, standing in opposition to the core of the Civil Rights Act.
And you, like many other conservatives, have no idea what communism means if you think the term applicable to Sanders.
Dude I’m a US history major. It is an undeniable fact that the democrat party (Dixiecrats) stood against any and all civil rights legislation all the way up to the civil rights act. Johnson was as racist as racist can be. He did a 180 and embraced the civil rights act for political expediency. This is not even disputable. Just look up who voted against and slowed down the civil rights movement.
I know of no professional historian that denies this reality. Zero. The best the Left can do is try to claim that Republicans and Democrats somehow “switched” parties suddenly and out of the clear blue in the 60s. But apart from that totally spacious and absurd idea you don’t have an argument. Start from the civil war era and move forward. Its all democrats.
Bernie Sanders was a communist sympathizer in his youth…. Because that’s what leftist did in the old days. As I’ve already pointed out. The boner lingers, but for the most part the hippies have finally let go of that fantasy today. But leftists flirted with Marx for an embarrassingly long time.
As someone who doesn’t have a good working knowledge of the history of U.S. Politics, this looks like an interesting book. What I thought was really interesting is the idea (more of a reminder) that evangelicals have always been involved in politics but just couldn’t definitively unite and mobilize for a while. The author calls the Bob Jones Uni/IRS situation the “seminal event in mobilizing Christian conservatives”. As a history major, what is your take on that situation and the impact it has had on politics?
Both the right’s and left’s histories are for sure complicated and I am definitely not as knowledgeable on the subject as I should be, but how do we move forward? How do we get past the divisiveness? I don’t see that ever happening as long as one side believes God is only on their side and has delivered to them the ultimate Truth.
As a history major, what is your take on that situation and the impact it has had on politics?
It was the lead up into what is today the dividing line for 40 million evangelical voters. But, as ive been struggling to articulate, this same block was already a more natural fit with conservatism. Abortion is what had the masses ready to mobilize. BJU was a movement that ended up producing leaders by historical accident.
I think the best way to get past the divisiveness is to introduce a third party to keep things honest. Its easy to demonize the other guy…. but things get more complicated whenthere are multiple opinions. For these reasons. ive thrown my lot in with Gary Johnsons and the libertarian party. I know he wont win. But if he gets on that debate stage we may have a three party system in the making.
A middle party (like the libertarian party) could really bring some compromise and change to our cultural landscape. We cant continue taking turns “getting our way” at the expense of the other half of our population. Thats what compromise is for! make sure no one is totally happy and you probably have a good deal. At least, thats what my prenup attorney told me……..
Hah! That’s sound legal advice. I’m with you on the third party compromise. I voted for Johnson last go around and plan to again. You’re right though. If Johnson can get on stage with those two clowns it will be interesting. But he’s going to have to be on point and kill it up there (if it ever happens).
he is about 5% points off….. he can get that by
1. Hillary imploding (possible with fbi thing looming
2. Donald Trump continuing to implode…. WHich is possible given everything we know about Donald Trump.
It really comes down to the Bernie fans though. If they bail… which i hope they will, that might put him over the top. Then he just needs to not fuck up
Seems like an odd analogy. I’ve never used the internet to kill anyone, and to the best of my knowledge the internet has never accidentally discharged and killed a toddler in his own home.
ISIS uses the internet to recruit. A child can play on the computer for a few minutes and attract a child predator which happens just as much as accident discharge fatalities if not more.
I can’t even begin to list all the relevant differences here that make this an absurd analogy. It’s not even close.
Isn’t it true that the founding father’s didn’t write the 1st amendment with the internet, cell phones, social media, etc in mind? How is that not a perfect parallel?
Look up how many people die per year of mass shootings vs how many ISIS recruits, child abductions, etc that happen via modern communications. If 1% of all gun violence is enough to rewrite the second amendment surely the comparable numbers of tragedy via modern communications justify a revision of the first
OK, let’s compare them. Assault rifles vs the internet. Assault rifles were made for one thing – they’re useful for one thing. Killing large amounts of people quickly and efficiently. The internet and other modern communication technologies were made for… communication. The transfer of information. Do individuals sometimes use modern communication technology to perpetrate violence. Sure, but it’s a teeny tiny fraction of the activity that occurs via these mediums. And for that matter, your argument would rule out the telegraph machine, written letters, and … talking. Let’s ban talking because some people use talking to organize violent actions.
What’s the far more deadly modern device than the internet? The automobile. Here again the automobile has a primary function other than killing people. Occasionally things go wrong and people die due to automobile travel. But as with the internet and other communication devices, the automobile has nothing to do with the second amendment.
And as to the argument that some people use assault rifles for hunting (which I’ve heard before) I live in Wyoming, which has as strong of gun culture as any state in the nation. I know a large number of serious, lifelong hunters. All of them will tell you that if a “hunter” needs an assault rifle, s/he is no hunter at all and doesn’t belong out in the woods. The only person who needs an assault rifle for hunting is someone who has no skill, no respect for the land, and no understanding of what it is you’re doing out there. What’s more, assault rifles aren’t even very effective for hunting, because they’re made for short range situations in which the hope is to inflict maximum damage in the shortest time frame.