Critic Cal

Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” ( Judges 11 :34-35) MEN OF THEIR WORD   Now Jephthah was a mighty promiser; A man Of Gilead, by Fallen Matriliny but His father’s son Unstinting in ambition. Jephthah was A leader of his brothers, Takers-back of land together, for the glory, Hallelujah, Of the Lord, the land, his brothers For his father’s house. He was a worshipper, According to the true profession, Jephthah Burned with holy fire On the threshold of his premises. He did His people proud. And so It is a custom, to this day, among the people That the fathers of their daughters Every year asse...

'While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.  '“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”' ( Mark 14:3-9 ) MEMO   Do not break this thing, Do not waste that; Do not let down your hair and weep and make a scene....

A few months back, increasingly anxious about Jordan Peterson 's growing influence among Christian men, and wanting a fuller picture (beyond the eek-inducing soundbites) of exactly what it was they and so many others were embracing, I gritted my teeth and, to Mr. W's horror, read 12 Rules for Life . It left me with Many Thoughts, but too disturbed and weary to share them straight away. I hope I will get around to doing so properly one day – I'm especially keen to unpack the aspects of the book's ideology that seem to me so flagrantly at odds with Christ-like self-giving and the subversion of dominance hierarchies characteristic of God's royal reign. In the meantime, here is a poem which it may or may not have had something to do with. 'And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord [...] He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the...

As someone with a healthy recognition of my need for the mercy of God, as well as a less-than-healthy capacity for shame and religious anxiety (people, we really need to help each other learn the difference), Psalm 51 – King David's great prayer of contrition and repentance – has long been close to my heart. Have mercy on me, O God,     according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy     blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,     and cleanse me from my sin! ( Psalm 51 :1-2) But I've had a growing unease with it ever since the following was pointed out to me. "Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight..." confesses David to God (Ps 51:4). Meanwhile, the short context-providing note at the start of the psalm explains the particular sin which has prompted this humbled outcry: "A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." If "...

I want you to understand that, if I seem to have rather a lot to say about the current US administration, it's because, as a white evangelical Christian – albeit one with a different set of cultural baggage and without a vote – I consider myself implicated. It's my theology that has elevated Trump. It's scriptures that I revere as holy that are being used to justify the policies and behaviour of him and his associates. Songs I sing on a Sunday morning are being sung six or so hours later by Christian sisters and brother who voted for him and are openly celebrating his advancement of their cause. Books and articles and YouTube clips that do the rounds in my social networks have their origins in the minds of Christian elites whose allegiance as events unfold have proven frighteningly unswerving. There is no detaching myself. And, to be honest, the apparent detachment of other evangelicals rather disturbs than inspires me. Especially as I have a hunch that this detachment ...

At the start of the year I wrote about  the alienation of being bombarded by seasonal jollity when (for personal and/or socially conscious reasons) you're really not 'feeling it', nor sure that you should be. Well, in my church tradition the jollity tends to keep on coming – as, for me, does the disconnect...           ORDER OF SERVICE                  Let’s make a joyful noise before the Lord!          Maracas at the ready, girls and boys;          Before we take our seats and Kevin brings a word,          Let’s make a joyful noise.                  Forget fake news; spurn melancholy’s ploys;          My friends, have we not overcome the world?          Then stand together, with triumphant poise!         ...

A tipsily cheerful, older-than-me chap in the pub where I go to write recently informed me that, d'you know, he'd walked past my table a couple of times and  he couldn't decide whether I was a man or a woman! To be fair to my new friend, I wasn't dressed as a woman. I wasn't dressed 'as' anything. I was just there in jeans and a conference hoodie – ideal for the (coldish) weather and the errand-y to-dos on my list, but hardly apt to give a person curves they don't already possess. My medium-length hair had been styled by the elements, my complexion was as even and clear as OK-ish hydration and cleansing would have it, and I hadn't so much as sketched a single facial feature. And yet, here I was outside the confines of my own home and apparently quite comfortable to be seen in public. It does seem like more the sort of thing a man would do... Not that all men choose to present themselves 'as-is', but at least it's socially acceptab...

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood   is an evangelical Christian organisation established in 1987 "primarily to help the church defend against the accommodation of secular feminism" (see  Mission Statement ). They remain committed to actively promoting what is described as a "complementarian" view on gender issues, identities, roles and relationships, which they believe to be the Biblically correct one. Key features are the affirmation of male headship and of traditional domestic roles for women. Once upon a time I would've taken up their message with earnest credence. I too want my life to be shaped by God's truth and not the world's latest ideology, and Grudem and Piper et al . are able to quote chapter and verse with a confidence that a younger me was apt to find compelling. But over the years, as I studied and came to know and love the Bible more and more for myself, I began to seriously question many of the supposedly "obvious...

“Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word. The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me. Then I compared the translations we have—and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James version says this—it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’ It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”  Samuel nodded. “And his children didn’t do it entirely,” he said.  Lee sipped his coffee. “Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible. It was very new then. And it was different in this passage. It says, ‘Do thou rule over him.’ Now this is very different. This is not a promise, it is an order. And I began to stew about it. I wondered what the original word of th...