🧵Basically every prayer I prayed in the first half of my life could be distilled down to one word: THIS.

“God, give me THIS. God, show me THIS. God, make THIS happen… on THIS time table” Many of us were taught to pray this way, I think. You have not THIS because you ask not for THIS, amiright? And so we spend our lives knocking, seeking, rattling off our lists of THISes to God in prayer.

People often ask me how in the world I maintain a close relationship with my dad. I’m a progressive gay man, and as many of you know, he is a Southern Baptist preacher who describes himself as “to the right of Ronald Reagan.” 🧵

These days, you can score a lot of likes on social media by posting about the people you’ve bravely severed from your life—problematic parents, snarky siblings, catty childhood friends. (In severe cases, this may be a necessary step.)

Never…

Well except when the writer of Deuteronomy describes God as a mother eagle, hovering over her offspring.

And except when the book of Job speaks of God as having a womb
and giving birth to the frost of heaven. (1/4)

https://twitter.com/DennyBurk/status/1612316137764569089

And except in the Psalms, when God is figured as a midwife who attends the delivery of children.

And except when Isaiah speaks of God as a nursing mother. (2/4)

THREAD: Criswell is one of Southern Baptist’s most famous racists. In the mid-20th century, he led Southern Baptists in mounting a vehement attack on desegregation, calling it “a denial of all we believe in.”

https://twitter.com/bellevuepastor/status/1278778181995171842

He supported Jim Crow laws, bashed the NAACP, used racial slurs I will not type here, and vocally opposed the emerging civil rights movement. Black folks, he said, should stick with “their kind” and in “their social stratum.”

THREAD: When arguing against LGBTQ relationships, many traditionalist Christians cite Duke Bible scholar Richard Hays’ thoughts in his book, “The Moral Vision of the New Testament.” amazon.com/gp/product/006… (Spoiler coming...) 👇🏼 Well it’s a poorly kept secret that Richard Hays doesn’t exactly stand by what he wrote about homosexuality in that book anymore. I’ve spoken with numerous sources who recount him saying flatly that he would write that part of his book differently today.

I don’t often ask for prayer on here, but my friend Laura from NYC has COVID-19. She has double pneumonia and is in ICU on a ventilator fighting for her life right now. She is only 30. Please pray for her. Update: Laura was airlifted to another hospital where she can be placed on a better vent machine. This will cost $100,000 per day. Her family has set up a gofundme page if you feel so inclined: gofundme.com/f/n7prn-pray-f…

Many pastors I know are worried about their flock’s survival. They tell me they can’t wait to go back to the way it was. I gently respond, “Things are never going back to the way they were.” 1/4 With new viruses and antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria emerging, this will happen again. And next time, it could be much more deadly. It could have high death rates among children. This is the world we live in now. 2/4

THREAD: Following the death of @JarridWilson, my social media feeds have been speckled with the cruel responses of those who bear the name of Christ. One friend even posted today about how he thought mental illness disqualified you from the pastorate. I know that friend and his family, and I’ve spent numerous nights in his home. I’ve remained his friend despite his plagiarism, arrogance, and misogyny.

THREAD: I’m pro-life, and I want to see fewer abortions in America. But many of the extreme laws being passed right now are neither a good nor efficient way to accomplish that goal. Here are some good ideas.... 1. Increased access to contraception for low-income women
2. More funding for mothers who wish to bring their children to term but can’t afford to
3. Higher tax credits for adoption
4. Mandatory maternity and paternity leave for mothers and fathers

THEEAD: For more than a decade I’ve been saying that conservative evangelicalism in America is in trouble. I’ve devoted hundreds of columns and a book (“A Faith of Our Own”) to it. And the good ole (straight white) boys club has snubbed their noses and marched on. But now their churches are shrinking just like the mainlines (Spoiler alert: the big driver was always birth rates, not progressivism), and their institutions are shuttering.

I’m terribly concerned that the Christian Left is becoming a funhouse mirror projection of the Religious Right. Falwell, Kennedy, and Robertson encouraged the blanket support of the Republican Party. Now Christian Left leaders are doing the same with the Democrat Party. (1/5) I’m seeing Christian Left leaders encourage voting a straight blue ticket—no matter what the candidate believes. It feels eerily similar to the way the Christian Coalition distributed voter guides in the 80s. (2/5)

THREAD: Recently, there’s been a little stir among some of my friends on Twitter about gendered language for God. It’s funny to me that those reject feminine language for God do so on the basis of how the Bible talks of God. I wonder if these people have actually read it... Masculine metaphors for God (eg Father, King) are appropriate and helpful but not the only ones we can use to speak of the divine. Feminine metaphors are also helpful. In fact, the Bible uses A LOT of them, which is something I point out in #speakgodbook (amazon.com/Learning-Speak…)

THREAD: Removing Paige Patterson from his post is only the first step in a long journey the Southern Baptist Convention must now embark on. Patterson is only a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. They need a strong resolution on domestic violence, which they haven’t addressed since the 1970s. Procedures must be put in place at SBC entities for dealing with reports of abuse and assault.

The church will never be a refuge for abused women so long as prominent leaders like Southern Baptist Paige Patterson are making dangerous statements like this... baptistblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/leg… The saddest part about this is that the Southern Baptist Convention is the ultimate boys club. So none of Patterson’s buddies will denounce this. They’ll click their tongues in private, but remain publicly silent.

THREAD: Progressive Christians like to pretend they are welcoming, inclusive, enlightened and all those nasty conservatives are hateful, oppressive ogres. But many progressive Christians have become what they claim to dislike so much. These progressives are wizards hiding behind the veil of “inclusivity.” Just like their fundamentalist foes, they don’t make space for people who disagree with them on abortion or same-sex marriage or a range of other issues.