Post-Racial Church: The Myth and the Hope Part II: So what can we do?

[click here for Part I]

David Mills directs us to Larry Auster’s comments regarding “The only hope for the betterment of the black race (and the white race)”:

“The solution cannot be in the ‘horizontal’ dimension, that is, in the relationship between blacks and non-blacks, because blacks will always be behind on the level of earthly functioning, leading to unjust racial resentment on the part of blacks and undeserved racial guilt on the part of whites.

“The solution can only be found in the ‘vertical’ dimension,” he continues, “... in the relationship between each black person and God through Jesus Christ, who will put each person’s self in true order and true freedom and remove the focus on the ‘horizontal’ differences and inequalities.

“Each black person will then live and perform and fulfill himself as a human being according to his own aspirations and abilities, without comparing himself to whites.”

Um, yeah, so the solution is for us to pray for us to forgive white folks and leave our resentment behind. I do believe we need to keep having conversations across the racial divide, and I’m as “We Are the World” as the next brother, but this would be considered a conversation fail. Note, while there is some truth in the statement, the onus was in what black people need to do. We can get sidetracked and bogged down by so many conversations that dance around the true issues at hand, and still manage to enflame all the old passions and lingering resentments. Conversation does not mean confess your guilt to a Negro. Don’t confuse institutions of black survival (the black family, black church, and black schools) with institutional or reverse racism.

Sociologically speaking, I’ve learned that we can have the language of sorry, but we don’t have the practice of sorry. My two boys, Reese and Malcolm, have been known to on occasion fight. We, the parental figures and ruling authority in their lives, have been known to make them apologize to one another. Without fail, the initial apology is done through gritted teeth and is essentially worthless. But it is a start. If I’ve learned nothing over the last few months, I’ve at least learned that “sorry”, or rather, repentance, needs to be lived out. And racism needs to be repented of.

Institutionally speaking, the church doesn’t need to program diversity, it needs to be diverse. One of the myths about the Great Commission is that Crossing cultures is a step beyond the general mandate. This myth is that only select missionaries are called to cross cultures in order to make disciples. The rest of us should only focus on people like us, in our culture. The problem with this myth is that the actual Great Commission commands otherwise. Incredibly, Jesus gave a commandment to his mostly Jewish audience to go to a mostly Gentile people and make disciples! Jesus commanded his Jewish followers to go to all people groups (all ethnos, the Greek word for “nations”). In other words, the Great Commission itself is a mandate to cross cultures!

So we start with the individuals. Church folks concerned about multi-cultural church or the state of race relations, looking at your FaceBook friends list is a natural moment to examine the demographics of your life. If the diversity is my sister and I, you may need to color up your lives. I’m not saying take out ads looking for black friends, I’m saying take some steps to break out of the comfortable routine of your life.

At the same time, diversity isn’t the goal. Diversity isn't the mission. We're to be missional, advance God's kingdom here on earth. Strive to carve out a foretaste of what heaven's supposed to be. In my experience, most times conversations about race in the context of church devolve into spiritual circle jerk. Churches may talk about wanting diversity, even making token statements about wanting to see it reflected from the top down, yet their leadership remains a white, sausage fest. We hear plenty of talk and have attended many conventions, now we need more.

Too many people's idea of being post-black (post-racial group of choice) means leaving their heritage behind. As we move forward, no one should have to leave their culture for the the sake of coming together. I mentioned in my previous post about how my formative years were spent in another (the dominant) culture. It is part of a journey I’ve spoken about before. As a result, I was a perpetual other: never a part of the dominant culture and often looked at askance by my own. In order to navigate my circumstance, and keep some measure of cultural sanity, I developed a third culture mentality.

Church should be a third culture experience. Countercultural. Church needs to serve everyone: hungry is hungry, widowed is widowed, orphaned is orphaned, the least of these are the least of these. Pain knows no color. Diversity can be a measurement of how well we’re doing our job. Not something expressly sought after, but a by-product of how well you are serving your community. Your whole community.

Are we really living out our core values, the things we say we're about or do we once again have to learn to be patient and give the church another chance to get things right (and forgive it its slowness)?

Church is a bigger place than one building or one community. I’ve come to realize that one particular body might not meet all of our needs and may fail us on occasion. And we’re quick to measure our experience with the church by a particular body. But it is all of the Christians who make up the church. Our mission is to be about loving, learning, worshiping, and serving together and one another. But we can’t be that until we’re willing to enter the discomfort. In any culture, despite pain and discomfort that may come. We have to risk our safety and taking on pain. We need truth tellers, bridge builders, and risk takers. We need to be the church.

Post-Racial Church: The Myth and the Hope Part I: Coming to You

It would be cool for someone to do a documentary called "Being Black In Evangelicalism" the sub-title would be "The Only Black Person In The Room" (or vice-versa). Evangelicals, as members of the dominant culture, have no idea what it's like for a black person (esp. a black female) to be the only black dude in a room full of whites. It's hard to describe unless you've been in that position but it's always a bit uncomfortable no matter how nice and welcoming people are. I've been at evangelical stuff where the room had a few hundred whites and I'm the only black guy. And no one ever really seems to notice.

In light of the Jim Crow still being alive poolside incident, I’ve been thinking about race and wondering if things are any better in the church. With some of the talk about the new post-racial era that we're entering, the question has come up about whether the church can become post-racial. That's the hope, but I’ve been coming to terms with church being as fallen as the people who make it up.

Too many about race inside and outside of the church begin (and end) with “I don’t see race” as if that’s a triumph of societal acceptance. While I understand what the sentiment attempts to get at, what my ears often hear and how my heart reacts is “No, you see people (culturally) like you.” The bulk of our interchange of life, most of our interactions, is largely within the same race of people. So of course there’s no need to talk about race. You don’t see race if you’re fully emerged in one story. And we’ve lived with our comfortable situations for so long we’ve become inured to it and don’t want to change things. We’re content with life as it is and don’t want to do or say anything which may make waves in our lives.

Color blindness is not a virtue, it’s a disservice. Color effects how I experience the world. Color effects how I’m perceived by the world. So your “color blindness” negates my identity. I look back on my history whenever I have attended a majority white church. Most times, me and my family were the entire black experience for a lot of folks. And we made it easy for “them” to get to know us because we go to “them”. Here’s what I mean: we grew up in mostly the white/dominant culture. It’s where we went to school, it’s where we went to church, it’s where we go to work. Minorities in the dominant culture have swum in those waters all of our lives, so it’s easy for us to be “safe” because we’re used to adapting to that culture.

I can always tell when friendships with me reach a new level of depth. Those friends come to me. They go where we go, do what we do, be it Black Expo, step shows, or Kwanzaa festivals. They take an interest in us and our culture, wanting to get to know us and understand us better. Without wanting to co-opt it. Without condescension of “wanting to relate” or “have a black experience.” Without the denigration of calling it “weird”. (I’m reminded of when a group of “friends” asked me to take them to a rough area of the city. They were thrill seeking and wanted a ghetto tour guide. I took them to Carmel, a suburb north of me. I told them that me driving through there at night was all the thrill I needed.)

So no, white church, you don’t know me. You haven’t taken the time to get to know me. You’ve invited me in with your “Negroes Wanted” signs and hoped that I wasn’t too different from you so that I wouldn’t make you uncomfortable. So that you wouldn’t have to come face-to-face with the everyday consequences of a history of humiliation suffered by a black male, the powerlessness–without even the power to keep our own names, being exploited, the dreams shattered, the justice denied, and of being dehumanized.

So the anger builds. I’ve absorbed the humiliations as part of the cost of the “privilege” of being with whites. And the hatred builds. The hatred of myself. The hate I’ve been taught, the hate I’ve learned, the hate I’ve internalized. We all have walls and race and culture is simply another wall we have to navigate. So I guess we’re wondering what can we do?

[continued tomorrow …]

Mo*Con IV: A New Hope - Updated 5/12/09

“The Love and Business of Writing”


May 15th – 17th , 2009

What is Mo*Con?

Brought to you by the Indiana Horror Writers, Mo*Con is a friendly convention focused on conversations revolving around horror literature and spirituality (two great tastes that taste great together!). If you enjoy writing, horror, fantasy, poetry, and food, you’ll find plenty to enjoy at this convention

Who Will Be There?


Tom Piccirilli
Tom Piccirilli is the Edgar nominated author of twenty novels including THE COLDEST MILE, THE COLD SPOT, THE MIDNIGHT ROAD, HELLBOY: EMERALD HELL, THE DEAD LETTERS, HEADSTONE CITY, A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, and NOVEMBER MOURNS.






Gary Braunbeck
Gary A. Braunbeck is a prolific author who writes mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mainstream literature. He is the author of 19 books; his fiction has been translated into Japanese, French, Italian, Russian and German. Nearly 200 of his short stories have appeared in various publications.




Lucy Synder
The author the author of a trilogy of novels that are set be published by Del Rey starting in 2009; the first book in the series is entitled Spellbent. Also the author of Sparks and Shadows, a cross-genre short story collection from HW Press, Lucy A. Snyder may be most known for her humor collection Installing Linux on a Dead Badger (And Other Oddities). With over 70 short fiction sales and over 20 poetry sales, her fiction goes all over the road, although she does tend to write genre stories (science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, etc.) more often than straightforward mainstream fiction. She also writes a column for Horror World on science and technology for writers.


Linda Addison
Linda D. Addison grew up in Philadelphia and began weaving stories at an early age. She moved to New York after college and has published over 200 poems, stories and articles. Ms Addison is the author of “Being Full of Light, Insubstantial” (Space & Time Books) and the first African-American recipient of the world renowned Bram Stoker Award. She was honored with her second win in April 2008 for her latest collection.

Gerard Houarner
Gerard Houarner is a product of the NYC school system who lives in the Bronx, was married at a New Orleans Voodoo Temple, and works at a psychiatric institution. He's had over 250 short stories, a four novels and four story collections, as well as a few anthologies published, all dark. To find out about the latest, visit www.gerardhouarner.com, or drop by and say hi at www.myspace.com/gerardhouarner or his board at www.horrorworld.org

Wrath James White
Succulent Prey marks his first mass-market release from Leisure Books. If you have a taste for extreme fiction with socio-political and philosophical messages that push boundaries, break taboos, and leave you thinking long after the book has ended then check out Teratologist co-written with Edward Lee, Poisoning Eros co written with Monica O-Rourke, The Book of A thousand Sins collection, His Pain novella, Orgy of Souls with Maurice Broaddus, Hero novella with J.F. Gonzalez, and Population Zero. If you have a weak stomach, a closed mind, rigid morals, and Victorian sexual ethics, than avoid his writing like the plague.


ARTIST GUEST OF HONOR:

Steven C. Gilberts
Steven and his lovely wife Becky now live in a spooky Queen Ann cottage within a small Dunwich-esk village of southern Indiana, near the now abandoned ammo plant of his youth. While hiding from the townsfolk, Steven concocts odd illustrations for the small press industry. His work has graced magazines from Apex Digest to Cemetery Dance, Dark Wisdom to Shroud Magazine.

***NOTE: Due to an unexpected schedule conflict, Gary and Lucy won't be able to make it.***

When/Where is it?

May 15, 16, and 17th

Trinity Church
6151 N. Central Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46220

There are plenty of nearby hotels MicroTel has served well in the past:

Microtel Inn and Suites Indianapolis
9140 North Michigan Road
Indianapolis, IN 46268 US
Phone: 317-870-7765

There is also the Indy Hostel. This page will be updated as more guests and details are confirmed, though we're capping the guests we can accommodate at 200. [We can also make special arrangements and point you in the direction of other nearby hotels, just drop me a line at MauriceBroaddus@gmail.com]

Programming

Friday
6:00 p.m. Doors open
7:00 p.m. Guest Dinner/Reception
9:00 p.m. Poetry Slam

Saturday
10:00 a.m. Doors open
11:00 a.m. Panels on spirituality, writing, horror, and readings. Lunch.
5:00 p.m. The Dwelling Place Gathering, featuring sermon by Wrath James White. Dinner afterwards.
[After party to be announced]

Sunday
11:00 a.m. Farewell Brunch

Cost: $35 per Person
Money will be accepted at the door or it can be sent to my paypal account [Maurice Broaddus - MauriceBroaddus@gmail.com memo: Mo*Con IV]

There will be several debut projects, so this blog will be updated accordingly. More details to come (as will a re-vamping of my web site to feature a Mo*Con page to include footage of previous Mo*Cons).

Keep up with all details on either Facebook or on MySpace.

*Hosted by The Dwelling Place and Trinity faith communities, both of whom desire to be a refuge or sanctuary, a place of rest and freedom for people to be themselves and be a place where people can connect with God and one another by joining Jesus’ mission to bless the world.


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If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

God Supports My Football Team!

Okay, no He doesn’t or else the Colts would have brought home another Super Bowl trophy. He couldn’t even throw me a bone and give me an Eagles/Steelers Bowl. Now, right before the Super Bowl, Mike Pereira, the N.F.L.’s outgoing head of officials , came out with a ruling related to end zone demonstrations:

The whole issue is, you can’t go to the ground on your knees or with your hand or anything. There’s only one time that you’re going to be allowed to go on your knee after you score like this, and that’s when you want to praise the Lord. If you do that, then I’m going to allow that, because I do not want to be struck by lightning, I promise you that. We will allow that.

Santonio Holmes’ use of the football as a prop after his spectacular catch aside, one can’t help but think of how many players point to the sky or drop to their knee after scoring a touchdown or making a spectacular play. For some reason, it always brings to mind hip hop artists who thank God when they win an award. It’s the cynical me: I wonder how much of that praise is more about the praiser rather than the praisee, giving lip service to image-control rather than a profession of faith.

I think part of our natural jadedness with such professions comes from the stench of hypocrisy that usually accompanies them. After all, it’s easy to wear a cross necklass, sport a bumper sticker, of have a catchy T-shirt … none of which matters when you’re caught drunk at a strip club. With Kurt Warner and Tim Tebow, we have the tale of two football players who are professing Christians. Both of whom have come under some fire under the auspices of what’s appropriate for declarations of faith while at work.

Kurt Warner, embraced by Evangelicals, celebrates his faith by helping others through charities. He gives freely of his time, started the Sunshine Foundation which serves the seriously ill and physically challenged and abused children. Interestingly enough, even he’s aware of how he comes across, as he’s been known to say “you know it’s coming” right before he thanks God.
Our other case study is Tim Tebow, the son of Christian missionaries. He drew tons of criticism for putting Bible verse references in his eye black (although, part of me suspects that some people were mad they didn’t think of how to sell that space as advertising first). Proselytizing is part of the faith tradition, the interpretation of what it means to “go forth and make disciples”. Tony Dungy, another man of faith, as been very conscious about using the NFL to build a bigger pulpit from which to spread his message and better do God’s kingdom work.

Sure, we could have the discussion about what constitutes appropriate displays of faith at your workplace. [Sometimes I think people expect some sort of bait and switch out of my stories (sample plot: imperiled teens are cornered by a serial killer. Luckily, one teen stops and prays and leads the killer to salvation.)] I’m more interested in the way they choose to go about their brands of proclaiming the faith. Personally, I’ve always leaned toward the non-intrusive, least-offensive (because, let’s face it, the gospel message alone is offensive to some) and, most importantly, develops from the natural course of the relationship brand of evangelism.

Regardless, I believe the true offense is when folks are being inauthentic and hypocritical about their faith. If it’s an extension of who they are, honestly, I have no problem with it. I just keep in mind this quote from the movie The Big Kahuna:

"It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.' That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are - just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep. "

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An Atheist and a “Pastor” Go Into a Convention Part V

[Bringing you up to speed, here’s Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV]

To say that the conversation went off the rails would be a mild understatement. Something got under B's skin.

Sorry, Maurice. But I think we may need to take a break. I'm not enjoying this. And neither are you, it appears.

["To be compatible with secularism, we would have to remove any sense of mystery, any sense of the transcendent, and to do so would remove the essence of faith."] - Faith is not an end unto itself. Faith is not its own justification. Faith does not justify faith. Faith does not justify ignoring and dismissing relevant information that shows the faith isn't justified.

Yes, "faith" sounds romantic and at times like a "beautiful" thing (ministers are great at making "faith" sound like a wonderful thing), but using "faith" as a justification in promoting a "lie" makes "faith" dishonest. It makes "faith" ugly.

"Good works" don't change that. "Good works" don't make God and Jesus *Christ* realities.

For myself, when I went looking for "answers," I decided that I had to embrace all the relevant information, from both sides. What I wanted, first and foremost, was to know the truth. All those things that you talk about with regard to personal experiences may provide motivation, but they don't determine what is really true. I decided for myself that I was going to put knowing and speaking the truth first. All that other stuff you talk about serves only to blur the lens and it's morally impure to use those things as justifications for promoting a lie.

I didn't dismiss all the historical, cultural, and environmental information that shows Christianity's roots in Greek, Roman, and Egyptian culture and pre-1st century religion. Some of what I'm talking about are the Egyptian gods and religious beliefs as well as Greek/Roman gods and beliefs - where they intersect with Christianity and where they diverge...how these things influenced Christianity. What about the pre- 1st century Essenes and their documents? I'm also talking about the relationships of the non-canonical gospels and their relationship to the 4 gospels of the canonical new testament. I'm talking about making an honest attempt to know the truth - instead of sitting contently with a popular and comforting lie.

The Jesus you think you know didn't exist. Was there a Jesus of some sort, yes. Are the gospels his story? No. You don't do apologetics. Fine, do you want to know what there is to know? To ignore the historical and cultural environment that Christianity grew out of is no honest attempt to learn the truth.

That my "message" rubs you the wrong way isn't a surprise. I consider it a normal consequence of my message. I'm bascially saying "you're wrong." And no, it's not acceptable for me to simply keep this to myself and leave you unchallenged. There are too many negative consequences of Christian "faith" for the non-believer. I know you don't want to "own" any of those consequences. You don't feel you're promoting discrimination and mistreatment of others - but it's the message of Christianity that those that don't believe are inferior. You're promoting "faith" in Christianity. You're promoting the "lie." You don't have the power to cut that message out of the Bible. You don't have the power to cut that message out of popular Christianity. You don't have the power to stop those that discriminate because they feel justified by "faith."

I'll place my "faith" in telling the truth based on the whole of the information, not just looking at the slice of information that appeals to me.

-B

If it sounds like I don't "respect" your beliefs, it's because I don't respect your beliefs. I respect you as a person who wants to be a good person and wants to do what is good and right. But your "beliefs" support the promotion of a lie. Your "beliefs" are unjustified and hurtful to people like me. Your "beliefs" I will NOT tolerate.

Again, I don’t know if B was engaging “me”, per se, or generic Christian/religious guy. I get disrespected from many of my fellow Christians, so getting an e-mail where I’m told how wrong I am, well, it’s like the sun greeting me in the morning. To be honest, all I was interested in was B, the person. What he believed didn’t concern me as much as me wanting to know how he believed intersected with his life. I wanted to know and understand HIS story. I sense a lot of (probably justified) anger at Christianity, but I don’t think that I got to the “why?”s of it.

Still, I think he had some interesting points for me to think about. I’ll hopefully re-visit some of them before too long.


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An Atheist and a “Pastor” Go Into a Convention Part IV

[Bringing you up to speed, here’s Part I, Part II, and Part III - I now respond to B]

Sadly, I’m quite used to the tone.

Atheists constantly try to convert me and whether they realize it or not, usually with a chip on their shoulder. I know (or at least try to remember) where it comes from. Many of their stories follow similar trajectories. Many were burned by the church. We have burned a lot of people, literally and figuratively; and frankly, as much as one person can apologize for other’s history of mistakes, I’m sorry. If for nothing else, my participation in that history of mistakes. We, as the church, fall short of who we ought to be and what we ought to be doing.

Many have been burned (or enlightened) by their own faith, as in they asked questions and didn’t get answers that made sense to them and it led to them becoming disconnected with the historic Christian faith and led them down other paths.

Overlapping those two trajectories of stories are those who, due to their re-experience with members of the Christian faith, walk into conversations with Christians anticipating certain reactions. In other words, it takes a while for their guard to drop.

However, the tone does rub me the wrong way when it’s not just enough for you to not believe, but you want to spread the “truth” or, more on point, when anyone who doesn’t believe like you is stupid. It smacks of not respecting the beliefs of others and, in truth, you become everything you don’t like about religion and/or Christian folks.

So let's just be careful that the tone doesn’t end the conversation.

Let me tell you where I’m coming from. Whenever anyone is trying to convert me (or even engage me in an agenda driven conversation), their message is only as good as the messenger. It forces me to constantly be evaluating my life and faith. If my life isn’t marked by me loving others and taking care of the poor, my faith (or whatever I profess to believe) is meaningless. If I’m not being formed into the kind of person my faith claims to make, then all of the logical arguments in the world is not going to convince anyone of anything.

Of course what I believe is foolishness. Faith often is. Look, I’m basically saying I believe there was a guy running around 2000 years ago claiming to be God (a claim which would get folks committed these days). Whose life impacted those around him. Who was crucified, like so many others were, but then folks said he rose from the dead. And that’s before the 3-in-1 God I believe in or even the idea of God incarnating and becoming a man.

There are days when I’m not feeling it. Days when I wake up and go wtf? Days when my prayer feels like me talking to my imaginary friend. So folks wanting to convince me of “the truth” probably aren’t going to share anything I haven’t thought about.

Is there a God isn’t necessarily a good question. A better question would be if He does exist, has He revealed himself in a way we understand but not exhaust? After all, if He hasn’t revealed Himself, He might as well not exist. (In my faith paradigm, He has revealed Himself truly and fully in Christ). To be compatible with secularism, we would have to remove any sense of mystery, any sense of the transcendent, and to do so would remove the essence of faith.

Faith isn’t an epistemology, but it is how you know what you know. It’s meant to shape you, to create a relationship, what could be described as a mystical knowing of God or the supernatural. Which is what I would describe as the role of the Bible in my life.

The Bible is a collection of stories. Not a history book, not a science text, not even a series of dogmatic propositions. To treat it as such is a failed proposition, reducing and misusing the canon. It’s a collection of stories I’ve chosen to let shape my life. It is a tool for spiritual transformation and formation, not necessarily given as a “Christian epistemology.” In short, I use it to affect my life. The idea of the Bible as a story especially appeals to me as a writer as I firmly believe that stories convey truths propositions can’t, or rather, fall short in being able to do it. Stories can be grasped in any age, by any culture. And a story doesn’t have to be totally true in its details for it to be true.

The only thing analogous to faith that I can think of is the act of “falling in love”. Falling in love isn’t rational. We can pretty it up to where “the practical information outweighs the romantic notions to the point where the romantic notions are meaningless.” Is love an evolved response to protect our genes being passing on? A biological imperative dressed up, given more meaning that it has? That kind of answer is sure to crimp ones dating life.

Since it can’t be quantified, I measure my faith experientially. Though there are days when it doesn’t make sense, there are many more days when it does. If only to me. And when all is said and done, all faith is personal and experienced individually.


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An Atheist and a “Pastor” Go Into a Convention Part III

Click here for Part I and Part II. At this point in our conversation, I got the feeling B was talking at me or rather at the person he expected me to be. It was like he was engaging the Christian response he was used to getting rather than engaging me. But maybe that’s just my reading of his response:

I apologize for the "tone". I'm continually criticized for having an attacking style of writing...but my primary goal is simply to be honest.

[“Cold embrace”] – yes, the laws of nature are indifferent to our feelings and emotions. However, people are not. I still have feelings. I have family I care about and who care about me. I spend a lot of time with friends. We grow, we learn. I develop attachments and affections. I continue to experience joy and sorrow because of life events. My life isn’t lifeless, very much the opposite.

[Are you left with only becoming a humanist or a nihilist?] I certainly don’t agree with nihilist attitudes. My life has meaning to me. My life has the purpose I recognize and that I choose to give it. There are things that are worth doing. There are still goals and challenges. There is satisfaction. I still empathize with others. I still want to lessen pain and increase satisfaction and happiness for myself and for others. I recognize the patterns of life. Doing things with friends is fun and is a good thing. Our lives are better because of our caring for each other and accepting each other. I don’t struggle with the meaning of life. I accept life.

[Humanism:] I don’t feel constrained by Humanism which seems to be what you’re inferring. Humanism is about having positive values and a positive outlook. Humanism recognizes the things I’ve been talking about in the proceeding paragraphs. But by itself, humanism isn’t limiting.

Non-belief is not inherently negative or sub-standard to belief which your “tone” of questions suggests. Non-belief does not preclude happiness or satisfaction or love…we’re all still human. But even if non-belief were less “joyful,” Are you going to choose to promote fictions because accepting the truth appears to be unattractive? How does integrity apply?

[Is telling the truth about reality just a “different precept?”] Consistently in your writings, you attempt to equate faith and belief as being equally dependable as the known truths of our reality. They are not on equal footing. As I have said before, no one can produce any practical evidence for the existence of the Christian God. I have plenty of evidence for the existence of natural law. The Christian God and Jesus as “Christ” easily fall in the category of human invention. Gravity is not a human invention. The Earth, the solar system and the Universe are not a human invention. Subatomic particles are not a human invention. The laws of probability are not a human invention. And there is solid evidence for all these things. The Christian God, by definition is “super-natural.” Yet, no practical evidence of a “super-natural” being, active and participating is shown. Human feelings, human desires, and human emotions don’t make the Christian God a reality – a truth.

[although i'm curious, i would think that being an atheist would be enough. everyone's beliefs are their own and folks tend to get prickly with religious/social movements when they seek to convert. how is your "spread the message" about "what the truth is" make you any different from any other evangelistic religion except with differing precepts.]

“everyone’s beliefs are their own.” Really? That’s not the approach I see the typical Christian taking. How many atheists have come knocking at your door to preach atheism? I get Christians knocking pretty regularly. I find their leaflets in my front door. In my personal experience, dealing with Christian family and Christian friends, my non-belief is NOT considered acceptable, nor is it respected. For me to discuss anything that seems to contradict Christian teachings is “unseemly” and “distasteful” in these Christian dominated groups. And yet, all I’m presenting is presenting something that is part of our reality…the only reason it’s “unseemly” or “distasteful” is because of Christian teachings…which are based on what? Certainly not the hard evidence that shows evolution to be true…and by the way, when I talk about evolution, I’m talking about Common Descent. Christians like to argue about “survival of the fittest” and the relative merits of what steers evolution…but the key issue is really Common Descent. Common Descent has been shown to be a truth. We share common ancestry with other animals…to this point, no living entity can be ruled out as not sharing common descent with humans…maybe there is something, but to this point, we either find that a living entity does share common descent or it’s inconclusive. My point being that common descent is simply the way it is. Why does (public) school stop for an hour on Wednesday’s in my county for Weekday Religious Education? And why are children of non-believers separated out and sent to the library? Is it ok for the majority to isolate the minority socially? What ways are acceptable and what ways are unacceptable?

I was at the Brickyard 400 last Sunday. There was an invocation prayer given before the race that prayed to the Christian God and referred to Jesus Christ, lord and savior. Now, understanding my “take” on Christianity, it would be hypocritical for me to take off my hat and bow. Yet, that is what is expected of me by the Christian majority. We are on opposite sides of a gap…what is there to bridge that gap? I would say God if there were any chance that God were real. But God isn’t real. What’s left? The information that describes the truth of reality is what is left. Those things that show how nature and natural law really work…and they consistently show no involvement by the Christian God.

The reality is that people, in groups, discriminate against others outside that group. Are they justified? My interpretation of Christian teachings, and I think this is more than fair, is that if you’re a “believer” you’re acceptable to the Christian group and a “non believer” is unacceptable as a full and complete participant in society. The “non believer” is marginalized. As an atheist, if Christians on the whole were truly accepting of me and respected me, then I wouldn’t have any (meaningful) problem with Christians. I wouldn’t focus my attention on them. But that’s not the way it is. So I am fighting back and I’m fighting back with the truth of our reality.

Because, eventually, in the end, the truth of reality shows itself for what it is and, in my opinion, it’s the best possible common denominator for us to share. I’m trying to help that process along to what I hope is its inevitable conclusion. It’s very sad for me to think that humanity ultimately allows fiction to win out over the truth of reality. Humans don’t always put telling the truth as their highest priority.

-B

Any takers on responding to B’s points?


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An Atheist and a Pastor Go Into a Convention Part II

Okay, to catch us up from last time, I started this e-mail exchange with a gentleman (named for the purposes of this blog, B) who attended a panel I was on at InConjunction about whether science and religion can peacefully coexist. My answer, in short, was I hope so since I’m both a scientist and a hack theologian. Both need to give the other room to do what they do as well as allow one to inform the other as needed. There will be times when science will clarify matters of faith just like there will be times when faith can temper our sometimes irrational admiration for the rational.

And yes, I realize that as the constant skeptic and the black guy, we’d be the first two people killed in a horror movie.

Anyway, here was my response to the initial e-mail. I basically try to get at where the person is coming from and see if there is any common ground that we might share:

there are "word games" i may seem to play. for example, i know you are probably going to react poorly when i use faith and certainty, but i truly don't mean them in a strictly supernatural/spiritual sense. for example, i truly believe all quest journeys begin with a leap of faith, that is, what we choose to put our trust in. for some, it is ourselves (the individual or humanity). for some, it is science (the determination of our senses). for some, it is the spiritual (under the assumption that there is more to this life than presented, both in terms of the spiritual and in terms of after this life). and there is/can be some overlap.

the other is with certainty. i know we seemed to cross swords on that one. i think there are things that we can know for certain (eg, how photosynthesis works) but that's different from having an attitude of certainty. when i say that true spirituality and true science abhor certainty, it is because an attitude of certainty stops you from questioning. once you're certain, you "know" and not only do you close your mind to further conversations, but there is no point in further investigation.

ceding to the cold embrace of science as our epistemology, i guess that would only leave me with a couple of choices in terms of my world view: become a humanist or become a nihilist (if i were to remove God from the equation of my life, i'm pretty much left with these options if i am being intellectually honest). would that be a fair assessment?

although i'm curious, i would think that being an atheist would be enough. everyone's beliefs are their own and folks tend to get prickly with religious/social movements when they seek to convert. how is your need to "spread the message" about "what the truth is" make you any different from any other evangelistic religion except with differing precepts?

Actually, B’s e-mail also led to more thoughts about why and how Wrath and I manage to get along. We have a mutual respect for one another. I also have come to believe that we’re more alike than not or at least cut from similar cloth. We actually want similar end results in people. We want them living up to their full potential, and see the lack of it—not living up to what we were created to be—as a “sin”. That might be either me couching my faith as a form of Christian humanism or me couching humanism in spiritual language. Either way, I see it as a logical extension of my faith to move outward and be a blessing to others. I believe that faith or any truth claim is only as real as I see it lived out in the proclaimers life. In other words, is how you are anything that I’m interested in being? Because if it’s not, and if my life isn’t anything anyone else would be interested in, all of the words in the dictionary isn’t going to convince anyone of the truth of your faith.


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An Atheist and a “Pastor” Go to a Convention Part I

Folks often ask me about the kind of conversations I get into, so I thought I’d begin a bit of an on-going series involving one. With B’s permission, I am reprinting parts of our conversation. My question to you is how would you respond to B’s questions and the issues he brings up? (Be warned, I'll probably make a blog out of the more interesting responses).

Hello Maurice!

I am the atheist, B, that you met last Friday evening at the InConjunction session titled "Religion and Science - Can there ever be peace between the two?"

You had told me during the panel discussion last Friday, and then again when I bought your book, that I'd like Wrath. And I assume I will. I would like to meet Mr. White or see him in action in your suggested "debate" type of event. But, at the risk of always focusing on the negative, I'm a little surprised at what you and he both write in the foreword and afterword of your book.

You write, "We’re both men of faith." This would be a major insult to me as an atheist. But it's not for Mr. White? I think that's surprising given the atheists I know. I find that Christian believers are constantly trying to bring the atheist down to their level when it comes to standards for establishing the truth of our reality. You did the same during the session last Friday by saying atheists have "faith." I do not have "faith" according to how Christians use the word. I'd like to think that if you give me solid evidence to the contrary, I'll back down on even the propositions that I hold to be the most certain. Please try to understand that my attempting to maintain an open mind is not the same as lacking certainty.

"We each are on our own spiritual journey..." I consider myself spiritual in a loose definition of the word, but it's not the definition for the word "spiritual" that believers in the supernatural use. Again, I'm surprised that you feel comfortable in describing Mr. White that way – inferring that he accepts this.

And then, in the afterword, Mr. White writes "Or, we could do the honorable thing and admit that neither of us know anything about these big cosmological questions with anything approaching absolute certainty…" This again brings me back to the panel discussion last Friday where persons repeatedly tried to infer that we, as humans, cannot know anything with confidence or "certainty" thus putting religious propositions on equal footing with known physical realities. Is that honest?

I'm ready to state that after my investigations, I am certain the Christian God and Jesus as “Christ” are not realities. There is no practical evidence that the Christian God participates in our reality. There’s no practical evidence that a man can lie dead and decaying for 2.5 days and be resurrected. Nature, as shown through science, doesn’t provide for these things to have happened. In addition, the known history of the world, of mankind, of religions in general and the history of Christianity, in particular, shows that it's very common that man creates god and that people, for their own reasons, buy into it. The history of the Christian Bible, the history of Christianity, shows man’s fingerprints, not God’s.

And the human race has only been around for a very short time compared to the history of the universe, the history of the Earth and the history of life on Earth. And a lot of what is known today, wasn't known very long ago - especially in relation to the history of the human race. Galileo only publicized that the Earth was not the center of the Earth in 1610. Newton published his theories of motion and gravity in 1687. Einstein published his theory of relativity in 1917. Hubble "discovered" the universe outside of the Milky Way in 1930 when he"saw" less than a handful of galaxies. Now we can "see" billions of galaxies, with an average of 1 billion stars per galaxy. It's only been in the last 10-15 years that the human genome has been mapped and compared to other animals. We now have genetics to show the underlying processes that result in the evolution of life. Genetic analysis in combination with archaeology has given us some good information on the migration of the human race around the world (everyone alive today shares a common male ancestor who lived some 60,000-80,000 years ago in Africa). Only recently has the background microwave radiation of the universe been mapped to help show the pattern of the universe's formation and its development. And research into quantum electrodynamic mechanics is helping to describe the mechanisms that provide all matter and energy.

Amid all this, Christians expect the Bible, a collection of letters and stories written by men thousands of years ago (The first independent evidence for the NT gospels is Justin Martyr in 150AD) to supercede what we know as the truth of our reality - the truths we know about nature. I won't pretend that we "know" everything. I won't pretend that some of what we know may need refining and maybe some of it is just plain wrong. But we know enough with enough confidence that I know the Christian Bible is wrong about God and Jesus as "Christ."

And we haven't even touched the subject of human psychology and human motivations that result in "belief" despite the evidence to the contrary. If the Christian God does exist, then he's provided me with so much proof that he doesn't exist, it's so completely one-sided, that I can't possibly think he's a reality without giving up my honesty and personal integrity or my sanity.

Just so you know, I don't write all of this solely to be antagonistic - but rather, to provide you the ability to compare my perspectives to what you've gotten from Mr. White. And you seem to be open to at least hearing other perspectives. Perhaps, if the opportunity presents itself, I will have a role to play in future events involving Mr. White. I'm not much in the way of a polished public speaker, but I have studied and thought through a lot of relevant information.

-B


to be continued ...

Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V



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Seriously, You Can’t Say That

Kelly Tilghman, play-by-play announcer for The Golf Channel's PGA Tour broadcasts, while bantering with Nick Faldo about young players who might challenge Woods she suggested that they "lynch him in a back alley." I can almost hear her echoing her fictional counterpart, Ron Burgundy, when he said “I immediately regret this decision.”

Of course she came out with the requisite apology (two days later). Tiger’s representatives declared it a non-issue, but she was suspended for two weeks by the Golf Channel. This wasn’t the same as the Don Imus spewing-viciousness-for-its-own-sake situation. Nor was this Tiger’s first brush with folks misspeaking around him (Hello, Fuzzy Zoeller and your fried chicken and collard greens comment).

Yet my gut reaction was to essentially give her a pass for her slip of the tongue, after all, who among us hasn’t ever said something stupid that we (immediately) regret? The greater issue to consider in evaluating the situation is to recognize that such comments happen within a certain context.

First off, Tiger and Kelly are friends. Jokes you make within family that sound horrendous when someone outside the family hears them, much less, repeats them. We can speak one way with our “boys”, one way with our family, and another way in public/on the record. Still, we have to always be mindful: some language and images need a “handle with care” label attached to them.

Because, secondly, there is a greater problem of context: such comments will always be heard within the cultural-historical context of America, with its convoluted past involving slavery, civil rights, and race relations in general. The image of lynching harkens back to an unfortunate, to say the least, time in American history. Lynching is simply not an image to be taken lightly, but rather is akin to making a rape analogy and I doubt she would joke about that. Such a comment would be heard differently to different ears.

In short, it’s stupid and you can’t say it. However, I don’t think she should have been suspended. I think her apology should have stood on its own, she be reprimanded, and allow the conversations to be had about why what she said was a poor choice of words. We can’t police every bad sentence, because that would stifle conversations that still need to be had. We have a First Amendment right to make a fool out of ourselves, but more importantly, if we truly are to turn the page on this chapter in our history, we need to allow these conversations to happen and in so doing, we need to have thicker skins.


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Friday Night Date Place – Finding Your Comfort Place

Comfort can sometimes be defined as the ability to pass gas around our significant others. (Note: this isn’t so much a test for guys as we generally enjoy any excuse to do so. In fact, right now any guy reading this is ready to demonstrate to his significant other just how comfortable he is around them).

Backing up, not too long ago, we had a discussion on my message board about the importance of similar world views within relationships. A point that was brought up was how it’s one thing to have to go out and battle your worldview in “the world” but you don’t want to have those battles at home. This kind of brings to mind the idea of being able to breathe in a relationship.

We live in fear of being rejected for who we are or, more specifically, of finally revealing what we're really like only to have people leave us. As much as we want to be known by others, we all have walls put in place to keep people out and keep ourselves from being hurt. It’s nice to be able to lower them, to find someone we can lower them around. When we can reach a relaxed level of comfort around our significant others, we can feel free to be ourselves, to be real.

This is one of those mystery elements to relationships. There are so many ways to be connected to people, from family, to casual acquaintance, to co-workers, to friends. Some people you have simply known forever or who it feels like they've known you forever. This deep sense of connection comes because they've seen you in ways others can't or haven't. They get you, sometimes without words. They let you change. They let you be.

There is an ingredient that is often difficult to explain to your friends about why you are with so-and-so. Your friends may see your significant other’s glaring faults, but the ability to be yourself around them is an intangible quality. But being comfortable, being able to relax and be yourself and be accepted can balance out a lot.

Finding that comfort can be difficult with friends—that easiness to the relationship, like when friends can enjoy a good silence between each other—much less significant others. Frankly, it is rare that we find those folks we can be comfortable around. Because there is so much artifice surrounding the game of dating, it takes time to get to that place where you can be genuine.

When you find that connection, it's precious; and maintaining it can be work, but it's the heart of the relationship. So, besides time, continual conversation can get you to this place. Talking, and more importantly, listening, are skills best developed as soon as possible. The sooner you can quit being so self conscious about yourself and the sooner you can stop thinking so much about how others view your relationship, the sooner you can learn how to just breathe about your significant other.

Or ... not breathe. It took me nearly two years into my marriage before I could pass gas in front of my wife. I thought that was a major breakthrough in our relationship. She informed that she could live with one or two walls in our relationship.


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In the Room

Last spring, a black assistant coach referred to members of his special teams unit as the “White Nation.” All sorts of banter goes on in an athletic locker room, the room being the social context for such comments. Many things can be said in the room, from well-intentioned racial badinage to sexist comments to any of a number of potentially embarrassing jokes. This isn’t to excuse any of that, only to point out that often things said within the room are just that, within the room, and can be especially dangerous outside of the room.

However, I’m intrigued by the idea of joking as acceptance, as a way of letting folks into the room, into their circle. There is a bit of a cultural element at work here, and, no, I’m not referring to growing up playing the dozens or anything like that. But rather, as a guy. Guys can be harsh with one another, riding each other, busting one another out of a sign of camaraderie and equality.

Now, I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence by trying to pretend that the locker room mentality, the same brandishing of wit often displayed at a “guy’s night”, is the sort of intellectual sparring one might have seen among the ancient Greek philosophers. Often stupid and crass, at least in guy locker rooms, humor can be the leveler of the playing field, where no one gets a free pass. Humor and nicknames are dual-edged weapons: they can include people as well as be injurious to them.

Not everyone can take certain levels of joking, some folks being more sensitive than others. There can be a fine line between a bullying insult and the camaraderie of equals. What some might consider an insider’s joke others might consider mean-spirited. The difference is one of intent and intent is much easier to gauge when you not only understand the nature of the relationship but also are confident within it.

So being brought into the room comes with a certain amount of risk and may require the development of thicker skin and greater intestinal fortitude. However, by my estimation, there are worse things - like being left outside the room.


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Who Are You Having These Conversations With? Part II

So, I’m getting caught up on the various blogs I read when “He Who Would Be Head Pastor” points out to me that me and one of my message board moderators were on a list of folks called out by someone “looking for a fight.”

Christians love a good fight.

There’s nothing that gets the old spiritual blood pumping like going to war knowing you are on the side of truth. Even when you have apparently run out of targets and have to turn on each other. I’d daresay we spend more time fighting with each other than anyone else. Probably because we have to know “teh truth!1!” before we can proclaim it to anyone else. And you know, this sort of fractious behavior is definitely what we’re called to do, who needs all that silly reconciliation?

If you want to engage me in a conversation, engage me. Don’t try to maneuver me into some manufactured debate-cum-marketing scam. If picking fights is your idea of reaching out in love, then, well, go with your conscious. I tell folks on my message board all the time that just because an ass brays in a field, that doesn’t fill me with the need to jump down and bray alongside him.

Postmodern Negro sums it up best for me:

I saw my name on the list so I thought I’d put in my two cents. I remember reading Walter Martin’s “Kingdom of the Cults” years ago. I remember the end of each chapter where he’d compare each religious cult with the ‘clear teaching of scripture’. He’d say this is what the Mormons say and this is what the ‘bible’ says. And so forth. It would have been better for him to have said this is what Mormons say and this is what my own Christian tradition, Fundamentalist/Evangelical Protestantism says. He would have been a bit more honest if he had said that. The same goes for the many ‘critics’ of emergent and Brian McLaren in particular. Rather than say emergents say this and the bible says that it would be a bit more helpful for this discussion if there was a bit more transparency. That’s one issue. These guys don’t speak for ‘Christianity’! They speak from their on tradition-dependent concerns.

Which leads to why I haven’t responded to these guys. For the most part these guys don’t hang around my cultural orbit. I like to read some white male theologians…mainly the ones that are open to discussing broader issues. The guys that have mostly criticized emergent tend to be a white male theological conservative ghetto…so they don’t really speak to the concerns I have as an African-american Christian deeply wedded to the black prophetic Christian tradition. The issues these guys mostly raise are issues of concern for folks who hold to a foundationalist Euro-centric reading of the gospel. Its mainly out of my orbit…so I don’t really pay attention to it.

One of the things I’ve appreciated about emergents are their posture of learning and listening. I’ve tried to emulate their humility when talking to people (emphasis on trying - I’m not there yet). Come to find out it’s the arrogance, the certainty, of having answers for everything that turns a lot of folks off to the church, that makes them turn a deaf ear. I’m not a part of that Christian ghetto culture. Most portraits of Emergents are probably as fair as my “conversation starter” that involved me intimating that D.A. Carson is a racist. I’m a horror writer who is a Christian. I help run what many would label an emergent church. I walk outside the church ghetto with people who challenge my views and way of thinking. I listen to them, I respect them, and I even, wait for it, learn from them. And they listen. Why? Because I’m not here to pick fights or declare war on them. It’s how conversations happen.

All of which brings me back to my friend.* I explained to him that most of the misunderstandings we have boil down to differences in ministry styles. The point of my article which he objected to was th at you start conversations with what you have in common, by listening to one another; not by saying “here’s where you’re wrong (because I obviously know more than you).” I can’t whip out Bible verses to “prove myself” because the Bible has authority if you have faith in it. What I can do is be the Bible. Be the message. If folks aren’t seeing Christ’s love in me and how I live and talk, then I’m wasting my breath anyway (again, emphasis on becoming - I’m not there yet). People need to belong before they believe, even if they never believe.

I just don’t have the time energy nor inclination to be baited into a fight. That’s fore better Christians than me, I guess.

*To be completely honest, my friend’s humility and contriteness after our conversation is exactly why I have hope, and love, for the church. Neither one of us had to “prove” ourselves right. We were too busy trying to figure out how to best love one another.


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Who Are You Having These Conversations With? Part I

Recently, I was involved in a misunderstanding with a person I used to attend church with. These sort of misunderstandings have been happening a lot more lately because my church has been labeled emergent. That’s fine. People are often guilty of relational laziness and need these sorts of labels rather than engage the people around them. Our church describes itself as missional because we’d rather be “being” the church than talking about it. Since I’m just as guilty of using labels as crutches as anyone else, I’ll describe my friend as a mainstream Evangelical with a fundamentalist streak.

This friend took umbrage with an article I wrote because, to his reading, I was losing sight of the “ontology of Christ”. Once I got wind that he had concerns, I called him. We talked about his concerns. To his absolute credit, he apologized to me and then, in an all too rare demonstration of what it means to follow Christ, he volunteered to go back and apologize to the people whom he had talked to about me.

One of my points to him was that I don’t have time for “ontology of Christ” debates. Honestly, whom am I going to have that conversation with? Other Christians who have spent too much time in church, around other Christians who’ve learned a lot. Which is fine, I’m called to love them, too. But that’s not where I spend a lot of my time.

Since this is mostly aimed at my Christian brethren, let me put this in jargon you’ll understand: I hang out with the “lost” (an ironic term, since my friends like Wrath James White, Harlequin, and Paul Puglisi know exactly where they are). Why? Because I don’t want to spend my days talking about whatever new doctrinal burr is up some people’s butts. A lot of the times those conversations boil down to one person who know everything talking to someone else who has everything figured out. They want to play who’s head is puffed up more or who has the biggest doctrinal penis. That’s a game I’m not interested in playing.

Of course these are unfair caricaturizations, but it sets up what I really want to talk about.

Tomorrow.


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Friday Night Date Place - Conversations 101

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Friday Night Date Place (and it’s still Friday night if I haven’t been to bed yet), to bring you an important relational message.

Fellas, fellas, fellas. I realize many of you are brooding Cro-Magnons, waiting for the potential within you to be recognized and a woman to come along and make you presentable for the rest of society. I get that, just as I applaud (and question) you ladies who jump on that diamond-in-the-rough/social misfit/fixer-upper grenade for the rest of us.

One of the things about being a brooding Cro-Magnon is that your selfishness can often be indulged. The world can be reduced to your wants and your needs and as a loner type ((sigh* that “bad boy” too many women are inexplicably drawn to, God bless them) you don’t have to do that whole “relate to humans other than yourself” thing.

Don’t take it personally, O gentle Cro-Magnon soul, you are basically in the same position as the rest of us. Relating to women can be tough. As a wise pastor once counseled me, and you may want to jot this down, “there’s something about having a vagina that must make a person crazy.”

With that in mind, let us examine a couple typical conversational scenarios and see the possible pitfalls that we might fall into.

Scenario #1:
Woman: “My day has me so stressed out ...”

Once you begin to hear about her day, do you:
A. Try to solve the problem?
B. Try to compare what she calls stress to what you went through today?
C. Try to listen to her as a sympathetic ear?

ANSWER: None of the above (what, you’ve never taken a quiz before?) This is what is known as the “white noise” portion of the relationship conversation. Women don’t want you to solve their problem, just listen. It’s how these aliens process their day. We men have precious little brain space and we can’t clog it up with the minutia of their day. So the key is to sound engaged while actually being in your happy place. Practice this conversational discipline: deep, slow inhale; deep, slow exhale, then say “uh huh”. The timing works out so that you sound like you’re paying attention and, as an added bonus, it keeps you from saying something stupid. Later, you can always claim to have “missed that part” if she asks you something about it - because you’re a dim-witted Cro-Mangon, she’ll understand. She’s happy that you’re just trying.

In this next scenario, you, O gentle Cro-Magnon soul, have mysteriously fallen into an argument. Go figure, since you’ve been studiously following my sage advice. Again, the key to conflict resolution is conversation. The sad reality is that at least one of the parties involved has to be the grown up. They have to suck it up and take the lead in getting to the heart of the problem, facilitating both parties positions being heard, and ensuring that compromise is reached or even a possible apology achieved.

Scenario #2:
Woman: “I’m sorry for my part of the conflict ...”

Fellas, do you:
A. Become your own lawyer and defend your original position?
B. Become a logic professor and break down the fallacies of her original point?
C. Become a petulant ass, hop on your high horse, and charge ahead with your rightness?
D. Become a student of the Maurice Broaddus School of Breathing Your Way Through a Conversation?

ANSWER: None of the above (aren’t you paying attention?). Remember this phrase if you decide to become your own lawyer: “Your Honor, my client is an idiot.” Fellas, apparently you’re new to relationships, and I’m simply trying to prepare you for the reality that is marriage. “I’m sorry” is your out cue. The fight is over if you let it. Admittedly this is a dream scenario, but if you get the apology, you take it an run. To be doubly safe, you apologize for something to. “For what?” you may ask. You’re a man - you’ve done SOMETHING wrong between the time you woke up and your next breath.

Now may also be a good time to explain to you the concept of a Pyrrhic victory. You can always win the argument. You can argue, badger, and charge your way to proving your point superior, but it may come at the price of bashing her self-esteem or doing irreparable harm to the relationship. Remember, what’s been said can’t be unsaid. And nine times out of ten, most arguments are about nothing in the first place. So you have to ask yourself “is being right worth it?”

A word of reassurance saves you from women playing the “tears card” for which there is no defense. O gentle Cro-Magnon soul, we know you love yourself and your world rotates around your own orbit. However, you have to attend to her needs and wants. Sometime, when we do Conversations 102, we’ll talk about things like noticing her hair and make up. And the proper responses to things like “does this outfit make me look fat?” (Run!)


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