A few weeks back, author and historian Jemar Tisby tweeted that an acquaintance of his “described their general experience with white evangelicals as ‘people who don’t have any questions.’ I immediately knew what they meant.” The tweet gained some traction, with 62.1k “likes” at the time I’m writing this. The next week, Tisby followed up with a thoughtful reflection piece, expanding on his own experience with white evangelicals needing to have answers to every question, from “How old is the earth?” to “How should Christians vote?” Tisby unpacks the dangers of this kind of arrogant certainty, inviting Christians instead to embrace mystery, curiosity, and learning.
I resonate with many of Tisby’s observations and reflections. From my experience (including thirteen years in evangelical churches and a Master of Divinity degree from an evangelical seminary), I wouldn’t say these things are true of every single white evangelical—but they’re definitely true enough of the movement as a whole that they are very much worth naming, engaging, and challenging. I appreciate Tisby’s work.
Continue reading “The People Who Have Always Had Questions by Liz Cooledge Jenkins”
This week’s Torah parshah is Behaalotecha: Numbers 8:1 to 12:16. By now, much of what comes to pass should sound familiar. The parshah starts with another discussion of leadership and the priesthood. It then prescribes a second Pesach for those who happened to be ritually unclean for the first one and describes the consequences of not participating in the first Pesach if you had been ritually clean. Next, the Israelites’ wanderings through the desert are detailed which includes the divine appearing as natural phenomena and the very loud rumblings of the Israelites’ tummies. Finally, the parshah ends with a discussion of Moses’ wife and Miriam’s punishment. 
Feminism and Religion 