Keeping women out of leadership is hindering God's mission

"Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes."
I started writing this blog post over two years ago. Some things have gotten better, but many of the same things I started writing about are still true. I really think the evangelical church has failed in one major area. I kept on starting and stopping and not finishing this post. For one thing, it's because there are people I dearly love who believe something different than what I believe. And I don't want to damage those relationships. And to be honest, I hate difficult conversations. But I know this is a really important conversation to have. So I am writing this, and sharing it with you, even though it REALLY scares me to share it. But it's time.

This is also for all the men in my life, specifically the Christian men. I think you have failed us as women, and I think this has hindered God's mission in the world.

A short description of some experiences I have had (and daily have) that I really don't think men have experienced, and also a description of women's experiences in general
I once was on a short flight and was seated next to a very talkative middle-aged man. He said a lot of ridiculous things, like the race of Cape Breton Normans should rule the world. I agreed with about zero of what he said, but what did I know? I was a twenty-year old kid, and he was an engineer who seemed to think he was saving the country's economy by drilling in the oil patches. He told me that in our society, "Women don't need feminism. You guys have already arrived." Like I said, I was 20. It was a short flight. I did not want to start an argument with this fellow. I just wanted to read my book, to be honest. But that guy's attitude was indicative of lot of men I know. They have not experienced sexism, so they don't believe it exists. But let me tell you, it does.


I think of my high school years. I used to walk to and from high school every day from my home. It was about a 30-minute walk. About once a week, guys yelled/honked at me from cars or from the windows of the university residence I passed. I do not recall this happening if I walked with my brother. It seemed to happen more frequently when my sister and I were together.

I think of my time in university. When I first went to university, my mom had one word of advice for me: "Never leave your drink unattended." This was not advice about anything that had anything to do with the academic experience. It was a word of warning against date rape. When my brother came to university, Mom obviously did not give him this advice. Being a woman is unsafe.

I think of my experiences at church. The majority of the pastors I have known have been men; the board of elders at my church is made of men. I do not remember there ever being a woman on this board. The pastor of my current church is a man, and when he is away or not able to preach, there are a handful of lay members of the congregation who may be asked to preach. These tend to be married men over the age of 40. Women take care of the children in the nursery and the children's church (Note: since I wrote this, I moved and now go to a new church that seems to be more open to women preaching. And my home church now has men in charge of the nursery. Yay!). My dad is one of the people on the board of elders, and I asked him why women seem excluded from some leadership roles at church. Our church has no specific mandate prohibiting women from leadership roles; but the church has not been actively working to encourage women in leadership, and so for the most part, the old ways remain. I will add that soon after I brought up this issue, I was asked to preach. I was honoured at the opportunity but I felt pressure as both a young person and a woman. Because young people and women rarely get the opportunity to preach at my church, when I do I am a representative of these group. I will also add that I did not bring up the issue just because I wanted to preach, but because there are many women in my congregation who have God's Spirit working in them, and I believe that they should be given an opportunity to share their wisdom. I love love love my church, and I don't think this is only a problem with our church-- it is a problem in the church as a whole in North America.


And when we look at society as a whole, women continue to be vulnerable. As women, we are conditioned to be afraid of men. We are conditioned to hate our bodies. We are conditioned to put men in places of power and women in places of submission. And this is a huge problem. Nicholas D. Kristof writes that "Women worldwide ages 15 through 44 are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined." In China, gendercide, mainly in the form of sex-selective abortions, has resulted in a difference of 40 million more males than females.  Closer to home, there have been at least 22 unsolved murders of women and girls since the 1970s in the Halifax area. According to the NS Advisory Council for the Status of Women, there were 2,026 female victims of domestic abuse in Nova Scotia in 2017. These are the situations that were reported to police. Between 1996 and 2015, 40 women in Nova Scotia were murdered by their intimate partner. Margaret Atwood is reported as saying: "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." In Nova Scotia, women only got the right to vote in 1918. That's about a hundred years ago, and the year my grandfather was born; my life has overlapped with the lives of women who were denied the right to vote. Less than a hundred years ago, women had basically no political power. Nova Scotia has had 28 premiers, and all of them are men. The United States has had 44 presidents, and none of them were women. In Canada's 149 years as a nation, a woman has served as prime minister for only 19 weeks. There is an incredible power differential in our world. Men have the power, and they are not using it for good.

This is the church. This is our society. We women often feel unsafe-- for good reason. There are many ways we are silenced-- through violence, and through structures that don't make room for our voices. I believe that the church should be actively working to redeem our society and our culture. But that is not the way things are.
 
 

Keeping women out of leadership is hindering God's mission
 There is a school of thought called complementarianism, and that school of thought is shared by many men who you respect-- people like John Piper, Tim Keller, and Wayne Grudem. I believe this school of thought is ultimately damaging to women and damaging to the ministry of the Gospel.

According to one of the authorities on complementarianism, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, "In the family, husbands should forsake harsh or selfish leadership and grow in love and care for their wives; wives should forsake resistance to their husbands’ authority and grow in willing, joyful submission to their husbands’ leadership (Eph 5:21-33; Col 3:18-19; Tit 2:3-5; 1 Pet 3:1-7). In the church, redemption in Christ gives men and women an equal share in the blessings of salvation; nevertheless, some governing and teaching roles within the church are restricted to men."

Thankfully, other people have taken the task of offering a thorough rebuke to this sort of thinking. This is the one, by James Choung, that really convinced me of another way. I invite you to thoughtfully and prayerfully read this, and think critically about the difficult Scriptures that are often used to justify leaving women out. This other way is often called egalitarianism.  

I encourage you to use your God-given brain and wisdom to be open to change your mind. What really changed my mind, other than the James Choung article, was the inconsistency of the complementarian viewpoint, as they tend to allow women to do things like teach Sunday school, and even be missionaries, but not be pastors. I asked these questions:

• So if women are allowed to teach male children, than at what point do children grow old enough that women are no longer allowed to teach them any more? What is that magical age where all of the sudden the lack of a penis in a teacher becomes an issue?
• And if women are allowed to be missionaries, what is the difference between pastoring in a cross-cultural context and pastoring at home? 
• Can this viewpoint be misused by evil, abusive men who use theology as an excuse to silence their victims?

Asking these questions made me realize: the complementarian viewpoint, while claiming to be supported by Scripture, is really based on something far more insidious: desire to uphold patriarchial and racist systems. It is based on an understanding of the white man as having authority over all other people.

But guess what.

God is not interested in that. In fact, I really believe that God hates it when people use devotion to Him as an excuse to grab power for themselves. Just read anywhere in the Bible where Jesus speaks to Pharisees. God pours out His Spirit, which has all authority to teach and to lead, to ALL PEOPLE.

Then afterward
    I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
²⁹ Even on the male and female slaves,
    in those days, I will pour out my spirit

Joel 2:28-29

I believe that the days Joel is prophesying about are here, and here now. And I think that there are seriously men in the church who would rather maintain existing power structures than allow the women to share in the Spirit-empowered work. 

Men of the church, do you believe in the Great Commission? The last commandment that Jesus gave: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Do you believe that this job is only for men? NO. OF COURSE NOT. It is for all Christians. Men and women alike. I believe that when we restrict certain roles, we are restricting and even hindering God's mission to reach all people with the amazing hope of Jesus. At the end of the day, do you want to be known as someone who contributed to the Great Commission? Or do you want to be known as someone who stood in the way?

The way that men have held on to power in this culture is definitely contrary to the Gospel. I am not saying all men are bad. I love men. And this is why I am telling you this: Because I love you. But, as my good friend Sarah once legendarily said: "The number one rule about boys is: they're clueless. Rule number two: They're still clueless!" I love you guys so much that I don't want you to be clueless!

And here's what scares me: I am scared that you aren't clueless. I'm scared that you know that women are just as capable and Spirit-empowered for leadership as you are. I'm scared that you know that and choose to keep the status quo. I can see that this might be the case. The status quo in the evangelical church tends to be one where men's voices are amplified, where men have power. But our call is to be like Jesus, who set an incredible example of humility, who:

who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, 
     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:6-8 



What does humbling yourself look like in the context of changing church culture?
I think it looks like making sure your leadership team is representative of the congregation. I think it looks like thinking about childcare when organizing events. I think it looks like rethinking the theology and Christian books you read-- are they all by white men? What different perspectives may other people have? I think it ultimately looks like trusting God: trusting God that if you let go of power, that His mission still continues. Trusting God that the work of leading and pastoring and teaching in the church is not your job: it's His.

Intersectionality and New Wine

I started this blog post months ago (back in October!) but never published it. Then, this week, I was saddened to hear of the death of Rachel Held Evans, a writer who inspired me with her love of Jesus and the way she was unafraid to engage with difficult topics. So to honour her legacy, I am publishing something that, for whatever reason, I was afraid to publish.

As an evangelical Christian and a sociology graduate student, I often find myself in spaces that challenge my ideas. Sometimes what I hear in church and what I hear in the academy seem pretty opposed, and yet I have found a place both in the pews and in the university.

I am writing this, I think, to unite, in some small way, these two identities of mine. And I am bit afraid that in writing this, neither evangelical Christians nor sociologists will agree with me. But I think that's OK. This is how I am making sense of the in-between space I occupy.

The other night, I got to hear civil-rights activist Angela Davis speak at Dalhousie. She is a controversial figure, having been involved in the Communist Party for many years and now being an activist for prison abolition. Her views might be seen as extreme by some, but it cannot be denied that she is brilliant. Much of her talk at the university was about intersectionality. Intersectionality is a term that originated from feminism-- it is this idea that feminists can't just fight for women's rights, because as it turns out, women are all different-- we each have an intersection of identities. As a white, Christian woman, women's rights look a lot different than women's rights for a black, Muslim woman, for example. So you eventually come to realize that to have equality, you can't only fight for women's equality, because even women's equality is unequal. You also have to fight for equality for black people, for immigrants, for prisoners, etc.... Davis talked about some difficult subjects. She talked about how in this current moment, our approach of just picking and punishing those who sexually assault women won't ultimately solve the problem of sexual assault.We want to believe that it's as easy to solve the problems as this: Maybe, if we put all the bad men away, then we will have a safe world. But this doesn't get to the root of the problem. We need to look broadly at the structures in our society that allow violence to happen.

I honestly was a bit frustrated at the end of Angela Davis' talk. Because I wanted her to lay it out-- so what ARE we fighting for? I could hear bits and pieces of this vision for a better world in her talk, but it was more about the struggle than what we're supposed to be struggling for. A world in which all of us truly feel like we belong/ An end to all oppression?

Anyway, that is why I am happy I am a Christian. I think Jesus' vision for the world is a beautiful one. Before the Angela Davis talk on Tuesday, I went to a Bible study at lunchtime with some other grad students. We studied Luke 4. When Jesus began his ministry, he read this:  
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
    that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free, 
 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

Then he said: “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Then he told a story and everyone was about to kill him, because in the story he told, he indicated that maybe he wouldn't exclusively help them.  People were listening to Jesus and they had all of their specific hopes for what he was going to do. Perhaps when he said that captives would be released, they thought Jesus was talking about releasing them from Roman rule. Who knows. I really think that the people listening had a specific idea of what Jesus' purpose on earth was. But he did not fit that specific idea. 

And I think as Christians, we can also have those specific ideas. We can think that God's Kingdom is just for spiritual life-- just to save our souls. We can think that God's Kingdom is just for the here-and-now, for bringing justice to earthly nations. But I think that Angela Davis and Jesus agree in one area-- a better world will not come within the same structures as our current world. God's Kingdom, which I do believe will bring true justice and peace, will set the oppressed free. But God's Kingdom isn't setting the oppressed free just by oppressing others. God's Kingdom is all about laying down power and privilege (see Philippians 2 for example!). 

Let's hear one more thing Jesus says:

 “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old^. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’ " (Luke 5:36-38).

God's Kingdom is bringing change. Jesus is bringing an end to all oppression in the world. But Jesus is not bringing it in the way we think he is- nobody puts new wine into old wineskins! I really do believe that a world ruled by Jesus is a world where all forms of oppression and injustice cease. 

OK now I am just gonna quote Chance the Rapper:
"I'm just gon' keep rappin' And y'all just keep clappin' and keep actin' 

Like Flint got clean water and y'all don't got teen daughters 

and black friends and gay cousins, y'all just gon' say nothin' 

Know that the day comin' 

Knees bowed, tongues confessin' 

The last ones gettin' first dibs on blessings"

Time, love.

"Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble and there is always time."

This is a quote from Abdu'l Baha, founder of the Baha'i faith, a religion I know next to nothing about even though my late great bagpipe teacher, Sir Iain Millington, was a devout adherent. Anyway regardless of the religion this dude started I am inspired by this one thing he said.

I am going to be an aunt, any day now! In preparation for this joyous occasion, I've resisted making any commitments for a couple of weeks. So last week, my schedule was a bit clearer than in other weeks. Freed up from any advance plans, it ended up being a beautiful week of community-building: of spontaneous coffee dates, inviting people for supper, dropping in on friends, and even making some new connections. And it was one of the best weeks I've had in a long, long time. Meanwhile last week, the Holy Spirit spoke to me in a powerful way. I think these things must have been connected: the making time, and the Spirit.

The ideas I have been ruminating on this week are hard to put into practice and to put into living. It's the idea of being present. It's the idea of spending time on the important things: on loving the people who show up in our lives. It's the idea of letting go of the things that may give us worth in the eyes of the world-- of the programmed things, the places where we get recognition, the things we do to pad our resume.

When I read the Gospels and think about how Jesus spent his days, I think it's a simple formula. Jesus made time for prayer, and for rest. Jesus also made time for people. A lot of his ministry that's recorded in the Gospels is just him responding to the people who come to him. A woman touches him in a crowd. A man comes through the roof. A Pharisee invites him for dinner. Maybe Jesus did have a dayplanner, I don't know. But if he did, I don't think he cared about pushing some things aside to make room for the people right in front of him.

So this is what the Holy Spirit has been telling me this week: God puts people in my life and in my community so that I can love them-- so that I can reveal something about God to them and they can reveal something about God to me. When I open up my heart and my time to people, I get to experience the love of God. Spending more time on relationships and less time on other things might be a bad decision for my career or dating life or whatever else I'm 'supposed' to be doing. This is an extremely simple message, and I think to some extent I have always known it. But it often seems like I am quick to forget about what is most important in life. I fill up my schedule with things that keep me busy but don't really have any purpose in furthering God's Kingdom. But, in the words of Lilias Trotter, "it is the poured-out life God blesses."

My sister sent me this song yesterday. Jon Foreman is one of my favourite musicians, but to be honest I had forgotten all about this song. It is based on Amos 5. And it speaks to my life right now: this is what God wants from me. Genuine, authentic pouring out of my life in love and justice. Not a show.

mid winter, and vocation

I have this habit, whenever I am in the middle of something good, of thinking of changing my career, my life path, and doing something completely different.

When I was doing my undergraduate degree, I sometimes wanted to quit and just be a farmer.
After my undergrad, working, I very much wanted to quit and go back to school (I did this). 
When I was doing my masters degree, I sometimes wanted to quit and just move to Africa and be some sort of missionary or something (I did this, after my masters, briefly).
Now, doing my PhD, I sometimes want to quit and just be a pastor and a writer.

I have this bad habit of hearing other people's stories, wonderful stories, and wanting their story. I read Wendell Berry and imagine myself choosing a place, getting acquainted with it, settling down, farming in a way that respects the land. I imagine myself having "membership" in a place, of living a "three-dimensional life," of putting my "faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years." I imagine myself a farmer, waking up early every morning to work in the fields or milk cows or whatever. I imagine my life's rhythms to be tied to the rhythms in nature. Lambing season, planting season, harvest season, etc. In this alternate reality, I suppose, I also miraculously have no more migraines, no desire to watch Netflix, no more trips away, and happily give up Dominoes large pizza for $12.99 in favour of fresh, homemade food, a la Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I went to mission conferences and heard people like Libby Little speak-- people who felt God calling them to go to a specific place, usually very far from their home and often places that were, to me, exotic, but that were also desolate and lonely. Libby Little, for example, lost her husband in Afghanistan, where they lived for many years. I heard her story and I, remarkably, imagined myself in a similar situation. I imagined myself moving to a place, learning the culture, learning the language, learning to love the people, discovering a way to talk to Jesus with them, and having deep satisfaction with the knowledge that this is what God had called me to do, despite the many challenges I would face. The only problem, however, was that this was not what God has called me to do, at least not at this point in my life. Libby's story was not my story, as much as I wanted it to be.

Now, I have just finished reading Eugene Peterson's memoir, just called The Pastor. And reading it, again I felt that imagination cropping up in me. Being a pastor and a writer, described by one person in the book as "the one person in the community who is free to take men and women seriously just as they are, appreciate them just as they are, give them dignity that derives from being the 'image of God,' a God-created being who has eternal worth without having to prove usefulness or be good for anything." I think-- aha! That-- that's who I want to be. But of course you don't have to be a pastor to see people in the image of God.

When I think about why I wanted to be a professor and be in academia, I have the imagination of a few people-- it began, I think, when I read Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy. The descriptions of life at the University of Oxford really caught my fancy. Same with reading about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's life. Then, a few times during junctures in my life while thinking about what to do next, I have read Scot McKnight's One.Life, a book I have found incredibly helpful in discerning God's spirit in choosing a vocation. Reading that book, I remember him, a professor, talking about students coming to his office hours and chatting about their vocations, and the ways he was able to help them. I remember reading that and thinking "I'd like to do that." Then, entering sociology graduate studies, on my way to earning a doctorate, I read Michael Corbett's Learning to Leave, a book about his research in rural Nova Scotia. This solidified my idea of the kind of professor and researcher I want to be-- the kind who has a deep understanding of theory and who does rigorous research, compassionately employing theory to better understand communities, and to help communities better understand themselves. Combine that with the stimulating academic discussion that comes with many intellectuals being together, like in Oxford, and with the mentorship aspect of teaching, I have an idea of my vocation. Of course this imagination can be expanded (why, for example, are all my examples white men? How can I work to make the academy a more inclusive place, really having room to consider all points of view, rather than just the appearance of considering all points of view?).

I am just where I'm supposed to be

I don't know why I always question my vocation. These moments of questioning often seem to coincide with stress and with feelings of unworthiness. I still am captured by the stories of people like Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, Libby Little, and Eugene Peterson. But I need to remind myself that their stories are not my story. My story is still being written, and I need to trust God, that the story he is writing for me fits just right, like going to Frenchie's and trying on jeans that fit just right, as if they are made for me.

[I also feel like I should write my possibly unpopular economic opinion, that a vocation is not a paid job, but in many cases it could include a paid job. But the current economic system in Canada and the US is kind stupid and the rich are getting richer while normal people.... aren't. Which means that many of us are distracted from our vocation by taking a job just to pay the bills. As a whole, productivity is growing, there is more wealth being created, but this is not generally reflected in an increase in wages or jobs for ordinary people. SO I think it would be a beautiful thing to have a universal basic income, so that wealth could be more evenly distributed among people, and I believe this would free up many of us to do our vocation, without worrying about where our next paycheque would come from. What would you do if you didn't have to worry about money?]

Source: forbes.com. In other words, the economy is actually getting better, but it doesn't really matter because most of us aren't reaping the benefits.

End-of-year roundup

I've been inspired by a couple of internet things: I saw my friend Luke do an end-of-year roundup over at his blog. Also,  I recently came across a series of articles at The Cut called "I Think About This a Lot." The authors of these articles write about scenes from movies, tweets, song lyrics and so on that have stuck with them. So I've been inspired to share some things that have stuck with me throughout 2018. What stuck with you in 2018?

From the internet
Olivia Surprises Grandad! (Video, Youtube) A video that I love to watch whenever I feel like a smile. It is so joyful and wholesome, bringing much-needed positivity to 2018.

My Dad's friendship with Charles Barkley (Article/radio segment, NPR). A story of an unlikely friendship between a famous basketball player and the author's father. And it's simply beautiful.

This tweet:



The Coast 25 for 25 Podcast (Podcast, Soundcloud) I learned so much about this city I call home, as hosts Jacob Boon and Tara Thorne entertainingly go through Halifax year-by-year. I gained a new appreciation for this city,  and a definite new appreciation for beloved CTV news anchor Steve Murphy. I've never been a fan of podcasts that have a lot of host banter, but I could listen to Jacob and Tara talk about Steve Murphy, transit etiquette, the Fountains' parties or art pranksterism for hours.

Tessa and Scott (Video, Youtube) I can't believe that was 2018 (this year has been so long), but yes, this was the year that Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir captured our hearts as they skated to gold in Pyeongchang through this romantic ice dance to Moulin Rouge. I am still convinced they are totally in love and meant for each other. This was a year where we all needed to believe in love a little bit more... honestly it would be a NATIONAL SERVICE for them to make it official, dating-wise.

The Man with No Language (Article, Conversations.org) My sister who is studying linguistics sent me this and I think about it a lot. Imagine not even... knowing that language is a thing??

The Bughouse Square podcast episode with Shel Silverstein. (Podcast episode) I listen to a lot of podcasts, but this particular episode has stuck with me. Whether it's the amazing storytelling of Shel Silverstein or the insights about how children's literature affects us as we grow... I keep thinking about it.

Meet the UW Professor Who Just Killed the Death Penalty  (Article, Seattle Times). Just love this story about how rigourous, well-thought-out social science research ended up having an impact on public policy.

This tweet:


William Prince on Unreserved (Radio concert, CBC). William Prince played at StanFest in 2017 and it made the feeling of being damp to my very bones in the unrelenting Canso rain bearable. So it's nice to have a recording that captures the feeling of being in the same room as that amazing voice.

Cancer patient returns home to surprise parade (Article/video, DailyMail). Just another feel-good video. Cancer sucks, community rocks.

Queer Eye Season 2 Episode 1. (TV episode, Netflix). The premise of the show Queer Eye is that five gay dudes, each with their own area of expertise, spend a week making over every aspect of a straight dude's life in order to help him reach his goals. But this episode becomes less like a makeover and more like a story of healing among a gay son, his devotely Christian mother, and their church community. I think Jesus has a habit of showing up in the places we religious fools least expect, and this episode shows Jesus' love and grace so deeply.

Erna Hackett at the NAIITS conference (Video of lecture, facebook). A disarming and convicting talk about the hegemonic whiteness of our theology. 

I was Jordan Peterson's strongest supporter. Now I think he's dangerous (Article, The Star). I've never been much interested in Jordan Peterson so this article struck me not because it was anti-him, but because of the ways it reminds us to be cautious of unequivocally following any one person with good rhetoric.

The 99% Invisible episode about the Gander Airport. (Podcast episode) From this I got one of my best fun anecdotes of the year, which is that Fidel Castro once went sledding in Gander, NL. And there is photo evidence.

Patrick Fung at Jesus to the Nations. I unfortunately can't find any sort of recording of this, but OMF Director Patrick Fung's talk (there might have been more than one, I can't remember) at Halifax's Jesus to the Nations conference has stuck with me. It gave me a vision of a good kind of life-- a life of pouring oneself out so that Jesus may be known.

This photo of a kid arriving early for a Black Panther screening (Craig Walker photo)
 

This Toronto Life story about the McCain family. (Article, Toronto Life) The article is from 2013 but this was the year I developed a slightly unhealthy obsession with that family. And this article just solidified that obsession. It's always fun to get a glimpse into how the 1% lives... especially when they happen to be from a small town in New Brunswick.

I brought the party to my dying father's hospital room. (Article/radio doc, CBC). I am sharing a lot from CBC, and honestly a lot of that is because the CD player in my car is broken and the radio dial is normally turned to CBC Radio 1. The day this came on, though, I was doing some chores around the house and it was a rare occasion of listening to the radio outside of the car. This one is hard to listen to without crying. It's beautiful and human and I love it.

Stanley Hauerwas. Modern American Puddleglum (Article, Mere Orthodoxy) Featuring the quote that resonated the most with where my faith was this year: "Jesus is Lord, and everything else is bullshit." Coming from a theologian, that's so liberating. Being a Christian does not mean subscribing to a certain orthodoxy or creed or having everything figured out about everything. It means staking your life on Jesus-- and sometimes a life where Jesus is Lord means letting go of the religious claptrap you thought was holding you close to God.

Davita's amazing blog post (Blog post). My friend wrote a blog post about feminism and Charlotte Smith and more and it's very good. And she even managed to make a jab at 2018's awful Bachelor, Arie, so that just confirms the brilliance of the piece.

Hell... and How to Get There (Book chapter). Brian Zahnd wrote about hell, and it's helped me widen my thinking. Here at the beginning of 2019, I have to admit that I really am not sure what happens to anyone after we die. Instead, I trust God to be good.

Why It's Hard to Escape Amazon's Long Reach (Article, Wired). This one's from the end of the year but I was shocked at the many things that Jeff Bezos has his hand in. And coming from an economic sociology perspective, I am left wondering what kind of unanticipated impacts the dominance of Amazon has (and will have) on our lives. And I am also thinking about the ways our economic system allowed this to happen-- should it have? Is there a better way, and if so, what?

Books
I used to always finish any book I started reading, even if it felt like a marathon to do. This year I decided that life is too short to read books you don't like, or to read books just because they are classics or whatever. So this year, I picked up but didn't finish Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon; Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Studs Terkel's Working, and probably a lot more books. It's not that I didn't like them, and in fact I hope to pick them up again someday. But they got pushed aside in the shuffle of grad student life.

But as for  books I did read, these are the ones that have stuck with me this year

Academic:
Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve Ewing
From Traps to Draggers: Domestic commodity production in Northwest Newfoundland, 1850-1952 by Peter Sinclair
Why Rural Schools Matter by Mara Tieken
People, Resources and Power: Critical Perspectives on Underdevelopment and Primary Industries in the Atlantic Region edited by Gary Burrill and Ian McKay

Faith:
The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning
Everybody Always by Bob Goff
The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero

Nonfiction:
Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler
Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
All We Leave Behind by Carol Off

Fiction:
The Boat People by Sharon Bala

Movies
Without meaning to, I went to the cinema more times in 2018 than any other year. The movies that really stuck with me, though, were these ones.

A Star is Born
Free Solo
The Dawn Wall
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Black Panther
Many Beautiful Things (came out 2017)

Music
Some artists I got really into this year. It often takes just a single song for me to be hooked on an artist-- here I am going to link to the song that caught my attention. Most of these songs didn't come out in 2018, but I listened to them in 2018.

Rex Orange County
Kweku Collins
Donovan Woods
Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Aquakulture

In 2018, some favourite artists also released new music, like Anderson .Paak, Chance the Rapper,  Noname, and Twenty One Pilots.

The Christian songs that have stuck with me this year are Closer to Your Heart and Slow Kingdom Coming.

WOW. This was extensive. Hope it's at least a little interesting to you. Can't wait to see what sticks in 2019.