David A. Garner

The Briefing 7.4.14

Howard Megdal makes a defense for the hot dog: Let’s be honest: When you are eating a hot dog, you are making a bargain with God. There’s a certain amount of information you normally receive when you purchase food. You buy a hamburger, there’s a certain level of belief that it’s ground beef. The same […]

David Grumett

Digesting the Word: A Tryptic and Proposal on Dietary Choice

This essay reflects upon the fascinating painting by Velázquez Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, discusses the current Roman Catholic rules of abstinence, and considers the curious fact that these are less rigorous than those adopted by vegetarians and many others in secular society.

Kj Swanson

The Bruises of Bella Swan: Confronting the Evangelical Embrace of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, Part III

See Part I of this essay series, in which Swanson begins her analysis of evanglical responses to the Twilight series by examining Twilight’s false message of abstinence, and Part II, in which she critiques New Moon’s portrayal of men as “protectors” and women as “perpetual, self-sacrificing victims.” Here in Part III, Swanson examines the dangerous sexual dynamic between Edward […]

Kj Swanson

Grateful Victimization, Joyful Suffering: Confronting the Evangelical Embrace of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, Part II

See Part I of this essay series, in which Swanson begins her analysis of evanglical responses to the Twilightseries by examining Twilight‘s false message of abstinence. Here in Part II, Swanson critiques New Moon’s portrayal of men as “protectors” and women as “perpetual, self-sacrificing victims.” Twilight has become the synecdochic term for Stephenie Meyer’s book, film, and pop […]

Tina Schermer Sellers

Christians Caught Between the Sheets — How ‘abstinence only’ Ideology Hurts Us

Introduction There are few subjects as explosive inside the Christian church as sexuality. The level of reactivity with which people discuss sexuality, parent around sexuality, silence sexuality, and judge and shame sexuality has no equal. For centuries we have fostered this reactivity through the silence and shame that fills most adult’s sexual story and later […]