Weekend Reading

Weekend Reading

weekend reading image


The Fight for Black Men
“‘There’s a very good chance that we’re actually locking up the only potential we’ve got to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods in America,’ Bryant told me. ‘Drug dealers, gang organizers—they’re all natural entrepreneurs. They get up early, they work late, they hustle—but they have misplaced values and terrible role models.'”

Governor Signs Sex Trafficking Bill Aimed at Pimps
(IN VEGAS!!!!!)
“Officials from the Metropolitan Police Department testified during packed legislative hearings that they have arrested more than 2,100 underage prostitutes since 1994. Under the new law, approved unanimously by the Legislature, those who trick out children could be sentenced to life in prison.”

Short-Term Missions: The Reasons We Go
“Don’t go to be sobered by poverty or to learn a comparative kind of gratitude…

Be present.

Sit. Listen. Be open. Stay up all night with the locals, playing cards, chipping away at the language barrier. When you serve, do it quietly and respectfully, knowing that you too are being served in ways you will never completely understand.”

Growing Up In SGM
“I learned how to fit in at our church, hoping it would let me find close friends like the other girls had. I had to tone myself down (emotional modesty), not ask too much (selflessness), not attract too much attention (humility). I had to give up my hobbies and interests to “serve” my family. I had to dress in a way that didn’t show my body too much (physical modesty). I had to not be wild, unusual, forward, outspoken. Biblical femininity was a state of passive openness to receiving—suffering, male attention, the Holy Spirit. Though it was never said in so many words, being a biblical woman in SGM was the emotional equivalent of lying back, closing one’s eyes, and taking one for Jesus.  Doing all of this was worth it, of course, because any suffering that resulted would be better than I deserved.”

Corporate Sponsored Pimping Plays Role in US Human Trafficking
“Trafficker conjures one image, and yet in our MTV’d, BET’‘d, 50 Cent-loving, Snoop-celebrating culture, the word pimp conjures up something different. We call them by different names because it’s more about whom they’re exploiting. Selling girls from Eastern Europe or Thailand makes you a trafficker, selling American girls makes you a pimp and gets you a sneaker deal, a soft-drink endorsement, a Chrysler commercial.”

A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On
“Children are not cruel. Children are mirrors. They want to be “grown-up.” So they act how grown-ups act when we think they’re not looking. They do not act how we tell them to act at school assemblies. They act how we really act. They believe what we believe. They say what we say.”

…and then you need to read:
I Love Gay People and I Love Christians. I Choose All.
And while we’re at it . . . that still, small voice suggests to me often that He’d appreciate if Christians picked up a couple more issues other than homosexuality and abortion to address. You know, maybe a couple He actually mentioned…like care for the poor and sick and lonely and hungry and imprisoned and widowed and orphaned and recently immigrated. Maybe we should all be required to pick an issue that requires US to change  and not OTHERS to change. I think that’d be good.”
**note: even if you don’t agree with everything Glennon says in her posts, there is so much good, thought provoking, God-wrestling truth in there. don’t miss it.

 

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