Read on Twitter
This is the facet of evangelicalism that was the most suffocating & that I am most relieved to be done with. https://twitter.com/hlentini09/status/1343640628756791296
A couple from the (v progressive) PCUSA church where I did my field ed once asked me, with sincere confusion & curiosity, "So how did you...get here? You just grew up so differently!" ...
And a big part of my answer was finally realizing it was okay to like the things I liked just because I l liked them. It was okay to like """secular"" stories. And art. And music. It was okay to engage stories (& ideas! & people!) that weren't explicitly Christian™. ...
It was OKAY to engage & practice imaginative theology as it's done in fiction. It didn't yank me off the path! It made me a better theologian! And it enabled me to do imaginative theology without experiencing physical crisis symptoms! Another shift that is very much appreciated!!
If anything, I'm a much MORE attentive & opinionated critic of theology in fiction now. But my leading question is no longer "Is it Christian?" It's "Is it freeing or limiting? Is it repeating harmful patterns or introducing helpful ones?"
Go watch Soul. Ask those questions.
Go watch Soul. Ask those questions.
