Catching Up and Getting Started

Hey, friends! It's been a month since I've posted on here, and I apologize for that. I didn't mean to take a break from blogging, but to be honest, I probably needed a breather after a long, difficult semester. I thought it would be best if I started getting back into my blogging routine by catching you up on where I've been and where I'm at right now.

My Christmas break was wonderful. Millie flew down from New York, and we got to see her family and spend some time in Arkansas with mine. I got to catch up with college friends, see a friend from high school I haven't seen in years, and spend some good, quality time with my family, including my new baby nephew Karson. Millie and I were even able to bring our friend Hannah up to Arkansas for a bit to spend some time with my family. We had a great time.

I spent New Year's in Waco with some friends and immediately got back to work. Between the shelter and my job at Baylor Spiritual Life, I've been keeping pretty busy. I've also been preparing my mind and body for the stresses of the coming semester.

This spring, I'm taking eighteen class hours. Nine of those are Mentorship hours, meaning I'll be setting aside time at work for research, writing, learning new skills, and one-on-one learning with my boss, who knows a lot more about media ministry than I do. I've already been going through that process for a couple of weeks, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm also taking Hebrew 2, a class on Christian worship, and a Mobile App Development class. I know Hebrew will be a challenge, but I'm depending on my coding class to be a much-needed source of fun and enjoyment.

I think this semester will be both challenging and rewarding. I'm going to work hard to do well in school, to develop in my career field, to take care of myself, and to maintain healthy relationships with my friends and family. In the midst of that, I'll be thinking through some issues and will need a means of expressing those thoughts. That's what this blog will be for. I might be talking about theology one week, social issues another, and the last Star Wars movie after that. I don't know exactly what I'll write about, but I'm excited to get getting back into blogging, and I hope you're excited to read what I have to say.

Thank you again for checking out my blog. I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful holiday season and a great start to 2016. I can't wait to see what's in store.

Christian Hegemony and the Alleged War on Christmas

This year, like every year, the war on the "war on Christmas" rages on. Catch phrases like, "It's not Happy Holidays. It's Merry Christmas," "Jesus is the reason for the season," and my personal favorite, "Calling it Xmas is trying to take the Christ out of Christmas," have taken their annual places at the top of our Facebook News Feeds. Christian vigilantes all over the Internet have made it their mission to ensure that everyone they come into contact with knows that they will not be forced to recognize any holiday other than Christmas during this season because doing so would be giving in to those who are trying to destroy the celebration of Jesus' birthday.

This kind of rhetoric is very troubling to me for a lot of reasons. Not only is it extremely insensitive to the countless people who celebrate holidays other than Christmas this time of year, but it also presents an image of Christians that is simply unflattering. On the one hand, war-on-Christmasers want to claim that they are victims of a systematic agenda of secularizing the holiday season and removing Christmas from the picture. On the other hand, they want to function as dominant, almost brutal, leaders who force their values and worldview on everyone else, Christian or otherwise. Neither of these images is positive, and neither one is realistic.

The misconception behind the so-called war on Christmas is rooted in what is called Christian hegemony. In simple terms, hegemony refers to the phenomenon of an entire culture taking on the attributes of the culture's dominant group (at least on a surface level). Hegemony often implies that the dominant group is forcing minority groups to conform through suppression of cultural identity or other means. For example, when Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world, he used the process of Hellenization, forcing the Greek language and customs on conquered peoples, to solidify his empire. This would be considered Greek hegemony.

Christian hegemony has existed in the United States since the country was formed. Because most (but certainly not all) of the original citizens of the United States were Christians and almost all of the founding leaders of the United States were Christians, Christianity naturally became the dominant cultural force in this nation, and this hegemony has continued into the modern era. This is why many people refer to the United States as a "Christian nation" although we have no official state religion. Judaeo-Christian principles became the moral standard, and Christian holidays became the national holidays. Even U.S. citizens who are not Christian have been living under the influence of this Christian hegemony for generations.

But here's the thing: Christian hegemony in the United States is slowly but surely crumbling. The United States is a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious nation, and voices outside of Christianity are beginning to be heard. Christianity is losing its monopoly on cultural influence as people are starting to realize that the United States is not a Christian nation but a secular nation made up of people from many backgrounds. In short, Christianity isn't the only voice getting a say in the United States anymore. And many Christians have come to understand this as persecution.

I, however, would argue that this phenomenon is actually the exact opposite of persecution. Hegemony is in and of itself oppressive to all non-dominant groups in a culture, so the destruction of it is a good thing, regardless of which group is benefiting from it. Sure, it's nice when your group is in charge, but isn't it terrible when your group isn't? Wouldn't it be a much more fair way of doing things if everyone had a voice? If every U.S. citizen was allowed to be themselves and celebrate their culture without having to conform to some other group's imposed values? To me, that sounds a lot more like the image of an ideal United States of America that our forefathers set out for: a land of freedom for all, not just the dominant ruling group. 

So no, I don't believe there is a war on Christmas. I believe that what war-on-Christmasers understand as the war on Christmas is actually just the fading away of Christmas hegemony. Other voices and traditions are coming forward out of the shadows and demanding to be recognized, and I support it 100%. 

I'm not saying that all ideaologies are equally valid and acceptable. I do believe there is a true threat to Christmas that Christians have allowed to slip in as they've been fighting the "war on Christmas," and that's commercialism. Christmas has become so focused on the gifts, commercials, films, and pop songs that Christians—not secularists—have lost sight of what Christmas is truly about. If Christians want to defend Christmas against something, let's defend it against that and focus on what Christmas really means to us: the celebration of Christ's incarnation, birth, and presence with us. 

And as we celebrate Christmas, let us recognize that we do not own this time of year. Many cultures and traditions have understood this season to be sacred (often longer than Christians themselves have), and the truth is that there is plenty of magic and joy to share. In fact, when we show God's love to others by respecting and honoring them, we are actually being more true to the spirit of Christmas and to the Christ who humbly came to earth as a baby than we are when we're posting angrily on Facebook.

So feel free to wish those around you a merry Christmas. I'm sure they'll smile and thank you. And if someone wishes you a happy holidays or some other holiday greeting, feel free to smile and thank them as well, resting in the fact that they aren't attacking your holiday and beliefs but simply expressing their own. So Merry Christmas to you and yours. And happy holidays as well. May God bless you and your loved ones as we celebrate this season and all that it means to each of us.

Fact-Checking Is Easy (When You Have Nothing to Lose)

It happens to everyone. I'm sure you've experienced it once or twice. You're scrolling through Facebook (or Twitter, Instagram, your social network of choice), and you see something that just seems a little off. It makes you stop and think, "Huh. That can't be right." This happens to me at least once a week. And usually, I scroll on and forget all about it. But recently, I've been incorporating a new habit into my digital routine: fact-checking.

Whenever I see a post (usually a meme) that seems questionable to me, I do quick Google search to see what I can find. Usually, the first result is a Snopes article that debunks the post, tracing its origin and explaining why it shouldn't be considered legitimate. After reading the article, I copy a link to it and post it in the comments of the post, hoping the person who posted it will read the article and check their sources next time. I'm kind of an Internet vigilante that way.

Fact-checking is fun for me. It makes me feel good to know that my sketchy information sensor is finely tuned and that I can help other people work on theirs as well instead of blindly believing everything they read online. However, I had an experience recently that showed me my fact-checking intentions aren't always so pure.

It started off the way these things always do. I saw something on Facebook that I thought seemed illegitimate. So I Googled it. However, I didn't find a Snopes article at the top of the page. In fact, I found nothing. There were no sources I could use to debunk the claim that the post had made. And that left me feeling disappointed.

I wasn't sad that my sketchy information sensor had malfunctioned (although that is unfortunate). I was disappointed because the post had made a claim that went against my beliefs, and when I couldn't find something to argue against it, I was unhappy about it.

This experience revealed the dark side of my fact-checking habit: I was only fact-checking the things I disagreed with. When I see something that seems offensive or contrary to what I believe, I'm naturally inclined to disbelieve it and seek information that disproves it. However, when I see something that affirms my opinions and beliefs, I'm happy to accept it unquestioningly. This is a natural human bias, but it's one that I had hoped I'd overcome. Obviously, I hadn't.

Each of us has a set of beliefs and values that we consider to be integral to who we are, and that's great. However, if we let those beliefs and values keep us from being open to new information, then we're going to end up being blinded by our own delusions. I tried to reject something just because I disagreed with it. I was wrong. And if I had not been open enough to acknowledge that, I would have missed out on learning some new information that may turn out to be valuable to me in the future.

I'm still a big proponent of fact-checking. Each of us is responsible for checking our sources before we share or espouse something. But we can't just fact-check the things we disagree with. We have to be open to fact-checking information that supports our own opinions as well. So from here on out, I'm going to try to fact-check myself as much as I fact-check others. Ignorance and bias are walls that get in the way of peace and brotherhood, and I'm as susceptible to them as anyone else. So here's to fact-checking—not only others, but also ourselves—and to being open to the beliefs and opinions of others as we try to navigate this complicated world together.

We Need to Do Better About Mental Health

Lately, there has been a lot of talk in the news about issues surrounding mental health. This comes up almost every time there is a major tragedy in our society carried about by an individual who we consider one of our own. We do not want to face the fact that our way of doing things could produce such tragedies, and so we attribute the entire ordeal to the perpetrator's mental health, or lack thereof. Attributing these disasters to mental health while ignoring all other facets of the problem seems like a copout to me, but I do think it's good that mental health is being talked about.

Because the reality is that we do have a mental health problem in our country. So many people experience some kind of mental illness at any given time, and yet most of them go untreated. Treatment is unavailable or unaffordable, and besides that, there is a stigma attached to mental illness that causes people to hide their struggles. So instead of seeking help and getting better, people simply hide the problem until it gets so bad that it comes out in destructive ways.

I recently saw a video from John Oliver's show Last Week Tonight that uses research, humor, and logic to talk about the mental heal crisis in a constructive way. The video captures a lot of what I feel about mental health, so I thought I would share it with you.

The saddest thing about mental illness is that help is available, but there are just so many things that get in the way of people seeking it. And the problem starts with us. We've created a stigma surrounding mental illness, and it's literally costing people their lives. We do it in ways that are subtle for us, but they certainly aren't subtle for the people dealing with mental health issues. We throw around words like "crazy" without thinking about their implications. When someone is struggling with sadness or loneliness, we tell them they should "just get over it" or that if they have enough faith, their struggles will go away. These are destructive habits that create an atmosphere of judgment and prejudice, and it must stop.

Think about it this way: If your friend told you they needed to go to the doctor because they had a fever, how would you react? You'd probably encourage them to seek treatment, right? You might even offer to drive them to the clinic. But when someone seeks help for mental illness, we want to distance ourselves from it. Not only do we not want to be involved, but we make the person suffering feel like seeking help is a sign of weakness or would lead to being judged. Mental illness is just as real and just as dangerous (often more so) as physical illness. And just like physical illnesses, mental illnesses can lead to severe injury and even death if left untreated.

I understand that it's hard. Mental illness is a concept that is difficult for many of us to grasp, and that makes us want to stay away from it. And because mental illness is not easy to diagnose and observe, we struggle to see it even when it's right in front us. But with a little bit of education and a little bit of sympathy, we can all become advocates for those with mental illness. And not only advocates, but companions. We can come alongside people suffering from these illnesses, and we can tell them, "I'm here for you. I'm not leaving your side until we see you through this." It will be hard, and it will take time, but I believe that if we open our hearts and minds, we can see the mental health crisis in our nation and in our world end. Mental health is crucial to living a fulfilling life, and everyone deserves that chance. So let's work together to fight mental illness and give everyone the chance that they deserve.

Muslims Are Not Out to Get You

Recent events in world history have brought to the forefront yet again the issue of radical Islamic terrorism. Last week, ISIS staged attacks in Paris and in Beirut that affected countless people and left the world asking why. Why would anyone do something so horrific? What would prompt a person to attach an explosive to their body and detonate it, killing themselves and dozens of others? How can events like this happen over and over in what we assume to be a civilized world? These are legitimate questions, and I pray that one day we'll be able to get to the bottom of them and find a solution for this problem.

But that's not what this post is about. Instead, I want to talk today about a certain type of response to these tragedies that I find extremely problematic. It seems that every time a terrorist attack is carried about by a Muslim group like ISIS, a wave of anti-Muslim ideology sweeps over our national dialogue, and suddenly it becomes perfectly acceptable to say whatever one likes about this entire group of people. A quick browse of a Facebook news feed shows how willing we are to blame the entire Muslim religion and each Muslim individually for the actions of ISIS. I find this problematic for a lot of reasons.

First of all, it's simply unfair. To say that an entire group of people is responsible for the actions of a small subset of that group that isn't even condoned by the majority is illogical and unethical. Groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS are called radical Muslim groups for a reason. They are fringe groups within the Islamic religion, a tiny minority that does not respresent the whole. In all honesty, they're really just militant groups that use their faith as an excuse for their reproachable deeds and as a recruitment technique. But they do not represent what Islam is. Islam is a peaceful religion, and Muslims are by and large peaceful people. But because we assume that groups like ISIS represent the whole, we never see beyond what the media tells us about Islam, and that's unfair to the millions of Muslims who have nothing but good intentions.

Blaming all Muslims for the actions of ISIS is also hypocritical. It's an example of what psychologists refer to as in-group bias. We tend to assume that the people within our own in-group (such as our own religion, nationality, or race) exhibit diversity, but people within out-groups are all the same. The truth is that every group is diverse and includes a range of different viewpoints. No one would ever try to argue that the attrocities committed during the Crusades or the Inquisition represent the whole of Christianity. And yet this is what we do with Muslims. We believe that actions committed by one subset of the group represent the group as a whole. This is simply unacceptable, and it must stop.

Now we are in a place where unwarranted fear of all Muslims is threatening to stop us from helping other people. The Syrian refugee crisis has been wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of people for far too long, and the United States is finally getting involved by allowing some of the refugees to relocate here. Unfortunately, those refugees are going to be met with a great deal of skepticism, bias, and even hatred when they arrive. I've already seen multiple posts online claiming that the refugee crisis is simply a front for radical Islamic groups to bring their members to the American shore, and now state after state is publicly declaring that Syrian refugees are not welcome within their borders. This is utterly ridiculous.

The Syrian refugees are not terrorists. They are simply people—men, women, and children—who are trying to find a home. They've been displaced by violence, and they are trying to escape the exact events that many Americans are accusing them of. How much sense does that make? We are at risk of letting bias and ignorance get in the way of humanitarian efforts, and that simply cannot be tolerated. The refugees need our help, not our hatred, so let's give it to them.

Because the truth is that blaming Islam as a whole for terrorist attacks only perpetuates the world's problems. What is the biggest recruitment method used by ISIS? They teach young Muslims that Americans hate them and are a threat to their faith. Every time someone posts an anti-Muslim post on Facebook or makes a snide remark about importing terrorists from Syria, they are giving ISIS a little more ammunition to use against us and to recruit new members. Let me be clear: If you are promoting Muslim hatred, then you are supporting the radical Islamic terrorist groups, the very groups that you claim to hate. Anti-Muslim sentiment is a part of the problem, and it has to stop.

But we're not just making the ISIS problem worse. We're burning every bridge we've built with Muslims in our country and abroad, people who could be valuable allies in trying to solve the problem of terrorism.  There are good Muslims out there who want to see this violence end as much as we do. But we are pushing them away by blaming them for the very thing they're trying to prevent. And the truth is that we need as much conversation, collaboration, and fellowship between ourselves and Muslims as we can get. International, inter-cultural, and inter-faith dialogue, when done correctly, can do nothing but good for the world, and we need to be creating space for it instead of limiting it.

The source behind anti-Muslim sentiment is simply fear. And fear can be combatted easily by two things: education and exposure. When you take the time to actually learn about Islam and interact with Muslims, you learn that you have nothing to fear from the Muslim faith. In fact, I think we can learn a lot from interacting with our Muslim brothers and sisters, just as we have a lot that we can teach them. We live in an increasingly multicultural world, and we have to learn to adjust to that. The appropriate response is not fear but empathy and interest. So as we try to respond to the tragedy of terrorism, may we remember that Muslims are not the enemy. They are not out to get us. They are simply people who hate terrorism as much as we do. May we embrace our fellow human beings as we go through these experiences together, and may we learn to love those who are different from ourselves rather than fear them.