Spreading some love to fellow travelers and bloggers

I am not a very consistent blogroller. Up to now, my list of links has been an after thought. I am not sure I will stay on top of things but I have added some new ones.
I want to mention four of the new links. First, go visit John Shore’s blog – Suddenly Christian. John is a winsome, funny, prolific and lately, controversial Evangelical writer who produces some entertaining and thoughtful posts. John is an adult convert to Christianity who brings a fresh and sometimes uncomfortable perspective to the Evangelical world.
The Marin Foundation is the brainchild of Andrew Marin. Not a blogger – yet – Marin seeks to do research and build bridges between religious and LGBT communities with an ambitious mission and set of values. He may in the middle enough to bother some people on either extreme, but this is where he believes he should be. He is currently writing a book about his views.
Wayne Jacobsen is on a roll. He published the NY Times #1 best seller, The Shack recently and it has changed his life. His blog is a bridgebuilding effort, which is a natural outgrowth of his work with Bridgebuilders. Wayne was a catalyst behind the First Amendment Center Guidelines on Sexual Orientation in schools. I have been a friendly acquaintance of Wayne via a meeting at Grove City College through mutual friends about three years ago.
It has taken me too long to put up a link to Mark Yarhouse’s Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity. The front page reads like a blog although without comments. Mark work on narrative sexual identity therapy was featured in a recent American Journal of Family Therapy article and is referenced at the ISSI site.
Enjoy!

7 thoughts on “Spreading some love to fellow travelers and bloggers”

  1. being as Andrew Marin (other than saying it is a bunch of lies) hasn’t responded to it.

    The comment I referenced has Marin’s response which was printed in The Advocate. There is also an official response from one of those who claim they were misrepresented in the original article. I’m not sure how else one should respond to lies, if in fact they are such; the onus is on the one making the claims to offer proof.
    It seems perfectly fine to factor in Marin’s views of sin, his responses to questions, etc., when making a personal assessment of his work, but we were unable to find anything that supported the comments in that article (and indeed at least one other person mentioned has officially protested it’s accuracy). If one is to base their opinion on fact, I suggest that article, which appears in several places, is not a credible source.

  2. Well I don’t see why someone shouldn’t base their opinion on that article – being as Andrew Marin (other than saying it is a bunch of lies) hasn’t responded to it.
    I think there are questions that articles raises – questions which if I was going to be supportive of Mr. Marin – I would want answers to.
    I did actually read that thread on exgaywatch – that together with the article and a few other quotes from him – raise concerns for me. For one – getting him to admit that being gay is a sin (fine if he thinks that – but really if he expects gayrights organizations to support him – perhaps they should know his stance beforehand) wasn’t exactly easy. He appears to like to talk in circles – tailoring what his says (or doesn’t say) according to which side he is trying to appease.

  3. @David Roberts: I agree; I think it best to read through the Marin Foundation website and judge their work accordingly. Andy has a book coming out soon which should bring his ideas together as well.

  4. John Shore seems like a cool guy. He is probably the most open and humble evangelical Christian I have ever encountered.
    Andrew Marin – hmm – something about him and his organization rubs me the wrong way. It does seem *to me* that his organization is a sort of soft-sell of exgay teachings. I wasn’t too impressed by how he handled himself on exgay watch – he wasn’t able to clarify his position (he just kept on reiterating that others have twisted his viewpoint – ie Signorile – but without details on why Signorile’s view’s were in error). In short I don’t trust him at all. His methodology seems too much like the cultish ‘love bombing’ technique.

  5. Sounds Interesting, Warren. I do wonder, though, when you talk about alienating people on either “extreme”. The extreme on the left has been caused by right-wing prejudice. The gay community has no inherent prejudice against evangelicals in and of themselves, unlike the evangelical community’s inherent theological prejudice against gays. Just think that (not intentionally) that comes off as a bit disingenous.
    Hope you are well.

Comments are closed.