Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

gender

  • or how Catholics use natural law to avoid doing theology. Pope on Gender: “Stop oppressing my oppressive ideology!” I get that it must be confusing. You grew up looking at the world and thinking there are only two options. And really, they seem like the only real ones anyway. Man or Woman. Coke or Pepsi.…

  • On Saturday, a bishop of the church rejected the authority of the Episcopal Church. The next morning, scripture rebuked him. Of course, nobody thinks this started on Saturday. We’ve been fighting about sex for decades. But Saturday, something new happened. Bishop William Love, as The Episcopal Bishop of Albany, you wrote a pastoral letter to…

  • We talk like we’re divided in two. But if there were two internets, it wouldn’t be split left/right. It’s more like right vs. everyone else. The way we talk about American culture is a lie based on truth. How we come to this lie, and why we stretch the truth to justify it, is vitally…

  • I have not been as affected by a movie in years as I was by Moonlight. How it performs at the Oscars won’t change the truth that it is not only a great film, it’s transcendent. Zach Hoag’s review is top shelf and far more thoughtful than the review I never wrote. Except this one simple…

  • Talk. And not in some slimey know-it-all way. Not with some “The Bible clearly says…” bullshit certainty of what God thinks about your naughty bits and where you put them. But we need to talk in a way that deals with the stuff of life. So let’s talk. When we talk about sex, gender, and…

  • In a defensive rant a sci-fi author describes the concerns he has posed for his side. In a rising conflict over church practice, parishioners appeal for others to take their side. On Facebook, you post a meme about gender politics and your friends try to convince you that you are betraying your side. Or your other friends tell…