Do you find a MILF pastor strange?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Honestly it is. I've known of plenty attractive female pastors but they were all youngs. I've also known of plenty of old ones growing up but never found any attractive. There's one at my church now who is older than most of the people there (still preaches in a very "young" style though)....and yeah she's actually pretty good looking too. Kind of resembles a blonde Tina Fey. Even wears the same style of glasses.

Weird? Not a bad thing but for some reason I think it is.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I find everything that has to do with your bizarre cult strange.

I thought you of all people would at least appreciate HAVING FEMALE PASTORS in the first place.

I find everything that has to do with your bizarre cult strange.

More or less strange than Bushie?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well she's Presbyterian so not a hipster Christian, but Carol Howard Merritt definitely qualifies.




But she does write articles with titles like Deconstructing patriarchy, one ritual at a time so she does at least fit the progressive SJW bill pretty well.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I know people who write articles with titles like that who'd kick your ass if you called them 'progressive'.

Well unless they're somehow conservatives who still write articles like that, then they have an odd case of labelphobia.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes, but that has more to do with the subject of the term than its object, i.e. seek help. Unless your church has a far more adventurous attitude toward sexuality than you've let on to, you shouldn't be ILFing anyone when he or she is presiding over a religious service.

1-The term isn't necessarily meant to be taken literally. Same goes for the "M" part, no one would ever describe a 22-year old mother as such, but it still is used for any attractive middle aged woman whether they have kids or not.
2-"Presiding over a religious service" is not a particularly accurate description of what the pastors here do, at least in the traditional sense and interpretation of what that means. It's more like "giving a motivational speech". More like a TED talk (complete with Powerpoint presentations) with scattered Bible quotes and a few prayers.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Like I said, we're talking more like a TED talk or interesting college lecture than a business meeting type PowerPoint.

It usually starts with some video or them showing some picture of their kids/niece/nephew/pet or whatever that makes a lot of people go "aaawwww!" as a lead in or some picture with more meaning, like the selfie of Miss Lebanon with Miss Israel or pictures of women whose sons and husbands were killed in the Rwandan Genocide standing with then men who killed them...and whom they've forgiven. Then it leads into the main sermon which is usually college lecture style in that it'll slowly display a list of the main points they want you to take from it that people will write down or type on their phones while telling jokes or telling personal anecdotes that relate to them. And whenever they quote the Bible that verse appears there too. And sometimes they'll post their phone number if they want questions to be texted that they'll answer after the sermon, or a hashtag for people to use posting their thoughts or reactions on Twitter.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

WTF? And this is considered a f[inks]ing Church!? At least us Catholics have standards.

I wish Protestantism had been stamped out

How's it not a church? It has a cross up front. It gives out communion some weeks although unlike the Catholics they also give us name tags so the communion server can give it by name  (and usually say something before like "Be still and know that the peace of God is with you" instead of the same thing every time) and people get all reverent and into worshipping raising their hands during the songs. Catholics don't do THAT.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Modern church buildings look modern inside too which is more cool. Like this one that resembles a strip club complete with no overhead lighting, just colored strobes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

? Even my parents' Lutheran Church in North Dakota uses PowerPoint...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Don't see how that'd work. Though I know of a church in Brooklyn that meets in an actual bar. With a bartender serving communion.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm pretty surprised PowerPoint is the big controversy amongst some here. That's quite common amongst churches today.

If I was to think of very odd things that stand out here, I'd instead think of downright wonderful things like people sometimes hardcore dancing and even crowdsurfing during songs sometimes, cases of people using profanity during sermons, or that allowing kids to run up and down the aisles during the service is actually pretty normal and accepted.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not sure a church that once had a sermon series entitled "Exchanging the Bad News of Religion for the Good News of Jesus Christ" would have a problem making a mockery of religion...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What sort of weird church do you even go to?

Is this like Christianity for people who think they're too "cool" to be seen as regular religious people like 70% of the rest of the country?

That's...actually not a terrible description. Though it shouldn't be surprising that hipsters don't want to be like 70% of the country or into something that's mainstream.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not sure a church that once had a sermon series entitled "Exchanging the Bad News of Religion for the Good News of Jesus Christ" would have a problem making a mockery of religion...

That sort of rhetoric is a major warning sign for certain particularly terrible theological positions (especially hardline and triumphalist variants of supersessionism are the first example that comes to mind), but we knew most of those things about your church anyway so I guess you're not really digging yourself any deeper by bringing it up.

Christianity is inherently and by definition a religion. It's an interaction between humanity and God that takes the form of religious worship. Among no serious scholars of religion is this the least bit controversial.

I care little about the semantics here, the point made in the series (also in hindsight I think it might've been "Exchanging the Bad News of the Church" instead of "Exchanging the Bad News of Religion"...but the point is pretty much the same) is that all negative things associated with religion and Christianity are not from Jesus or the message of Jesus, and that most things that turn people off to Christianity are like this as well. And this includes not just things like gender oppression, homophobia, and intolerance of dissent but also arbitrary rules imposed on people and legalistic restrictions so many have to deal with. It's actually a very progressive message, which should surprise no one.

Now I had to Google the word "supersessionism", never heard of it before, having done so I'll say this: how obviously liberal/progressive the church is kind of eliminates any concerns of where this type of thing usually follows, I know you'll probably say that being liberal and having bad theology is not mutually exclusive which is certainly true, but there are certain litmus test things (like complimentarianism) that I place far more value on. Also I don't think the supersessionism here is exactly "hardline", more like simply "implied", it's kind of a logical conclusion from someone who isn't a fan of ethnic religion and orthodox theology in regards to Jesus and any church that has no connection to ethnic religion at all is likely to hold that stand point. But it's not like the people are out pamphleting synagogues or proselytizing at Jewish community centers or anything. The position more or less comes out "We're just as willing to accept people from a Jewish background as from a Christian background", which is really just a policy of non-discrimination at the end of the day.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The problem with supersessionism isn't so much its attitude towards Judaism as an ethnoreligion as it is the advancement of a narrative about Christian origins that verges on treating the faith ahistorically, but I get that that's not really the point so I'll shut up about it.

Actually that's something I'm a bit intrigued about, seeing as how it's difficult to square a complete rejection of supersessionism with much of the New Testament, as it's made clear most of the first Christians were Jewish converts and Paul's writings on the Mosaic Law. Unless you want to argue that Jewish converts were only OK for a period of time, but that's something that I have a tough time backing up.

I'll also point out that a total rejection of supersessionism is actually discriminatory, in the same way the LDS church discriminated against blacks until 1978.

Modern church buildings look modern inside too which is more cool. Like this one that resembles a strip club complete with no overhead lighting, just colored strobes.

Does it still have the poles?

That's the only thing missing. Well and a tip rail.

Talks about gender oppression but unironically uses MILF and objectifies the pastor and women in general. BRTD

On my music forums (which obviously are full of progressive SJW types and have basically no ideological diversity whatsoever), people say "MILF" unironically and "objectify" women in bands all the time (plenty of threads about hottest women in them, etc.) And we're talking about the people who set up and go to things like this.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not talking about my church buy music forums in the second bit. Those are mostly atheist.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And apparently Jesus Christ's as well.

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. - Matthew 5:28

BRTD and folks created a place to hang out and do what they normally do; they then decided to call it a "church."  I said it on AAD, and I'll say it here.  I'd be a full-fledged IFB member before ever being a member in a BRTD "church." 

Once again I was referring to my atheist filled music forums there. Not church.