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Anthony's Faith Statement.

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A brief Introduction:

While studying to be a pastor in college I abandoned my faith. In fact, I abandoned everything I thought I believed and rebuilt.

To my own surprise at the time, I found that Christianity was much stronger than I had thought. As I rebuilt my belief system, I realized that there needed to be people out there responding to the questions people have. I had them myself. So, while not continuing on to be a pastor, I have focused on educating people about what Christianity is all about and responding to the various charges and accusations made against it.

There are some obvious challenges to being successful in that capacity, but a big part of it consists not in arguing with atheists and skeptics, but rather in providing Christians with accurate information in the first place to prevent them from leaving the faith in the first place.

Questioning is a very normal and natural part of growing up, and I am convinced that it is not wrong to ask questions of God at any age. God doesn't strike people down. On the other hand, if people are going to reject Christianity, it is my aim to at least make sure they reject the real Christianity and not a false view of it. Also, much heartache can be avoided by educating Christians properly to begin with. My experience has helped me... but it was unnecessary.

Paul said that some plant, some water, and others reap the increase. My job is to go out into the land and move rocks- or break them if necessary- till the land, and struggle through knee deep fertilizer... all in the effort to allow those who come later to plant, water, and reap the harvest. I look forward to the prospects of either serving you as someone who needs to haul rocks out of the field, or as someone who can look at the field, detect problems, and help farmers more effectively plant, water, and reap.

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Harry Potter and a Gay Dumbledore

Posted by Anthony on August 5, 2009

I’ve been getting some hits on my site regarding a past post about Rowling’s outing of Dumbledore as ‘gay.’ I couldn’t figure out but having scanned the news a bit I guess I get it. Some readers have taken offense to my ruminating about Rowling’s motives in having Dumbledore as gay, wondering if perhaps she was just trying to stick it to Christians.

I don’t know if that was her reason. But my post rankled some people, getting me accused of being arrogant, egocentric, ignorant, and most bizarrely, a liberal Christian. Wow, can’t remember the last time that charge was leveled.

Like I said, I don’t know if that was her reason. Honestly, I’m still waiting to hear the reason. I’d love to hear the reason. If it was some ploy towards the ‘acceptance’ themes in her books, then the brave and right thing to do was to have outed him in the series itself, and not afterwards. Learning that he was gay adds nothing that I can think of. If someone is aware of any place where she explains this, I’d be happy to hear it.

But imagine my surprise when I read that I am not the only person wondering about Rowling’s motives and speculating that perhaps it was just to rile up a certain segment of the population. None other then Daniel Radcliffe himself, the actor who plays Harry Potter in the movies, said,

“I think it’s wonderful that Dumbledore was outed as gay … Half of me thinks Rowling just did that to see if she could p*ss off the right-wing, but I’m not sure how true that is. I think she had it planned, I think she always knew he was gay.”

That Daniel Radcliffe! He’s so arrogant, egocentric, and ignorant! Oh, and a liberal Christian! Can you believe that guy? Positing ‘dark agendas’ is just ridiculous…

Well, and perhaps it is. But the reason for the speculation is that the ‘outing’ is positively mystifying. Besides simply not adding anything to an understanding of the series, if anything it darkens it. For example, I actually read someone wondering if Dumbledore’s interest in Harry wasn’t exactly platonic, if you get my gist. Ridiculous?

Well, I would have thought so until Rowlings started issuing post hoc revelations re-interpreting the text.

Anyway, I don’t know what Rowling’s motives were (both in conceiving of Dumbledore as gay and in revealing it) and would be happy if someone could direct me to any statements of her’s that clear it up.