In the wake of an unacceptable number of school shootings, the country is in agreement that something must be done. As far as what should be done, well, we seem to be even more divided than we are on most other political issues – and in America that’s saying something.
This past Saturday, my column, “Faith can polarize us – and certainty is not the answer,” was published in the Dallas Morning News. Well, it turns out that writing about faith can be polarizing as well.
I’ve known how to write for a very, very long time. But knowing how to write doesn’t make you a writer, in the same way that knowing how to shoot a basketball doesn’t make you an athlete (although it took me quite a while to realize that).
Regardless of whether President Obama or Governor Romney wins on Tuesday (and I think Obama will), we can count on four more years of war, declining civil liberties, and an increasing deficit. Neither candidate will close Guantanamo Bay, end the Patriot Act and the NDAA, or cut military spending.
Although unknown, the author of the Gospel of Mark was almost undoubtedly a male, just like the rest of Biblical authors are assumed to be. By using the feminist method of Biblical criticism, we can closely examine how the author, both explicitly and implicitly, views women. Living in an extremely patriarchal society, the author clearly displays the sexism that was so common in the era, and so common throughout the Bible itself. This negative view of women is especially exposed in the passage of Mark 7:24-30, in which Jesus interacts with a Syrophoenician Gentile woman.
Mac McCann 
