Introducing: The Stone-Campbell Nation Liberation Front
Y'all, just be glad I'm not starting a podcast....
Welcome to Stone-Campbell National Liberation Front by me, Jacob Gambrell. First let me introduce myself, then what I have in mind for this blog/newsletter, and finally I’ll end with a little bit of #content.
About me
I am an M.Div student in the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Economic Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. I am married my high school sweetheart, Hannah, and have a 6 month old son Manny. When I’m not in class, I’m a stay-at-home dad. It’s one of the best jobs in the world.
I grew up in Chattanooga, TN in the Churches of Christ. I attended Boyd Buchanan, and CoC K-12 school, and then the University of Mississippi where I graduated with a BA in International Studies and Spanish. While there I was really involved with the CoC campus ministry Rebels for Christ, until all of a sudden I wasn’t lol. I’ll tell that story later. My politics and theology has evolved dramatically over the past four or so years. I’ll also tell that story later.
My interests broadly include Christianity, politics, Latin America, the US South, and the intersection of all of those. I love reading and learning and tweeting about those things and hope to write about them soon. I recently finished my undergraduate thesis on the economically leftist and LGBTQ affirming elements within the Chilean Catholic Church so that has been taking up a majority of my brain power lately.
My hobbies include cooking, especially smoking meat, camping and backpacking, and watching sports. If you’re interested, my teams are the Rebs, Vols, ‘Dores, Mocs, Preds, Grizzlies, Five Stripes, and the Braves. Still in the market for a NFL team, if you have advice, lemme know.
In undergrad at UMiss, I really enjoyed writing for the Daily Mississippian and wanted to start a blog/newsletter to continue that. I felt like I was making good arguments and furthering the conversation in productive ways. If you want, you can read some of my old Op-Eds here.
About the blog
Hannah and I first published a blog, the Gambrell’s Inkwell, while we studied in Chile. We haven’t posted from it in the past year, mainly because of pregnancy + baby + senior year of college. In stead of restarting that one, I decided to do something new mainly so I wouldn’t get Hannah in trouble with my trash takes.
The title of this blog comes from one of my joke twitter usernames. The Church of Christ, Christian Church, and Disciples of Christ all came from the early-mid 19th century religious movement known as the Restoration or Stone-Campbell Movement. Juxtaposing that with “National Liberation Front” was very funny to me so I ran with it. And the SCNLF was born.
This blog will cover a multitude of topics, namely: Church of Christ/Evangelicalism, Leftist Politics, Southern Culture, Parenthood, and College Football. I’ll try to keep it short, make my point, and quit writing. I have been known to be a bit long winded. Hopefully some of my posts will interest you and this provide some insights, nuance, and more than anything make people think.
I’m sure this blog will end up getting me in trouble at some point in the future so please forward all complaints to compliance@olemiss.edu and do not slander this young man or insult his family.
I am going to try to post at least something once a week. Not sure if that’ll be feasible or not but that’s the plan.
So if you think any of this sounds interesting, smash that subscribe button. I promise not to disappoint.
Now for that sweet sweet #content
Tonight, some buddies from college and I are attending the “Stone-Campbell Bowl” between Lipscomb Academy and Goodpasture. Both of these Nashville private schools are affiliated with the CoC so therefore that should be the name of the football game. Of course I will be wearing some Boyd Buchanan Buccaneers gear, repping the one true CoC school in the state. Go Bucs.
The intersection of high school football and religion has always been interesting to me. Every Friday night in small towns across the country and especially in the South, communities come together to cheer on the boys. Its a space of unity within the community. For a brief 3 or 4 hours, everyone pauses their divisions and focuses on the one goal: beating those bastards from the next county over. Those wildcats, eagles, tigers, green wave, warriors, bruins, pirates have got another thing coming if they think they can walk into Our House with a W.
Everyone in the stands is wearing the same blue or red or orange or green. Everyone has their own opinion on the coach’s job security. Everyone is hoping the star running back can stay out of trouble long enough to keep his scholarship to State. Everyone knows that if the quarterback stays healthy we could make a deep run in the playoffs. Everyone has that uncle who could have gone pro if it wasn’t for his bad ankle. And when the good guys score, everyone is on their feet cheering together.
Then they leave the stadium, cheering or with their heads down, and head home. Saturday comes and goes and then the community wakes up on Sunday morning.
While two nights before, the community came together, now the community separates. Everyone goes to their own little church and worships God the right way. We don’t worship like they do. Those Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ, Presbyterians, Church of God, 7th days, Episcopalians, Lutherans have got another thing coming if they think they’re in the in the right. And don’t even get us started about those Catholics… These religious divisions can tear families apart and cause so much pain and suffering to those caught in the crossfire.
So what causes the Friday/Sunday dichotomy? Why does football unite us while religion divides us?
One would think that the “mission” of the gospel would be far more unifying than the “mission” of beating Adams County. Sports are trivial and meaningless, nothing of importance is at stake. While for people of faith, religion is of the utmost importance as everything is at stake. Surely in the face of this, we could find ways to pave over our differences and work together to further the Kingdom of God rather than hurling the word “heresy” at each other’s religious tradition.
But we don’t. We cheer next to someone on Friday night and talk about how they’re going to hell 36 hours later.
If you thought I was going to answer the question, sorry, I don’t know. You can blame sin or satan or small minded conservative people or socio-economic factors that influence the rural working class.
Anyways, I’ve got to get ready for this game tonight. My timing was not great…
Let go with: Lipscomb 34 - Goodpasture 17