That’s news to me. :rolleyes:
Read any Jack Chick tracts lately? There is a small but not insignificant number of Protestant Christians who believe that the Catholic Church is a tool of Satan. Something to do with the Pope.
So…
You don’t blame individual Christians, but you do expect them to take responsibility, even though my (liberal gay-affirming Episcopalian) church’s “bureacracy” has absolutely nothing to do with the “bureacracy” of the conservative Greek Orthodox church next door? 
And implying that some sort of group-mind conformity-controlling bureacracy is a necessary part of a Christian church? Please. My fellow parishioners have beliefs ranging from very conservative fundamentalism (a tiny minority, but you can find them) to mainstream protestantism, to very liberal Christianity, to deism and agnosticism. And the deists and agnostics aren’t afraid to be open about what they believe or don’t believe, and they’re not excluded from the church in any way. I don’t think any of the priests would pretend for a moment to have all the answers. I don’t feel any pressure to conform to any specific dogma, and I’d be surprised if anyone else attending my church did either.
So there are certainly churches out there (and even whole denominations–how buerocratically dogmatic are the Unitarians?) that don’t go for a group-think bureacracy.
Exactly. It is the individuals who screw it up. In any large group of people, some will be jerks, no matter how noble the original aims of the Group were.
Right again.
That’s what it was, grandstanding for political reasons. It would have been an easy matter for the preacher to speak privately with the judge, ask WTF is going on, and take it from there. The preacher chose to make it a “federal case” for his own purposes.
Puleeze. Jack Chick is hardly the sort of person I would look to as any sort of expert or authority on religious matters. I try to not read his bullshit, except when I feel like taking potshots at him or need a good belly laugh. I have to wonder about the ignorance and gullibility of the people who actually believe the snake oil he is selling.
The problem with this entire argument is this:
In one of Paul’s letters to the church (1 Corinthians, chapter 5), he told them exactly what to do with unrepentent sinners who were making bad choices deliberately, despite being instructed otherwise by their spiritual leaders, and it wasn’t ‘live and let live’ or ‘let him who is without sin throw the first stone’. It was:
If Greer’s minister truly believes the judge is responsible for killing Terri Schiavo by denying her the simplest delivery of food and water (rather than “allowing her to die”), and if he has talked to the man several times, and the man will not change his mind, then whether you agree with it or not, he may feel an obligation to KICK HIM OUT.
That he did it publically is not to his credit.
Look at the Amish - don’t they practice ‘shunning’? Yet I don’t see anybody here throwing a hissy fit because Amish would and do toss people out, and shun them as if they didn’t exist, for the unrepentant wearing of colorful clothing.
I don’t know if any of you folks are familiar with the Gary Ezzo (“Growing Kids God’s Way”) fiasco, but he got kicked out of his church too…after he’d caused a nasty split, and after methods he advocated and continues to advocate for child-rearing had contributed to the death and permanent injury of several children.
If the minister felt he had an obligation to remove Greer from his church based on that section of 1 Corinthians, then I applaud him for having done so. Christianity really *isn’t * all about tolerance. It never has been. It’s actually all about conformity - you get unconditional acceptance, as long as you conform - and it always has been. That’s why I left, by the way, but you can’t fault people for actually living what they claim to believe.
Chick was just an extreme example given. You want more mainstream? How about Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has stated that the Catholic Church is teaching a false doctrine and will lead people to hell. Seems that could very well be the official SBC stance, don’t it? I grew up in a Pentecostal Church (Pentecostal Church of God and Assemblies of God) and they both held that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon. It’s a pretty standard belief for the Fundamentalists (emphasis on the “mental”).
The thing that bothers me most about Christianity is it’s historical and traditional claim to be the only way to god and to it’s divine transformational powers. (2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. ) Now if that kind of transformation doesn’t happen, if you don’t have the “fruits of the Spirit”, if Christians can still be jerks, then what does that say about the “divine” nature of the transformation? Does your God not really have the power to transform lives?
It seems to me that following Christ’s teachings makes for a great philosophy. But that’s all it is, like Buddhism, Taoism or Secular Humanism. Transformation comes from within. Whatever philosophy you follow, it’s still you that does the work.
And that gets to the nub of my problem with Christianity. It’s claims to divine assistance ring hollow. People defend Christianity when an asshole Christian does something. You shout that we’re painting with a wide brush to criticise Christianity for something some random jerk did. But if the claims for divine transformation were true, then those jerks wouldn’t be jerks. We’re really just trying to get you to open your eyes and see that Christ or whatever God you pray to doesn’t do shit for you. You are who you want to be. Take credit when you do good and take blame when you don’t.
This seems to be the preacher’s words, himself.
http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/3995.article
He does not believe Terry is in a PVS.
Can anyone find the Southern Baptist point of view on extreme measures and life support? I’m not finding anything on the SBC.
I hate to throw cold water on the proceedings, but there is no such thing as a “Southern Baptist stance” on anything. The closest they come to a standard is something called the “Baptist Faith and Message” which is an official statement of beliefs produced by the Convention. However, not only is each member church of the SBC independent, but each individual is, according to Baptist doctrine, the sole governor of his or her conscience, honorbound to do right according to his or her Christian views – and many Southern Baptists reject all or part of the BF&M. (Sauron and Aries28, liberal Southern Baptists, can speak at length to this issue; I’m merely reporting what I’ve learned, in part through them.)
If that is the case, I guess we’ll all be in good company. Not that I really care for the SBC outlook which more and more seems to be one of blind obedience and no questioning whatsoever of whatever the local (and out of control) preacher says. I wonder, are Southern Baptist preachers subject to any sort of governing body? Is there say an equivalent to an archbishop or cardinal that can keep the weirdos from going too far, or is each congregation completely independent?
Maybe that’s it. It’s easier to let some divine being use their uber powers to grant stuff, than to do it yourself. We had a saying - “God helps those who help themselves”.
I suspect, although I am not enough of a Biblical scholar to say so with any degree of certainty, that there is nothing in the teachings of Jesus that deals specifically with the withdraw of life support systems. We have all sorts of general guidance ranging from the Mosaic law down to the Sermon on the Mount but not reference, I suspect, to just how long you keep the ventilator going or how long you tube feed people who can’t take food and water by mouth.
That seems to leave this sort of question up to our own good judgement as to when the preservation of life is just an exercise in futility doing the subject no benefit. In this poor woman’s case the general rule on which there appears to be a consensus is that the wishes and directives of the subject are to be observed. While there is a fight going on about whether life prolonging efforts should ever be abandon, even in the absence of any rational hope of recovery, improvement or consciousness, the real fight was over whether she had ever given any directives. That fight is over. The institution we have given the power and duty to decide that question has spoken.
What I find somewhat disturbing is the tendency of some believers when confronted with a question to consult their God and to conclude from what seems to be a pretty one sided consultation that God is in wholehearted agreement with them. It seem to me that this is a little like a baseball player announcing that the Lord God Almighty regards the infield fly rule as an abomination.
My own view is that the Godhead in Its wisdom isn’t very happy with the designated hitter. It is a fundamental principle of my faith that pitchers are players and ought to take their turn at bat. I hereby excommunicate, shun, and condemn anybody who says different.
I disagree Polycarp. While the Southern Baptist Convention has no “authority” to tell individuals and church what their stance should be, it does wield considerable power to do so. Witness the multiple churches that were thrown out of the convention for not toeing the line and the missionaries that were removed from service if they didn’t sign a loyalty oath, er, I mean statement of faith. The SBC is recognized as the voice of the Southern Baptist Convention (the term “Southern Baptist Convention” is used for both the confederation of the churches and the governing body itself). Therefore, its pronouncements do make an “official” policy even if individuals don’t hold it themselves. AS much as I like Sauron and his wife, they and their church are less representative of the body of churches making up the organization than the SBC.
If you do not wish to be associated with them then break your association. March into your Pastors office and tell him that you are witholding donations until Mr. Greer is invited to rejoin the church and extended an appropriate apology. Until you do so the fact is unfortunately that you are willing a member of a orginization that is engaged in some extremely shitty behavior. That is a poor reflection on you and if you do not wish to be seen in that light then you must break your relationship.
Well, CS Lewis had an interesting rebuttal to this (which I will paraphrase because I can’t find my copy of Mere Christianity)
You can’t look at Joe the Baker and say, he’s a jerk, he can’t really be a Christian, because if he were, he wouldn’t be a jerk. The only thing you can do is look at what he was like before he became a Christian (if you knew him then) and compare it to now. Maybe Joe the Baker was twice as big a jerk before. Maybe being half-a-jerk is an amazing transformation for him. If you didn’t know him before, you’d never know whether he’s changed or not.
I have seen many people change radically after their conversions. A friend’s husband just converted recently, at the age of 40. She claims the transformation in him, and in their marriage, is amazing. And yet I’ve always thought him a generally nice guy…so whatever the change is, it isn’t from ‘jerk’ to ‘non-jerk’.
I do not pretend to claim that the ‘transformation’ in question is necessarily a metaphysical or spiritual thing. It may simply be a sudden desire to conform to a stated set of behavioral rules, to which one never felt a desire to conform before - and thus to gain the acceptance, ‘love’ and support of your new-chosen social group. But that it actually happens to some, perhaps many converts to Christianity, I do not dispute.
I don’t know about people who are raised in the faith. There’s no way to compare what they’d have been like if they hadn’t been raised in it.
Excerpt from a recent news article in The Tennessean newspaper:
I cannot defend the actions of the minister in Florida. Personally, I don’t think that he followed the teachings. But he doesn’t have to answer to me.
The bereaved husband in the above article is also acting upon his Christian beliefs. Should we be making generalizations based upon his actions alone? I don’t think so. I wish that we could generalize from his example!
The Christ taught love, not-judgment and forgiveness. Men and women, in our imperfections, get the teachings confused and distorted. Our egos get in the way. We can do hurtful things and make mistakes – sometimes big ones. We don’t lose our right to call ourselves Christians even when we mess up.
Gobear, sometimes I think that you kick the free-thinking Christians out of your freethinkers club by the way that you say things. Or is it that you believe that Christians can’t be free-thinkers?
Pax
It’s Tax-Free Goodness!
/Got nothing.
Um, yeah, I’m sure the rector of Seige’s Episcopal parish is gonna have a lot of sway over a Southern Baptist congregation in a different state. :rolleyes:
treis, I’m an Episcopalian in Pennsylvania. Judge Greer is a Baptist in Florida. If my church is supporting his in any way, shape, or form, it’s going to come as a considerable shock to me. While I haven’t asked any of the priests at my current church about this, I talked to the Senior Warden of my hometown church today (my hometown church is also an Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania) and he’s as appalled by this as I am and that church isn’t supporting Judge Greer’s, either.
Again, what am I supposed to do?
CJ
:hangs head in shame:
Sorry the “different denomination” registered as different parish in my head. My deepest apologies :smack:
To answer your question I don’t see any reason you have to do anything. Feel free however to hurl insults or pray for him or whatever.