Greer gets death threats and kicked out of his church.

[Princhester]

@Garfield226

And this is why every time a thread concerning Christianity pops up, you slink in from the shadows to spew your vile hatred. Because you fail to consider that maybe, just maybe, someone can claim to be a member of a group but not really live the beliefs of that group. Maybe, just maybe, someone who self-identifies as a Christian doesn’t have the authority to speak for all Christians. Maybe, just maybe, some other Christians can think for themselves and come to different conclusions.

Is this post is a demonstration of gobear’s point or a complete miss of gobear’s point. Probably both.

[Princhester]

@Apos

Do churches generally throw out murderers? If not, how can they justify doing this to Greer? I mean, he didn’t even really have a choice: it was, in his mind, his duty to rule as he did, according to the law.

Which is the key point. Nominally, the law is secular. Being a religious person (to state the obvious) is not.

Having a job where you are required to implement secular laws which may conflict with your religious beliefs has internal inconsistency written all over it.

Greer was always in a situation where his religion and his job might come to a crisis, the crisis arrived. You can’t blame the person at Greer’s religious hand for doing his religious thing. Greer put himself in a position where that might happen.

[Princhester]

Sorry, keep thinking of something else. There are a number of posters who suggested early in this thread that the actions of the pastor (albeit that he considers those actions to derive from his religion) should not reflect on the religion as a whole.

Next time there is a debate on what good religion does, I trust that the same posters will not be pointing to persons who are perceived as having done good things in the name of their religion as reflecting well on the religion as a whole.

[Marley23]

@Princhester

Greer was always in a situation where his religion and his job might come to a crisis, the crisis arrived. You can’t blame the person at Greer’s religious hand for doing his religious thing. Greer put himself in a position where that might happen.

So he should have thought of this before he became a judge? Yiy. He’s not exactly a Supreme Court Justice here. Mostly he handles traffic cases. Not things that set off major national ethics crises. The fact that he ended up with this one supercontroversy is freak happenstance.

[kaylasdad99]

@Spavined Gelding

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.

What time are Sunday services, Pastor? I note that you’re a couple of thousand miles away from my home. I might have to be one of those Christmas and Easter congregants.

[Zoe]

Reeder!

Yep…good “American” behavior.

Defend this, Americans!

(same link as Reeder originally posted).

[Zoe]

Princhester: Next time there is a debate on what good religion does, I trust that the same posters will not be pointing to persons who are perceived as having done good things in the name of their religion as reflecting well on the religion as a whole.

I will repeat my thinking on that:

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.

But I do think that this man, the husband at the funeral, is a good reflection of the teachings of the Christ. And those people who act out of judgment and exclusion, in my opinion, do not reflect the teachings. What I’ve learned that I can’t do is assume that all Christians are alike or that all Southern Baptists are alike or that all people in Judge Greer’s church are alike or even that the minister will not regret his actions.

Princhester: Having a job where you are required to implement secular laws which may conflict with your religious beliefs has internal inconsistency written all over it.

It’s hard for me to imagine a job where that conflict doesn’t exist from time to time, but I’m sure there are some. As a teacher, I was faced with it all the time. I know doctors and elected officials have to face that. It seems to me those choices would come up in most lives.

[Princhester]

@Marley23

So he should have thought of this before he became a judge? Yiy. He’s not exactly a Supreme Court Justice here. Mostly he handles traffic cases. Not things that set off major national ethics crises. The fact that he ended up with this one supercontroversy is freak happenstance.

Firstly, yes. For all I know, he probably did. Possibly not precisely in the terms that have arisen, but he may well have thought about his conscience and enforcing laws he doesn’t believe in. Lawyers tend to have to confront that sort of thing. I certainly do, and I’m just an average run-of-the-mill commercial litigator.

Secondly, you sure about the traffic case thing? Certainly in my jurisdiction the courts that handle life and death decisions of this sort are rather further up the hierarchy than those that mostly handle traffic cases.

[Marley23]

@Princhester

Secondly, you sure about the traffic case thing? Certainly in my jurisdiction the courts that handle life and death decisions of this sort are rather further up the hierarchy than those that mostly handle traffic cases.

That’s what I recall from the NYT’s profile of him on the 18th. Unfortunately it’s no longer available for free. I’ve read some other profiles of the man, but none that say specifically what kind of cases he normally judges.

[Princhester]

@Zoe

But I do think that this man, the husband at the funeral, is a good reflection of the teachings of the Christ. And those people who act out of judgment and exclusion, in my opinion, do not reflect the teachings. What I’ve learned that I can’t do is assume that all Christians are alike or that all Southern Baptists are alike or that all people in Judge Greer’s church are alike or even that the minister will not regret his actions.

You illustrate my point nicely. Any time a Christian does something that they consider to follow the teachings of Christ but which you or I would consider jerkish, you will say they were not, in your view, following the teachings of Christ and therefore it is inappropriate to let their actions reflect on True Christianity.

But if a Christian does something that they and you consider to follow the teachings of Christ, (and which you and I would consider to be a good act) you would say that reflects well on Christianity.

You have to take the rough with the smooth. If the actions of Christians reflect on Christianity, then that is true good and bad.

Alternatively, you may consider that the actions of Christians don’t reflect on Christianity in any real way because there are Christians and there are Christians and it comes down to individual beliefs about what the teachings of Christ are.

In which case the concept of Christianity becomes a bit meaningless. Christianity may as well call itself “Acme” and just be a label that a person with any one of a number of different beliefs can slap on themselves.

[leander]

@Princhester

You have to take the rough with the smooth. If the actions of Christians reflect on Christianity, then that is true good and bad.

Would you say the same about Muslims? If so, then how do the actions of extremists reflect on Islam? What conclusions can you draw about their faith as a whole based on the behavior of a few?

How about with Jews?

[Miller]

@gobear

Dear Duffer, I do not hate you, I disagree with your religion. That you cannot comprehend the difference saddens me.

Ite, missa est.

Love the believer, hate the belief, eh?

Still smells like bullshit to me.

[Voyager]

@Princhester

Which is the key point. Nominally, the law is secular. Being a religious person (to state the obvious) is not.

Having a job where you are required to implement secular laws which may conflict with your religious beliefs has internal inconsistency written all over it.

Greer was always in a situation where his religion and his job might come to a crisis, the crisis arrived. You can’t blame the person at Greer’s religious hand for doing his religious thing. Greer put himself in a position where that might happen.

Judge Greer is a true American. Whatever his religious views, he did his duty by upholding the Constitution of the United States, just as he swore he would when he became a judge.

His minister seems to want to influence a judge to not perform his legal duty, but to let religion come first, in violation of the Constitution. He is un-American, even anti-American.

But why this guy did this is the beef I have against Christianity and all universal monotheistic religions. As part of your faith you think you have the answer, you have knowledge of what God wants. If you are good, then all is fine, but if you are intolerant, evil, theocratic, then you have all the power of that unwavering belief behind you.

That’s why you send your 10 year old kid to get arrested. That’s why you blow up abortion doctors.

CJ asks what she can do. Did her church stand up for the rule of law in this case? Or were they too frightened that this would lose them members. I’m an atheist, they won’t listen to me. Maybe if you helped get millions of Christians together to stand up to these haters. You say they are not following God’s true word, but from outside they seem to be controlling the conversation, they seem to be the ones outwardly fervent about their God.

If this country falls into a radical theocracy, you Christians who didn’t speak up will be much to blame. Are you still the majority, or have the crazies taken over? And what do you plan to do about it. Do you think Jesus would be happy about you being silent?

[Princhester]

@leander

Would you say the same about Muslims? If so, then how do the actions of extremists reflect on Islam? What conclusions can you draw about their faith as a whole based on the behavior of a few?

How about with Jews?

You will notice that my post contained two alternatives. The first alternative was preceded by an “if”.

Personally, I don’t go with the first alternative at all. I go with the second, which is that religion is just a name that people give to aspects of their culture and beliefs, and gods are the imaginary authority they use to support what they do. Good and bad.

[Princhester]

@Voyager

Judge Greer is a true American. Whatever his religious views, he did his duty by upholding the Constitution of the United States, just as he swore he would when he became a judge.

His minister seems to want to influence a judge to not perform his legal duty, but to let religion come first, in violation of the Constitution. He is un-American, even anti-American.

But why this guy did this is the beef I have against Christianity and all universal monotheistic religions. As part of your faith you think you have the answer, you have knowledge of what God wants. If you are good, then all is fine, but if you are intolerant, evil, theocratic, then you have all the power of that unwavering belief behind you.

Quite.

CJ asks what she can do. Did her church stand up for the rule of law in this case? Or were they too frightened that this would lose them members. I’m an atheist, they won’t listen to me. Maybe if you helped get millions of Christians together to stand up to these haters. You say they are not following God’s true word, but from outside they seem to be controlling the conversation, they seem to be the ones outwardly fervent about their God.

If this country falls into a radical theocracy, you Christians who didn’t speak up will be much to blame. Are you still the majority, or have the crazies taken over? And what do you plan to do about it. Do you think Jesus would be happy about you being silent?

I’m not sure if this is directed at me. If so, you need to understand that I’m atheist and don’t agree that what the pastor did was right, but just internally consistent.

[Siege]

@Voyager

CJ asks what she can do. Did her church stand up for the rule of law in this case? Or were they too frightened that this would lose them members. I’m an atheist, they won’t listen to me. Maybe if you helped get millions of Christians together to stand up to these haters. You say they are not following God’s true word, but from outside they seem to be controlling the conversation, they seem to be the ones outwardly fervent about their God.

If this country falls into a radical theocracy, you Christians who didn’t speak up will be much to blame. Are you still the majority, or have the crazies taken over? And what do you plan to do about it. Do you think Jesus would be happy about you being silent?

Last week was Holy Week; we’ve been kind of busy. I also missed several weeks of church because I had the flu and wasn’t strong enough to attend, so I can’t tell you what my church’s position on Terry Schiavo is. I can tell you that we have filed a lawsuit saying that if the Bishop of my Diocese splits with the Episcopalian Church over homosexual marriage we will not surrender our property. More to the point, our rector has been in the local news several times opposing our Bishop’s disapporoval of homosexual marriage. We also gave a member of our congregation several thousand dollars to go back to his native Sri Lanka not to make converts, but to work at undoing some of the damage done by recent tsunami. We figure his father can take of making converts if needed – his father, who lives in Sri Lanka, is an Anglican priest. We’re also actively involved in feeding the hungry and other ministries. A gentleman I know has been rather shocked by how liberal we are. In short, not only are we not silent, I think our Bishop rather wishes we’d shut up!

Look, whether you choose to believe it or not, in my part of Pennsylvania, Baptists, Assemblies of God, etc. really aren’t that common or vocal. The dominant religion around here is Catholicism and when I say “dominant”, I mean every restaurant in town except the vegetarian ones have been offering seafood specials for the past 6 weeks and my college cafeteria served fish every Friday. The local Catholic Bishop isn’t supporting this nonsense, although I admit I haven’t heard anything from the local Baptists. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be any happier about an Episcopalian telling them to speak up and complain than they will about an Atheist doing so.

I have a 40 hour a week job, bills to play, a romance to pay attention to and, in general, a life to live. I’d say I’m sorry it offends you if I don’t spend every waking hour to taking on the various offenses of other Christians, but I’m not. To me, saying, “I’m an Atheist. They won’t listen,” is a cop out. You’re a reasonably intelligent, logical, informed human being. Surely it’s your obligation to speak out as much as it is mine, especially when people are unaware of or ignoring the facts of the case? One of the reasons I left a church which was like a family to me was to join one which was actively taking a stand on the issue of homosexuality. What have you done?

CJ

[Siege]

As I said, I missed several weeks of church thanks to the flu. Fortunately, my church posts its sermons on-line. I’ve been asked what my church is doing to fight the sort of Fundamentalist Christians who have hijacked my church. My answer is in part of a sermon preached by my rector on Sunday, March 13th. Just a quick note: “rolling away the stone” refers to Jesus having others roll away the stone from Lazarus’ tomb before Jesus brought him back to life. I’ll be happy to e-mail anyone who’s interested a link to the full text of the sermon.

@Sermon preached by Siege's rector on March 13

I put to you this morning that it is precisely because of your numbers, your resources and your spiritual health that you are called upon to assist our Lord in the miracle of resurrecting his church.

First, you must roll away the stones behind which the church is all too content to entomb itself. One of the heaviest stones will be the stone of Biblical fundamentalism, with its selective picking-and-choosing, a practice which enables certain people to declare that certain verses of Scripture — and their interpretations of them — are chiseled in stone for all time (such as a handful of texts that purport to condemn homosexual behavior) while others, for example, on divorce, are deemed to be culturally conditioned. Peter Gomes, just across the river from here, has rightly stated that too often, people look to the Bible as neither a moral compass nor spiritual guide, but as a place to find justification for the positions they already hold.

The stone of prejudice must also be removed. It is not coincidental that a rector who is fed up with the Episcopal Church and has sought to place his parish under the jurisdiction of an African bishop, has stated that the church has been in a state of decline since the civil rights movement! Decline, to him, is equated with redressing injustices against racial minorities, women and homosexual persons. And speaking of Africa, isn’t it interesting that members of the so-called orthodox party warmly and enthusiastically embrace Africans, with whom they presumably share theological views, yet their membership on this side of the Atlantic is almost entirely bereft of African Americans?

We must also roll away the stone of apathy. It has been suggested that the worst “ism” in our society is neither racism nor sexism, but somnambulism ---- sleepwalking! We can ill afford to assume that the church will always be here for us in the same way that it has always been — a “shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.” The church is under siege, and we must fight to preserve her.

But having rolled away the stones, our real work is to unbind the church and let her go. What is tying the church down? I think that it is tied down in a slavish deference to legalism. The problem with Anglicanism today is that it has ceased to be guided by covenant, but instead is guided by contract. All of a sudden it has a profound reverence for and reliance on laws — Biblical, constitutional, canonical — that would put Pharisees to shame. As a result, there are those who are seeking to establish new structures — dioceses and provinces ---- not based on geography but on ideology. They would thus become spiritual ghettoes where everyone presumably thinks, acts and speaks the same. In so doing, there has been an attempt, for example, to remove the American and Canadian churches from the Anglican Consultative Council, so that that body won’t be “tainted” by a North American presence.

Forget Atheists calling me to action; my own rector’s doing so!

CJ

[Testy]

This subject seems to be constantly debated but there is never a resolution, never even any progress made toward a solution. Every time someone does something horrible in the name of Christianity or Islam or Judaism and their religion gets slammed for it, defenders come out of the woodwork telling everyone that “Christians/Muslims/whatever aren’t really like that! The majority really disapprove of this guy and you’re painting with too broad a brush. etc. etc.”

Well, what does it take to decide that a group, be it religious or otherwise, is a negative influence on society?

To take an extreme example, I’m sure that many followers of Pol Pot truly believed they were helping their country. Others were either intimidated into joining the Khmer Rouge or were simply looking for regular meals and didn’t give a damn about communism. Yet the Khmer Rouge could be defended on the same grounds; “We aren’t all like that. Those members burying their neighbors in mass graves aren’t good communists. We really mean well. Any group has a few zealots, etc. etc.” While that may all have been true, the Khmer Rouge were and are considered a fairly horrible bunch.

By their own efforts, Christianity has become a major political force in the US and actively seeks to increase their influence on secular matters. Unfortunately, given its dominance in the US, Christianity doesn’t take its lumps like other groups. It would be political suicide for a politician to criticise anything Christian.

Judge Greer’s expulsion from his church is a clear example of Christians attempting to intimidate a judge out of doing his sworn duty, yet we have the same old attempts to justify and/or excuse this behaviour, “My church wouldn’t do that. That particular church or pastor isn’t acting in a Christian manner,” and so on. Yet the Christians in judge Greer’s church obviously believe they are acting in a Christian manner and other spiritual leaders and churches neither argue nor publicly disagree.

A question for the Christians out there. How many other churches have publicly and formally invited that man to move his membership to their church? How many churches have publicly said, “You did the right thing according to both common sense and your sworn duty, come worship with us.” I believe the Bible says something about “by their fruits ye shall know them.” From where I sit, the fruits of religion are spoiled and stinking.

Regards

Testy

[Siege]

I don’t think Judge Greer’s willing to move to Pennsylvania and change denominations. Even if he were, there’s no guarantee he’d agree with my church’s stance on homosexuality. If he is, however, I have very little doubt he’d be welcome here or at any number of Episcopal churches closer to home. We also don’t know that other churches haven’t invited him to join them.

[Testy]

@Siege

I don’t think Judge Greer’s willing to move to Pennsylvania and change denominations. Even if he were, there’s no guarantee he’d agree with my church’s stance on homosexuality. If he is, however, I have very little doubt he’d be welcome here or at any number of Episcopal churches closer to home. We also don’t know that other churches haven’t invited him to join them.

I doubt it as well. I figure Judge Greer, like most people, inherited his faith from his parents so he’s stuck with being a Baptist or dropping the whole thing and becoming one of us heathens.
I take your point that we don’t know whether any other churches have invited him. We can say that, if they have done so they were much quieter about it than the preacher at his last church.

Regards

Testy