This thread is beginning to make a sharp turn into Fred13 country…
Beginning? With that last post he accelerated into turn 3 and is about to catch Fred13 in the Unsubstantiated Bullshit 500!
No, the moderately large and noisy miinority of conservative evangelical Christians do szome of this, and the Republican Party (in particular, though political pandering is not limited to them) and supposedly ‘fair, balanced’ media coverage give them a voice all out of proportion to their real strength.
To use homosexuality as a convenient example: The Catholics are the largest group of Christians in America, followed by the Baptists, the Methodists, the Mormons, and the Pentecostals. The least virulent of those churches on the anti-gay front are the Methodists, whose official position nonetheless remains clearly anti-marriage equality and anti-the inclusion of homosexuals on an equal basis within their own church as priests and so on (though neither position is without significant dissent within that church, to be clear).
The liberal Christian is perhaps the greatest contemporary exemplar of Pauline Kael’s famous “everybody I know voted for McGovern, so how did Nixon win?” mindset. Christians whose theology revolves around “no boys kissing” are not a “noisy minority,” they are the numerical supermajority even in the United States and have never been anywhere close to losing this position. The “hippie Jesus” school is not and never has been the norm no matter how much you insist that 99.99999% of Christians throughout history were fake Christians who don’t count.
In other countries where Christianity has political influence, even the much-vaunted “tolerance” of homosexuals is not even a position that exists. Christianity, worldwide, means Catholicism and the equivalent of the snake-handling churches in Africa, and there’s no filter on it for the niceties of American centrism. The idea that anti-gay [or anti-woman, or inclined to believe that one’s child needs an exorcism, or anti-mental health care] Christians are anywhere CLOSE to being a “noisy minority” as opposed to 90% and more of the religion is pure “the world is the way I wish it was!” fantasy.
I’d imagine the vast majority of Christians in America spend most of their time doing things like going to work, sleeping, and watching TV. That’s true of most of the Christians I know, at least.
I certainly don’t spend most of my time stoning witches. It takes up about 15% of my time, tops.
Of course it matters; people who think you are a sinner will work to punish or “reform” you. If they “love” you in the Christan sense, that just means they say that “we’re really sorry that we have to do this, but it’s for your own good” before they commence the beatings or whatever. Christians have always talked about how they loved the people they imprisoned, enslaved, tortured and murdered for their god. I’d far prefer Christian indifference to Christan love; the latter is indistinguishable from malice.
- Firstly the OP never linked to the original essay/glurg. Here it is: Birch Family Services: Empowering People. Building Futures.
FTR, it makes my skin crawl. Regardless, I’d like to amplify Miller’s point.
Placing “Gay” near “People who dress/act differently”, doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. If anything it’s the fat people who might get exercised about being placed next to “Drug addictions” – but somebody had to be put there right?
Well I think, “Ick!” (nonverbally anyway) but I take exception at being called a bigot. I’m not going to apologize for thought crimes, especially those propped by pronounced, borderline traumatic and near-universal incidents from the youth of my cohort. What I don’t feel is contempt and decency implies that I don’t create unnecessary problems or challenges for others. Which is to say I try not to be a dick about it.
Based upon the Christian sect that I grew up in, I’d say that theology is nuts.
Hoo-boy Poly: I’m close to giving up on Christianity. Once a slice of it advanced the moral boundary – I’m thinking of abolitionism and the civil rights movement.
Now fast forward to the 2009 health care debate. Here’s an argument that I almost never heard: Jesus came to earth as a healer. Now he was referring to sin when he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” But when the mostly healthy are turned down for insurance because of a genetic disorder or when the premium paying customer falls ill and has her policy yanked away because of today’s cancer and yesterday’s acne, perhaps some of Jesus’ expressed sentiments might be judiciously applied. Ok, ok: I am no preacher. Still, I’d say the basis in the Gospels for curbing rescission and addressing pre-existing conditions seems a lot stronger than the wackadoodle abortion objections of the debate. Private insurance companies had covered abortion services for years without complaint after all. Now admittedly I wasn’t surprised that there would be an abortion brou-ha-ha: I even anticipated it. But the deafening silence of the moral community on the subject of -you know- the poor and the sick was disturbing.
Where were the mainline Christians when this Great Issue of the Day was debated? Why didn’t anyone even say offhand, “Of course we all want to aid the sick…”?
I had to recheck the username on this post after that one.
MfM, does it disturb you at all that your question is of exactly the same form and intelligence as these other questions you may have heard:
After 9/11: “Why don’t so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims condemn terrorism?”
On internet political debates: “Why don’t liberals mind it when their own politicians lie and cheat?”
After Trayvon Martin’s shooting / George Zimmerman’s non-arrest: “Why aren’t black people concerned about black on black killings?”
The answer to your question is just as obvious as the answers to the other questions.
I see what you did there! 
They were here:
and here:
and here:
And many other places. But like Polycarp said, those voices get drowned out, ignored, or dismissed.
Billy beats up “faggots” at his high school.
Bob won’t rent an apartment in his building to a gay couple.
Mary sends her teenage daughter to a camp who’s mission is to “repair” gay teens using bullying and coercion.
Steve tells his fellow Christians that gay people are children of God, and that the Christian thing to do is to love them, even if you find them odd or distasteful.
Steve is the one who gets pitted.
Between Jesus and Buddha, who do you think was smarter? I mean, in terms of avoiding crucifixion.
I think the side of this conversation saying that it’s OK to be a homophobe would want to avoid the spurious racism analogies.
Because he’s patronizing and probably hypocritical and does the same things as the others, just with more speeches about how he’s doing it out of love. You think Mary doesn’t tell her kid that she’s doing it out of love as she has her sent off to be starved and beaten?
Well, yes. The whole attitude of “JEEEEZ, i’m not actually stabbing you in the face anymore, what else do you fucking faggots WANT?” is indeed the problem I am addressing here.
Er, I don’t think #2 is the same as #1 and #3. And contrast all 3 to my argument: I said there’s a long tradition of Christians pushing the moral boundary. That tradition, so I argued, seems to have ceased. Your examples can be translated as "Why don’t you guys emphasize what I want to emphasize? But plenty of Christians should like universal health care: as I noted, Jesus’ healing characteristics are a core part of the doctrine.
I came up with an hypothesis though. Perhaps those attempting moral suasion, as opposed to policy analysis, have a channel problem: they can realistically move the ball on only one issue at a time. Moreover, the process drags on for years. Health care reform is a terrible match in this respect, as it is complicated, empirically intensive and in the past has come up about once every 20 years. Christian reformers are better at the long slogs. My guess is that the current Xtian reformer issue is… wait for it… gay rights.
Now that’s a tough one as the Bible isn’t especially gay friendly. Luckily blatantly homophobic Christians also have scriptural problems as Jesus says not a word against homosexuality, though he enjoins boatloads of cutting language against sanctimonious pricks.
Anyway, examples include the report on homosexuality by the Presbyterian Church USA during the 1990s and various United Church of Christ advertisements.
Skammer: thanks for the links. I see 2 resolutions, which is nice but only prerequisite for political engagement. Gary Bauer is 7 steps ahead of that. The 3rd link to Sojourners is a little different since a decent magazine will have some influence. I haven’t seen it for years though. I guess I’m out of the loop though: their wikipedia piece documents that they were highly engaged with health care reform, distributing information packets to pastors and organizing meetings with senators and representatives. Woops. So much for my hypothesis.
Mainline Christians certainly have a branding problem though, as Evangelical Christian Conservatives have taken over the marketing term: Christian media. See: How Did Evangelicals Hijack the Word “Christian”?
Well, the Anglican Church has a minor influence on politics in the UK and they’re quite tolerant of homosexuality. Becoming increasingly so, actually. Denmark also has a state Church and they were the first country in the world to recognise same-sex unions. On the other hand, there are countries like Uganda, where bigotry is rooted in religious sentiments.
Also, pronouncements from the Vatican now mirror in some cases the language used in the OP.
Also interesting on the same page:
It seems strange to me that the average male, perhaps even a person with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” could be transfigured sacramentally into the person of Christ, yet no amount of piety could accomplish the same thing for an individual with a less stumpy 46th chromosome.
Which side of the conversation is that again?
The side that thinks it’s wrong to criticize people who sugarcoat their homophobia with empty platitudes about how they love the people they are persecuting.