certainly Christianity was far far more unified before the protestant movement. It’s a prime example of of Christianity changing it’s doctrine. In fact in the US many new denominations sprang up because of doctrinal differences on fairly minor issues. {ordaining women being one example}
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NOt what I said.
I still maintain that history has shown that Christianity has to adjust it’s view as society changes concerning issues of equality , justice, truth in order to attract new gnerations. I don’t care whether it’s official doctrine or just a change in practice. It’s clear that has happened. Not to many churches deny interracial marriage anymore.
Churches that maintain certain beliefs that are contradictroy to widely accpeted facts , young earth creationism for example, or Bible literalism, will see gradual declines and churches who maintain practices that smack of discrimination will as well as each passing generation becomes more aware of the error. In general I think we’ll see a decline in rigid dogmatic churches in general just as we’ve seen in many European countries. I do believe some churches , or maybe new churches , will be open to SSM.
Seeing interracial couples was a drastic change for many people, but gradually it became accepted. All it takes is a slight shift to realize that marriage is about the quality of love and committment within the couple and the family.
Catholicism certainly has it’s problems. I have to wonder if the numbers include non practicing Catholics. In practice they just don’t aggressively enforce certain long standing doctines because they know if they did fewer people would be active.
Chuirches not considering some change in doctrine or poractice isn’t nessecarily a positive.
The Mormons and Community of Christ actually expect to make some changes and have a process in place for that to happen. The Bahai teach that all the major religions are built on God’s communication with mankind and and there is no one final prophet or word. I hear people say, “God doesn’t change” but people might expect thier understanding of God and God’s creation to grow as a church in the same way it does for individuals. Jesus himslef warned agasint worshipping men’s traditions instead of understanding the spirit of the law.
You may lose this point. (Not in this discussion, but in upcoming history.)
As an inherently conservative institution, the RCC is clearly going to be one of the last groups that will allow a doctrinal change in regard to SSM. A declaration of “never” may be premature. Already, in the U.S., (and, I believe in Europe), Catholics, as a religious group, have the highest percentage of members who accept the idea of SSM. When the membership, in general, shifts that direction, the people who become priests and theologians are probably going to come to similar conclusions. There will be pressure in some seminaries to weed out those who hold that belief, but that will not stem the tide.
Where your position will gain strength will be in the sub-Equatorial church, that now makes up a majority of members and remains even more conservative. Of course, as an acceptance of homosexuality spreads across the world, that may or may not occur in South America and Africa as well.
To take a specific example, (that is, in some ways related to the current discussion), Humanae Vitae was issued in serious contradiction of the theological commission tasked with addressing the topic. 45 years later, the church administration has made no official shift in its position, but the membership generally ignores it. The discussion points made by the commission continue to be discussed and to influence church teaching on the local level. I have heard numerous priests and bishops point out the underlying theology on which it is based, but who have read it in ways that wind up not being a simple and absolute ban on artificial contraception. I see no change to that trend.
I suspect that a similar discussion will occur regarding homosexuality, in general, that could show up at some future date in a reconsidered position. Nothing about sexuality, (hetero- or homo-, reproductive or unitive), is found in the Nicene Creed and I would not want to predict the ways in which the church will address such issues in the future.
A church that takes its cues from the mercurial attitudes of the society that surrounds it has lost the right to be taken seriously as a religion, IMO. Once you’ve done that, you’ve proven beyond a reasonable doubt that your religion is made by men, not from God.
Right now we live in a pretty enlightened time, again IMO, but history shows that we could very well go through another multi-century dark age for any reason. Should the church change to comply with the more barbaric views of that future period, just because society is in that place?
I have expressed no opinion on what the church should do. I note only what the church may do. Attitudes toward slavery, interest on loans, polygyny, democracy, and a number of other social situations have changed with the society in which the church functioned. How many of those are “core beliefs” as expressed earlier in the thread are open to question.
In terms of the RCC, I would consider the points of the Creed and the definitions of the Sacraments of Eucharist and Baptism to be core beliefs. Some understanding of Baptism (beyond its definition) and some attitudes toward Penance/Reconciliation have already changed over the centuries. Attitudes toward Matrimony and Orders may be core beliefs, but I am not sure that they are. Other people may see other points as core and, short of direct divine explanation, those views are going to remain the subject of debate.
Do you think the struggle for civil rights and equality in this country is a passing fad like hula hoops? Do you think churches that refuse to change are seriously seen as having more divine authority? Would churches that didn’t allow people of color to attend with the white folk be taken seriously? If the Mormons still refused to ordain black men into the priesthood, would they be taken more seriously? Are churches that refuse to ordain women taken more seriously than those who do?
Of course some people would argue that no churches should be taken seriously as a religion but stepping back form that, I think those who claim divine authority and assume they already have all the knowledge and understanding about God and man they are ever going to have are the ones who shouldn’t be taken seriously. The true seekers are the ones who acknowledge their church is established and run by flawed people who are still seeking more knowledge and understanding through their relationship with God.
This isn’t about churches changing simply to be more modern and please society in general, but churches willing to examine themselves and their traditions to see if growth requires some change. It would be nice if churches were on the forefront of seeking equality but sadly that hasn’t generally been the case.
Frankly, were I a believer in a religious doctrine, I would fine being wrong to be the big clincher in terms of whether it was true or not, not whether my church decided to change its mind on that wrong thing. Because not only the church itself, but the god or gods I and they believe in, would lose the right to be taken seriously in such a case.
I guess it depends on if you think seeking the truth in spiritual terms happens all at once or is an ongoing process. Sayng that the humans who worshiped God were wrong, is not the same as saying God was.
The idea of equality is one that I hope lasts as long as humanity lasts, but history tells us it probably won’t. Sooner or later there will be a Great Cock Up of some sort and the world will descend into barbarism again. At which point I would hope that the Church would stand up for Western values. However, more likely it will just start burning heretics again.
If the doctrine was manmade, it can be changed. If it was the Word of God, as believers have been taught to believe, then it can’t be changed. If man can change what’s in the Bible, then the Bible is false.
I don’t really care that much, I’m not religious at all. But if you’re going to have a fantasy, it should at least make sense on its own terms. If one can’t accept God’s teachings, join me on the nonbeliever side.
To me, the value in religion is the ways it sets itself apart from society, not the way it conforms to it. A religion that’s basically preaching secular values isn’t a religion, it’s a club where people get to call themselves “catholic”, or “Jew”, or “Baptist” but membership doesn’t actually signify anything more than being a member of an RPG club. Except the RPGs actually make their rules make sense.
It has nothing to do with changing the Bible. It has to do with acknowledging that man’s understanding and interpretation of the Bible can change as people seek to grow as individuals and groups.
It makes total sense to believe that humans as individuals and as religions are still striving to grow and understand God’s will , rather than seeing the Bible as some sort of clear instruction manual of dos and don’ts.
What if secular values like equality, justice, compassion for others, happen to be in tune with the churches teaching? Christians are taught to worship God in spirit and in truth. There’s nothing incosistent about using the brains and heart God gave you to question whther certain pratices are really from God ore merely the teachings and traditions of men. There’s nothing inconsistent about admitting flaws and seeking to grow past them.
Not really. Read up on the religious history of the thirteenth century, for example. Or for that matter the second or third centuries. The Cathars, for example, were a much more radical challenge to the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church than Lutheranism was.
There is no such unified body as ‘Christianity’, there are only a multiplicity of different Christian churches. Some of which I expect to change, and others, not. The biggest single church in the world has changed its core doctrines relatively little (some Catholics would say ‘never’, I’d say a handful of times) since the first century.
I’ve never denied some churches will change, but you seemed to imply Christianity as a whole would change, which I think grossly underestimates the doctrinal and historical challenges involved.
The problem here, again, is that you’re imposing a secular 21st understanding of what marriage is on Christianity. Sex/gender, in a Christian context, is much more essential to our nature than race is (this is, incidentally, why lots of Christians object to women priests as much as they do to gay marriages).
If religion does nothing but reinforce the prevailing values of the culture, then one has to ask, why make the effort of belonging to a religion at all?
A Christianity which isn’t in some sense countercultural, is on the road to irrelevance.
The Bible is clear in most places. If the Bible says X is a sin, no greater amount of understanding changes those crystal clear words.
The Bible is a concrete thing that they say came from God. If you don’t believe it’s words, it didn’t come from God. If you believe the real God didn’t write down his wishes, and you think you can know his wishes, then you’re worshipping a God you made up in your own head, which is otherwise known as idolatry without need of a stonecarver. And it makes that person a little nuts. Falling for an elaborate hoax is something that can happen to normal people. Making up your own religion is what crazy people do.
It seems to me that there is no practical conflict between Christianity and secularism. Hate the sin, not the sinner means that Christians don’t need to punish, condemn, or even disassociate themselves from sinners. And since we have freedom of thought in this country, no man can be required, under penalty of law, to accept anything they don’t want to. We are free to hate blacks, Jews, gays, and think women are inferior, provided we don’t act on this feelings in unlawful ways. So I don’t see a conflict as long as religion stays out of government, and as long as government stays out of religion. Which is why the OP is wrong. You can’t make churches perform gay marriages. Which I think most of us already agreed on anyway.
Very true. One source of problems is when churchmen deny us that distinction, by insisting that their interpretation is infallible, inerrant, the word of God himself, etc. In order to firm up their appearance of certainty, they have had a long historical pattern of painting themselves into corners.
When a Creationist minister says, “If Darwin is right, the whole of the Bible is nothing but trash,” he is the one causing the confusion, not us. It is less common to find a minister with the integrity to say, “If Darwin is right, then I guess my interpretation of the Bible would have to be wrong.”
God created the Earth in seven days. What’s to misinterpret? I might as well interpret your statement in the previous post as a recipe for brownies.
Oh yeah, six days. He rested on the seventh, and commanded us to rest on the seventh. Which Catholics don’t do. They rest on the first. I’m not sure how you can reinterpret seven to mean one, but I guess that’s their fuzzy math.
Oddly enough, you’re correct as to my statement, but with your change you’re wrong.
If the humans that worshipped God were wrong, then absoutely I would argue that God was wrong, should he exist. God, as a concept, to my mind cannot exist at the same time as wrong believers. That would seem to conflict with the definition by which he’s described.
Now, if we’re talking gods in general, we have to know whether that god or gods cares about what we believe. If they do, then again yes, followers being wrong absolutely means that that god(s) were wrong or do not exist.