I’ve lived in small town America most of my life and all of those towns have had active churches for multiple types of Christians.
What you’re saying may be true in some parts of the country. It isn’t true in general of small towns in the USA.
I think the main reason people conflate Christianity with Evangelicals is that Evangelicals believe in confronting culture with Biblical reasoning. Other religions do that also, but not as directly or vigorously as the Evangelicals.
If you’re a Christian, you probably think it’s wonderful going to all sorts of diverse Bible study groups since you believe in the fundamental aspect of the religion. You believe that God is real, so it’s interesting hearing other people’s interpretations of God even if they don’t exactly align with yours. But if you don’t believe that God is real, then it can seem like a lot of nonsense. It’s like listening to a group who believes Santa Claus or astrology is real. Imagine being on a Teams call with co-workers where they’re discussing their good behavior over the past year and how it will affect how many presents Santa will bring them. Or joining a Hellenist study group where they’re trying to figure what Zeus is trying to tell them with the changing weather patterns. It’s somewhat interesting as an outside observer to see how people can deeply believe in something which you think is totally incorrect, but it’s not going to be the same kind of enriching experience that a believer has.
Personally, I find religion way more interesting than that, when the conversation is with the right person. I wouldn’t attend a Bible study group, but I have asked my friends, “How do you approach this issue?” I ask my Presbyterian minister friend about his beliefs all the time. The next question I want to ask him is whether he has any beliefs that don’t comport with general Presbyterian beliefs. He’s already discussed, at length, his issues with other sects of Christianity. I’m just curious how he sees the world and why he makes the decisions he does. Even though I don’t agree with his beliefs, I have a huge amount of respect for him, because I think he takes the best of Christianity and uses it to care for others. He was willing to lose supporters over Trump, because like most sane individuals he recognizes how very un-Christiike that man is. There are religious people who are not willing to engage with the complexities of their own religion and there are people who do that work all the time, and I think I really like talking to the latter kind of person.
They may bot believe it intellectually , but they- even right here in the SDPB, post crap like “Why do Christians hate gays?”.
Correct, which is why it has to be specified “Right Wing Evangelicals”- but the haters cant be bothered with all that and just too often write “Christian” instead.
Nope, I currently live in a small town, and have done so in the past.
Correct.
I mean, “why do Christians hate gay [people]” is still a valid question. Sure, there have been strides in getting away from the homophobia that has historically been practiced, but it’s still a key part of all of our history, and we can answer it.
I expect posters here all know that not all Christians hate gay people. The ignorance I see is usually more along the lines of other assumptions, maybe not even explicitly stated, that come from interacting with a certain subset. I saw an assumption that all Christians are actively trying to convert you to their point of view or believe in discriminating against non-Christians, for example.
I’m the type of Christian who listens to a lot of critical scholars. And while that doesn’t technically mean they must criticize the literalists who believe in univocality and inerrancy, they very, very often do.
And I’m trans and bi and, let’s say, do not buy into their puritanical bs and such.
Oh, and @BobEmbl : feel free to look up the SDMB Weekly Bible Study in the search to see how the first two books of the Torah went. Main guy leading it is Jewish even.
Now that’s a Bible study I would attend.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone claim all Christians are fundamentalists. I have seen, in the NY Times of all places, claims that the fairly large and vocal subset who are do not exist, because the church the writer goes to does not have any. Which I don’t doubt.
Are you calling the Catholic church right wing evangelicals? I wouldn’t, yet they are not quite fond of gay marriage. The Mormons may be right wing but not evangelical, ditto for them.
There are plenty of raging assholes who didn’t get around to voting. Still, from his popularity numbers, I’d put the number at less than 50%.
Read what I said. Not all Christians are against gay rights, sex or marriage, in fact there are gay Pastors.
I’ve heard the Uniting Church of Australia referred to as 'the Lesbian Church of Australia"
How does physical number of evangelical/right-wing Christians compare to the amount of political power they currently possess?
I originally saw this, and quite honestly was not sure how I wanted to respond so I sat on it. My initial reaction, which stands is no. This is a coworker you are friendly with; he is not a close friend, I think it would be different and a friend would understand your decision.
Apparently I’ve missed quite a bit because now this has turned into a conversation about Evangelicals, politics, Christian (Catholic) and belief systems. I enjoy learning about different faiths but do not push it down my throat. I would not go to Bible study. If I were intrigued later, I’d ask for an invitation.
I meant to also say that I think it was very bizarre to ask a coworker. It just doesn’t seem right.
I found most of Numbers to be, in a single word, uninteresting. It must be in the Bible for a reason, I guess.
It took me by surprise to be sure, but at least he didn’t wear a white robe and shake a tambourine.
There are surveys that have found that more than half of all Catholic priests engage in homosexual sex. Sometimes there’s a big difference between policy and practice. The Presbyterian Church USA rejected a policy that pastors should remain faithful in marriage and chaste in singleness. Go figure.
Do you have a cite for that? I’m sure many Catholic priests are gay, but first, no way more than a half of them, and second, not all of the gay ones engage in sex.
Gay Priests and the Lives They No Longer Want to Hide This article repeats the same statistic I saw. The article I was reading was about a division in seminary between those who practiced homosexual sex, and those who did not.
Sadly your link is paywalled. Are you able to give a gift link?
The article tells me it is “free for now”, it may be geogated. I don’t believe it supports @BobEmbl 's claim. It opens by saying
We have no reliable figures on just how many priests in the Catholic Church are gay… In the United States…no independent study has found fewer than 15 percent to be gay, and some have found as many as 60 percent. The consensus in my own research over the past few months converged on around 30 to 40 percent among parish priests and considerably more than that — as many as 60 percent or higher — among religious orders like the Franciscans or the Jesuits.
It goes on to give vignettes about gay priests, talk about why so many priests are gay (multiple reasons) and talks about many important historic figures in the church who were homosexual or had same-sex relations (St Augustine wrote about his) and also talks about how the ban on homosexuality helped pedophiles hide. Because if you rat on a pedophile, he can turn around and get you thrown out of the church for the brief affair you had with a consenting adult 10 years ago. It talks about some current church scandals and politics, and says:
[Some favor] strict enforcement of the 2005 ban on priests. But purging the priesthood of “homosexual tendencies” would require removing up to a third of the clergy in the U.S. and dismissing scores of bishops and cardinals, including many who have maintained celibacy, preached orthodoxy, and lived exemplary lives.
That might imply that a lot of Catholic priests have, at some point in their life, partaken in homosexual sex, but it certainly doesn’t support the idea that that more than half are currently sexually involved.
It’s an interesting article, to those who can read it who are interested in the subject.