The "Christians" are coming! The "Christians" are coming!

Politics & Elections
141

Thank you, that was very well said.

I’m not going to join in the biblical interpretation part of the discussion, mostly because as someone that believes the Bible is, at best, a work of historical fiction, it’s not particularly relevant to my point of view.

I’ve co-existed with highly religious people for my entire life, because those religious people accept that they live in a secular country founded on secular principles I was just remembering an actual conversation I had with a client some years ago.

The client was an electrician and a deeply religious evangelical. He wasn’t shy about his belief, it was reflected in his company name and the detailing on his work vehicles. I used to service some specialized electrical equipment and I was quite good at it. I drove an hour so to meet him at his client’s property and I fixed the problem within in minutes. I gave him a little bit of a hard time, saying “And you don’t believe single women should work outside the home, right” “Yep” “and yet if I didn’t work outside the home, you’d be here in the dark with a pissed of client, right? “Yep”. And I’m going to send you a bill for $400 and you’re going to pay it, right. “Yep. Because this is America, that’s the contract”. Then I said “Yep” and we left and went our separate ways.

The thing is, I have real problem with at least some of the particular churches described in the OP. I think they’re cults. I respect people’s religious beliefs but I’m also aware that there are people that use the cover of religious belief as….well, cover.

Take, for example, this “church” that came onto my radar this morning, because Michael Flynn spoke there this weekend, brandishing an AR-15 and making vague threats of governmental overthrow.

The Church is called The Church of Glad Tidings. Nothing wrong with that, right? Who doesn’t like Glad Tidings? Look, they have ministries, they help people.

And here’s the only page on their website with any real content.

Sorry, it’s a crappy website that doesn’t generate previews. But I don’t think I’m being crazy to suggest that maybe this a political, even paramilitary organization posing as church.

142

I always suspected you were a professional writer of some sort.

After every post in this thread I have said to myself that “now I have had my say, time to be quiet and listen to what others have to say.” But I get so invested in the subject matter and one little response turns into a diatribe on my personal views (or a book I read one time). It is again my intention to sit back and do a lot of reading other posters and resist posting more than a funny comment here or there.

143

I do wonder, as an aside, how such a church manages to filter incoming visitors so that they only draw the desired people they want. After all, a church named Glad Tidings is likely to draw in many passersby and mainstream people who come from across the political spectrum. Those people would either have the effect of diluting the church and making it less…AR-15ish, so to speak, or else they’d leave and start bad-mouthing the church.

144

Who cares? If people want to selectively interpret religious scripture in order to make their religions nicer, that’s just fine with me.

I think it’s absurd to insist that modern interpretations of the incredibly complex multi-millennia cultural phenomena that we call “religions” have to be “accurate”. I don’t think that term is really even meaningful in this context.

The whole long history of such a phenomenon, like any other complex social phenomenon, is already shot through with all kinds of multi-layered self-contradictions and inconsistencies. Demanding that its interpretation by modern believers needs to be “accurate” is just imposing another kind of inaccuracy on it. Can’t be done.

145

IMHO, another reason for the Christian backlash in the past few decades is because they sense people are no longer content with saying “keep your theology to yourself,” but rather, are trying to distort their theology.

It used to be that non-Christians would say, “God opposes homosexuality, but you can’t impose your religion on me.” Which many Christians, even many conservatives, agreed with to some extent - it would be like telling a Muslim, “Your religion bans you from eating pork, but you can’t stop me from eating pork.”

But over the years, something shifted. Suddenly it became, “God is in favor of LGBT, and always has been.” This caused much stronger backlash, because now it was tantamount to telling a Muslim, “No, Allah supports and approves of pork consumption.”

146

I don’t think it’s been all that sudden: it’s just been the gradual process of many Christian denominations themselves making space for LGBTQ acceptance (performing same-sex marriage ceremonies, ordaining gay clergy) in their theological doctrine.

E.g., US Episcopalians in the 2000s, the (ELCA) Lutherans a few years later, and so on. The (UMC) Methodists are still arguing about it but some of their conferences are pro-LGBTQ and they now have a gay bishop.

So AFAICT, what’s happened is that the “Christianity and homosexuality” issue has now become an intra-Christianity theological dispute. The people explicitly asserting to the anti-gay-rights Christians that the Christian God is actually okay with LGBTQ are mostly other Christians.

147

UMC member here, from a liberal, affirming congregation, which has sponsored an openly gay candidate for ministry through his years in seminary.

While COVID delayed things, it’s a near-certainty that the UMC is headed for a schism over the issue (likely at the next General Conference, in 2022), with the more liberal wing of the denomination (much of the US and Europe) going one way, and the conservative wing (the southern US and Africa) going the other.

148

I think one reason this change occurs slowly is because it takes a while for older, conservative people to get over the “ickiness” of discussing details of the distinction between pederasty (3000 years ago), and monogamous relationships between consenting adults (today). And what scripture says about each.

It took my late mother years to understand/acknowledge that heterosexual couples could (and did) engage in anal sex. And therefore, you shouldn’t treat gay people as if they were the only ones practicing this “perversion”. Until then, it was just hands over the ears, “la la la la…”

149

I really do want to sit back and watch this discussion, but I have one question. I have never heard any secularist or any form of atheist say anything like that. The closest is pluralists saying what is basically the example of previous generations: do what you want but don’t try to indoctrinate anyone else. There may be an “accept everyone as they are” bit to some arguments but that sort of smacks of the position of almost every major Christian Sect: “Love the sinner but hate the sin”. (“Hate the sin but love the sinner”? -Yea, that’s how it goes.)

My question is, can you show me a few examples of non-believers saying: “God favors LGBT and always has”? The only groups I have heard that message from is liberal Christians themselves.

150

I have never heard anything close to this, unless it was a reaction to something vicious and ridiculous said by close-minded religionists. When you say “suddenly it became” does this mean “you head it once recently”?

151

Here’s one example:

152

Yes, that is certainly one example.

BTW, what does the Pope say about two gay men or women having sex with each other?
What has he said about transsexuals?

153

No, actually it isn’t. Like I said, and as Temporary_Name corroborated, this is overwhelmingly a doctrinal position espoused by (liberal) Christians themselves.

Your example is another instance of a fellow Christian (two of them, in fact: the Pope and the author of the article) arguing for a gay-friendly interpretation of Christian doctrine and rejecting the claim that Christianity condemns homosexuality.

154

Clarification please: Is it the Pope’s doctrinal position that gay sex and/or marriage is o.k., or is it that it is o.k. to be gay as long as you don’t don’t participate in gay sex or romance?

155

I don’t know. Saying that gay sex and/or marriage is okay with the Christian God is definitely a liberal Christian doctrinal position, but I don’t know if Pope Francis is one of the liberal Christians that espouses it (although the author of the linked article appears to be).

Even without that position, though, Francis’s interpretation of Catholic doctrine is certainly more gay-friendly than the conventional Christian rejection of homosexuality in any form.

156

Thanks, I’d like to answer this one.

Cult and cultlike groups usually pose as something else……because no one wakes up one morning and thinks, I need change in my life, I’ll go join a cult.

They usually present themselves as a group that does very good things….Yoga, meditation, Bible study, worship services, self-improvement. These are things that are seen as unconditional positives by the outside world. People get nothing but encouragement when they join such groups, and that goes double if that person has a troubled history - friends and family are thrilled when the brother that drinks too much or the sister that always picks the wrong man takes up mediation or Bible study, and even more thrilled if they get really enthusiastic about their new pursuit.

And these groups do what they claim to do. They offer yoga classes or worship services or mediation circles or counseling. They genuinely help people. They may do ministry work and donate to charity, sometimes extensively.

But sometimes these groups are looking to take control over an inner circle of people to serve the motives of the leaders, whether it’s personal enrichment, the fulfillment of a God fantasy or a political ideation. And the leaders of these groups gradually pull the more avid members of the group into an inner circle that meets all the definitions of cult. This is usually done gradually, by encouraging the people that are the most enthused. Weekend (or longer) seminars and retreats are often used to introduce increasingly radical versions of the practice to the most interested members. This frequently ends with the leaders assuming an unhealthy level of control over their lives.

But you still have that group on the outside, and they’ll swear up and down that the group is a legitimate church or legitimate yoga studio, or whatever, they’ve been worshipping or practicing there casually for years and no ones ever tried to get them to join a cult. It’s an effective masking technique.

So, in answer to your question, I suspect that many, if not most, of the worshippers in the Church of Glad Tidings are just regular church-going folks, going to services and doing good works without much awareness of what’s happening in the political arm of the church. And others are drawn into the political arm of the church in a manner that invests them and makes it difficult for them to back out.

I’m also going to add that I stumbled onto another layer to this story. I was looking at the webpages of similar churches, which seemed like normal church websites but for that “freedom” tab, and apparently there is an outside organization that is actively working to radicalize churches - Turning Point Faith. a subdivision of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA group.

https://www.tpusa.com/faith If I find anything more on this effort, I’ll write it up.

157

By non-believer do you mean non-Christian or non-believer in god? Because if it is the latter, why would we care how the words of a non-existent god get interpreted? I don’t think a Buddhist would care either.

158

My point was that it is not “non-Christians” who were saying it. It was meant as a gentle correction – or an opportunity for Velocity to correct me if I was the one who was wrong.

I believe that Velocity was taking a talking point about inclusiveness from the secular left and conflating it with liberal denominations embracing LGTB issues rather than a strictly secular source. Also, he has started a thread about liberal Democrats fully embracing atheism (a subject where I thought I would have a lot to say, but didn’t). Perhaps Velocity has a hard time separating the two groups – or perhaps I have a faulty notion that he does. In any case I was implying the phrase came from a different sect of monotheists, not from whatever he meant by non-Christians in his post.

There is no doubt both the liberal branch of Christendom and the conservative branch have evolved quite a bit over the last fifty to seventy years. Besides growing away from each other theologically, I believe the conservative branch has grown much, much more political and less concerned with doctrine (positions they love, the underlying doctrines are not always well understood).

If you read the three quotes above in reverse order it should make more sense. One place that Velocity and I agree is that modern day Christians DO believe they are being persecuted and their way of life is under threat. However much disinformation may be behind the theory – there is no doubt many, many Christians believe the liberal left is out to destroy a way of life they hold dear and righteous and ordained.

In addition, I believe that Christendom has had so much special privilege for so long that when they are asked to show parity with other faiths and with no faith they freak out. I know a number of households who believe that allowing Jewish or atheists views be treated as equal to their own is to disregard the history of the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers and betray our roots. The Idea of saying Christianity is equal to Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism is even more offensive. (But we were founded as a CHRISTIAN nation!! Sometimes that sentence is followed by a temper tantrum or worse.)

I have also learned from many of the books I have recommended up thread that political organizations posing as religious ones make a point of pushing this narrative and actively try to frighten the sincere believer into fighting against this manufactured disrespect for God Almighty. Fear-mongering is as vital a tool as gerrymandering or voter suppression.

And now for something completely different . . .
Today I came home to an e-mail notification that someone posed in a thread I did not remember posting in, or even reading. It was an extension of a different thread which I also didn’t recall, but eventually it was linked to a thread in which Velocity and I were the most frequent posters. Here is the interesting part: In that thread, Velocity was proposing a liberally idealistic world and I was defending Christians and making sure their voice was represented. In other words a polar opposite of this thread (I didn’t have time to read the entire other thread- and I haven’t read the top half of this one in a long time but I think for the most part we took the other side of things in that particular thread.)

[I have to recommend everyone take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt- who knows what I might be saying tomorrow.]

159

It is simple absolutism without basis or argument:

Trump good
Biden bad
Do good
Don’t do bad

It’s not really a matter of ecclesiastical debate.

160

Are you saying that the Pope is non-religious?

In any case, isn’t the Pope infallible? According to what you said upthread, this isn’t a democracy, what he says goes, you have no choice but to consent to what he says.

How can one argue that Christianity doesn’t allow dissent while dissenting from the highest authority on Christianity?