Only under certain very narrowly defined circumstances. Pope Francis has never spoken infallibly. Nor did Pope Benedict, or John Paul II, or JPI, or Paul VI, or John XXIII.
Pius IX was the last Pope to pronounce something infallibly.
While I might agree with you that Francis is the “highest authority on Christianity,” millions of Protestants and Orthodox Christians and Anglicans would probably disagree.
Actually I probably wouldn’t agree with you – Francis is the bishop of Rome. Not sure that makes him the highest authority on anything. Even to Catholics.
And that’s where @Velocity’s argument entirely falls apart.
He says that Christianity doesn’t allow for differing views, that consent isn’t part of it but which sect of Christianity is right? Which schism is one supposed to be ruled by?
I’m more and more convinced that the problem with all SDMB discussions involving religion, and particularly Christianity, is that the non-religious participants cannot or will not make the effort to try to step inside the heads of the religious for a few minutes and understand that faith is very important to some and is something that they’ve given serious thought to, and that some religious people are actually quite intelligent and are quite happy to discuss issues involving religion in good faith ( ).
And some of the religious (although there aren’t many of this stripe here) can’t stop identifying the non-religious as outsiders who are bad and want to take away their right to religious freedom.
So it’s all kind of pointless. I’ve started limiting my participation in threads involving religion to just correcting misunderstood or misstated facts, or adding data points to conversations.
Obviously, I don’t know Francis, and can’t get inside his head.
But I suspect that Francis, on some level, is one of those liberal Christians.
But I’m sure that what he fears more than anything is schism. And he knows that any pronouncement on his part that same-sex marriage and sexual relationships are not sinful, and can be sanctioned by the Church, would immediately lead to schism. After all, we can see what happened, and is happening, with the Anglican church(es) and the Methodists.
I think he’s also in the same boat when it comes to the ordination of women.
It seems to me that he’s trying to move the Church in the right direction, to a greater extent than any Pope in my lifetime except, arguably, John XXIII. But I don’t think Francis is in a position to call Vatican III – the fear that a call for a Council of the Church would lead to schism is not without basis.
I agree. When he became Pope, and with some of his statements since then, there have been people who have become excited about the prospect of the Roman Catholic Church instituting some significant, liberal changes.
But, aas you note, the odds of anything like that happening are effectively zero – Francis may, himself, be socially liberal (at least, in comparison to many other senior members of the Church), but I think he’s also very much dedicated to keeping the church together, in an era in which it’s facing serious issues, some of which (like the clergy sex abuse problem) are of its own making.
That’s one of the main problems facing Christian dominionists - they’re only thinking about getting power, and not about the consequences of power once they do actually get it. If dominionists actually did seize power, there’d be a huge subsequent fight among themselves over doctrine - they might agree that abortion and gay marriage should be banned, but then there’d be disputes about almost everything else, such as cessationism vs. continuationism and whatnot.
As for “Christianity doesn’t allow for differing views” - what I meant was more like, many Christians, especially dominionists, yearn for, or practice, a form of government that simply imposes “what’s right” from above by force, dissent be screwed. That’s how all the good kings of Israel and Judah were described in the Old Testament - kings like Asa, Josiah, David and Hezekiah who simply smashed the bad idols and bad things in their nation, running roughshod over evil whether the public liked it or not. That mentality is also why you see many Christian parents who think that forcing their kids to read the Bible is the same thing as that kid voluntarily wanting to read the Bible on his or her own.
That’s what I mean by Christianity not particularly caring for democracy - because in much of Scripture, the “good guys” were always leaders who never took any heed of what the “bad guys” under them wanted - never cared for opinion polls, majority opinion or public sentiment. (Obviously, opinion surveys weren’t a thing back then, but you get the point) And there is a subset of American Christianity today that yearns for the same; to have a president, Congress and judiciary that just imposes the righteous thing on America from above.
I don’t know that I agree. I’ve seen a number of productive discussions between those of faith and the non-religious. Many of us non-religious grew up religious, we spent more than just a few minutes inside those heads.
And if someone has a faith that tells them how to live their life, then great for them. It’s only when their faith starts telling me how to live my life that I become dismissive of their arguments.
This can be true. For many religious types, any doubt in their faith is abhorrent. Having people around who don’t believe can lead to doubting yourself, and they lash out at that.
Side note, I see that you said “some of the religious”, but said only “the non-religious”, is this a case of you claiming an “all” here, that “all non-religious participants” are fairly painted by your broad brush?
Right, and that’s great, until the one day that they have a disagreement with the theocracy that they have implemented about what is right.
They did what they wanted, that’s for sure. They did what they believed was right, whether or not the people thought so as well. Some even would send people off to get killed in battle in order to take their wives.
I’ll agree with you on the point that the bible was written during a time of despotism and autocracy. I’ll also agree that there are those who want to bring back such power structures, in the belief that they will be at the top of them.
I don’t agree that Christianity has to be incompatible with democracy. Most churches that I have attended were actually fairly democratic in their functioning, even.
Doesn’t that describe the Pharaoh of Egypt that held the Israelites as slaves? (Apocryphal, I know, but it’s in the bible as being true.)
Although sometimes being told how to live their life can have a direct affect on my ability to live mine. If you look at the page that Ann_Hedonia linked to from The Church of Glad Tidings, a lot of it is devoted to anti-vax conspiracy theory. I clicked on a random point on a random video and was informed with a long list of references that back this up, that DARPA is involved in the development of hydrogel which they can inject into you and through it see everything that you are seeing through your eyes, .
Even if these people don’t require me to believe this, if they avoid the vaccine because they learned about this from their church (which they joined because it has a great youth group that keeps the kids off the streets and away from drugs) then we are all harmed.
Also, there’s a significant amount of grift associated with these hybrid political/religious movements.
I’m mentioning it because of an ad that showed up on this very page, I’m sure it was placed there because of keywords in the thread, a few days ago,
The BANNER - which unfortunately wasn’t repeated in the body of the ad - read something like “WOKE” Christians are terrified by this or See what has “WOKE” Christians shaking with fear……I don’t remember the exact wording, but it used the phrase “WOKE” Christians and implied that something delightfully bad was happening to them.
Of course, these crappy ads never generate previews, but it goes to an “advertorial” with the headline - Everyone That Believes in God Should Watch This, it Will Blow Your Mind.
I did not watch the video, but the copy hints of the existence of magical healing oil that will cure everything, and this oil was found in the Bible by a Dr. Benet, or something……but it works on non-believers, too. And I need to watch the video now before THEY take it down forever.
This was a few days ago.
This morning, there was a new message at the top of my Facebook feed. Apparently the people behind the magical super-healing Bible grease NOTICED that I never clicked the link to watch their video, so they sent me another link that they think might be easier to click. And I’m pretty sure they’re going to be chasing me around the Internet with their Biblical snake oil.
The discussion of the relationship between Christianity (we might be able to substitute other major religions here as well) and democracy is a really interesting one. There doesn’t appear to be direct guidance in history/scripture for Christians to turn to on this issue.
I would think that most US Christians believe in democracy because it’s the best way to dignify the spirit of man, giving him a say in his own governance and a chance of implementing laws that approximate his own religious and moral beliefs.
But there also appears to be an extreme minority who would favor an unchecked monarchy or other totalitarian form of government over a secular-leaning democracy as long as it prioritizes Christian beliefs and culture over others. There are even a few crazies out there who decry Freedom of Religion because there is “only one Truth.”
Many of our current political/cultural problems are caused more by the unchurched right than the religious right, based on some studies I’ve seen.
I agree with this. The dishonesty and misrepresentation bother me. Sure, it’s better if the Christians cherrypick the nice bits (meaning the bits I deem nice), but it’s not honest. It’s worse when they then argue against those who see the horribleness with “that’s not the important bit” or even worse “but that’s OT” - like it doesn’t count that God did all those horrible things because it was longer ago before his kid was born.
And, of course, it’s often used in supporting the idea that Christianity is inherently good and superior to other ways (religious or atheistic).
Those that ignore the nastier parts of the Bible I can at least understand.
The ones that really bother me are those that define “good” as “everything God says and does”. God did it, therefore it is by definition “good”. These people do not ignore the bad parts of the Bible because they have surrendered their own moral compass willingly and accepted all of their God’s acts as good.
As someone that is very interested in the subject, I’d love to see those studies. I know it appears that way on the face of things, but the more I delve into the subject the less I’ve found it to be true.
Have you see this twelve minute video of the insurrectionists inside the Senate chamber on January 6th. If you haven’t, I’m not going to ask you to watch the whole thing but I will ask you to fast forward to the eight-minute mark.
You will see the insurrections stop and hold an impromptu prayer meeting for 1 minute and twenty seconds. These prayers are lead by none other than the QANON shaman, who is actually pretty deep into the whole political religiosity movement, after Jan 6th I saw old footage of him at Trump/QANON events at Phoenix’s Dream City Church, which is large Trump supporting mega church that made news by holding crowded services and rallies during the pandemic.
But I recognize that the actions of religious individuals aren’t always informed by their religions and shouldn’t be viewed as being reflective of their religious views - which is why I don’t want to put too much focus on individuals.
There are a lot of organizations and foundations that are throwing a lot of money behind their efforts to erode the separation of church and state.
There are organizations like Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point, and their new division Turning Point Faith - with a mission of politicalizing and radicalizing existing churches. There are family foundations like those run by the DeVos, Prince and Mercer families, which focus on getting dominionist friendly individuals into public office and governmental and judiciary positions - they were incredibly successful during the Trump years. There are groups like the cultish Fellowship Foundation aka The Family, which hosts the National Prayer Breakfast. In case you think the National Prayer Breakfast is some sort of light, inclusive non-denominational everyone is welcome event, watch the video of the 2020 event, held after Trumps impeachment trial to see all these “religious leaders” applauding as Trump denigrated Mitt Romney’s faith as fake.
I find it concerning. I understand that democracy isn’t compatible with fundamentalist Christianity. I have a TV set so I totally get why modern culture angers religious Christians. But I can understand that position without sympathizing with it. The bottom line is that I’m a non-believer and it idea of being bound by what I consider to be a fictional work is repugnant to me.
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