Oh, I agree wholeheartedly that he’s running away to cover his ass. It’s just that with the tortured reasoning brought here by Friar Ted, and his subsequent attempt to compare Dobson’s retreat to the actions of a physician, I felt that he needed to be called on it.
And I don’t think that Dobson has ever sounded very Christ-like.
You have to wonder whether that’s secretly what Dobson wants.
So, ETF about your seating assignment on the bus. Do you prefer aisle or window?
(emphasis mine)
Replace that with The Christopher Lowell Show, and I think you may be onto something… 
Fair enough
.
Well if I’m to be the unlicenced defence attourney for Dobson in this thread to answer the charge brought forward by you, I would suggest that even the Good Samaritan was too busy to stay with the victim for his full recovery.
My client was the first to jump in, but when he saw that others were able and willing to nurse the high profile and wealthy Haggard to recovery he moved on to help others who were less fortunate.
Didn’t you notice? I’m the relief driver.
They do have seminars on other issues, but I don’t know any Christians who would dispute the fact that gossiping (just for example, since I used it in the first place) is a sin.
There are, however more Christians than you might think who aren’t comfortable with the stance that Homosexuality is a sin, or who dispute the interpretation of the Scriptures used to prove that Homosexuality IS a sin. I was one of those Christians, which is why I was exploring the issue in the first place. Given the fact that FoF DOES believe that it is a sin, I can see why they feel the need to have a seminar dedicated specifically to this one “sin.” I didn’t come away agreeing with them, and this might be the case with a lot of people who go to that seminar. I have no way of knowing.
badchad…I can’t link you to the numerous sites I used to determine my own beliefs on this. I could at one time, I had them bookmarked. My computer died a few years ago and I lost them all. I could go to a lot of time and effort to find them again, if I thought you really wanted to research the “issue.” I don’t HAVE a lot of time, though, and since I don’t think you really WANT to research the issue and instead just want to fight with me? [sub]And I don’t need a CITE for THAT, either…all you need to do is to search on your username and Christian to see why I came to that conclusion.[/sub] I’m not inclined to take time I don’t have to look for them again. I have no personal need to revisit them…I have made my own conclusions and I am comfortable with my beliefs. I would suggest you do a search in GD. That is where I found a lot of them.
My understanding of a “self-styled expert” is one who presents or represents himself as an expert. Polycarpt has not done that. On a website dedicated to fighting ignorance, I think that it is ridiculous to ridicule someone who is knowledgeable.
So how is a woman to deal with this directive? Does that mean that I must rut like a pig when I lie next to a man? Is it a sin if I abstain from sex with a man when I lie next to him? Or was this book of the Bible written only for men?
Zoe:
Was there, perhaps, a different quotation you were intending to cite from the contributions of CarnalK?
You seem to have misattributed one of my quotes to CarnalK. Did you intend to address your questions to me?
I’m sure it was the a quote of me describing Polycarp as a self-styled expert.
Zoe, I guess it’s a matter of impressions and your impression of Polycarp’s Bible Lessons is a little different than mine. I think he often does present himself as an expert. No, he doesn’t flat out say the words but does Dobson say “I am a Bible expert”* or does he just act like it?
*Now someone’s going to find a quote where he says exactly that and I’ll have to shut my fat face I guess.
[on preview] Dio I think the second paragraph was for you and she mis-pasted a quote of mine for the first bit. I don’t quite get what she means by her question. Maybe she took a wrong quote from you too[/op]
I do not get the impression that Poly seems to think he Knows more than the fundie preachers. Just that there are other ways to interpet the scriptures. I never got the impression that Poly claimed to have the only true translation of the Bible either.His point that I got, was that Jesus is quoted as saying,“judge not least you be judged”,and Jesus spent his time with sinners but didn’t care much for the letter of the law keeping Pharisees.
I know fundies who are divorced and remarried but ignore the Quote" He who puts aside his wife and Marries another commits adultry,or who marries one who has been put away commits adultry."
Monavis
Actually, it’s Polycarp’s frequent use of the Pharisee example that lends to my “knows better than most” attitude I get off of him. Though percentage-wise, I know he uses it less than Evil Captor brings up porn so perhaps it’s all in my own head.
And I’m curious, why is that more of an hypocrisy for a fundy than any other Christian? Jesus was clear on that point, wasn’t he? It doesn’t contradict his “love everybody” command.
Do you have a cite for these other seminars? I’ve never heard of FoF taking a public stand on any issue other than homosexuality. I’m not arguing that they don’t think other things are sins, just that I don’t buy this “All sins are equal” line when it comes to Dobson and his minions. They seem to be pretty obsessed with this one.
I’m aware of that. Hell, I used to date one. This is why I’ve been specifically talking about James Dobson and Focus on Family, not the Christian faith as a whole.
I am not going to purport to answer that adequately in a thread that has turned into, do I set myself up as a self-styled authority as I accused Dobson of doing. But I can direct you to find a good unbiased book on comparative views of Christian Ethics (and no, I don’t know of a good reference, though I’m sure someone has written one).
To try to summarize something quite complex (and I’d really appreciate someone with better background than me making corrections and clarifications to this post), the typical “Bible-believing” stance tends toward “all Bible verses are equal in authority” and each short passage taken in isolation can be construed as instructions for the Christian life. Ergo, when Jesus said, in effect, “Anybody who divorces his/her spouse and remarries commits adultery,” he meant just that. (Please note that this does set up a straw man – typically a “Bible-believing” evangelical is alive to levels of authority, the need to resolve apparent contradictions, etc. Hence my “tends toward” and “can be construed as.”)
For a Situation Ethicist, on the other hand, the verses which Jesus Himself held as most authoritative and summarizing the rest (Matthew 22:34-40 and parallels in other gospels, and Matthew 7:12) form a guide to the application of the others, and sometimes suggest they should be disregarded altogether. I’m sure badchad would see that as “cherry-picking” but I see it as parallel to Constitutional law. If the First Amendment says “no setting up a religion by authority of the state” and the Arkansas statutes say “the public school day shall be opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer,” there’s a contradiction which requires to be resolved by putting the greater law (the Constitution) ahead of and voiding the lesser (the state statute). Likewise, love of God and fellow man and the Golden Rule may require one to ignore a provision in Leviticus, say “He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death” (Lev. 24:16).
In the relevant case, Jesus is talking about men who are using the ease of the Jewish divorce law to get rid of middle-aged wives and get younger, more attractive ones. To assume that his statement is intended to mean that a person in an abusive marriage is obliged to remain in that marriage whatever the circumatances, is applying the dead letter of the law over and above the context, and the situation calls for reading the principle (Marriage is a meaningful, binding contract, not suitable for Hollywood divorces) rather than the letter, and realizing that if he were judging the case of a woman whose husband beats her, he would probably grant the divorce and use the occasion to teach a moral lesson about mercy.
Anyhow, that’s the distinction as I understand it – and a fundamentalist, believing in the “all laws are binding unless ritual (fulfilled by Jesus’s self-sacrifice) or dietary (rescinded by Jesus’s teaching and Peter’s vision) in nature,” would be more in violation of his own principles by condoning, or worse himself obtaining, a divorce and remarriage, than a liberal Christian, who would apply the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule to the situation. (And I do want someone with greater scholarship than mine to address that explanation.)
First, let me say I don’t actually dislike you at all. We are usually in different discussions here so I haven’t really gotten to know you personally but I would agree with the general consensus that you are a pretty darn nice guy. It’s just that being here as long as we have, a couple of nitpicks have turned into a boil that I need to lance.
See, when you call people with a more literal interpretation of the Bible “Bible-believing”, in other threads “Bible-worshipping” and modern Pharisees we can all probably agree it’s meant to be derogatory. It feels hypocritical to me because as stated they just put less speculation into their interpretation. They still are trying to follow what they think God has commanded. Just because you read the Bible in a different way doesn’t mean you are doing any different than them.
Don’t get me wrong, yours would be the way I would go if I was a Christian but the Bible is so full of contradictions and crap I don’t see why you don’t throw out the whole mess and find a better book. The only reason I can guess is that all Christians are a little bit “Bible worshippers”.
Anyway, that out of the way: In a hypothetical theocracy set up on your beliefs, would divorce only be granted for an abusive relationship?
The term “Bible-believing” tends to be self-applied. Those who apply it to themselves probably don’t intend it as a pejorative. On the contrary, they seem to be poud to be able to claim the designation.
This leaves them open to the critique that they are somewhat missing the point of Christianity: that they really ought to be believing in God, rather than in the Bible. It’s one of those map != territory things, and insisting on their terminology does make it legitimate to bring up the possibility that they fetishize the book to the detriment of what some term the call to be Christ-like.
First, “Bible-believing” is not in “sneer quotes” but “attribution” quotes – that’s one very common term they use for themselves, which is why I used it here, to avoid the possible confusions from “fundamentalist,” “fundy,” or “evangelical,” other potential terms, or the very nebulous “conservative Christian.” I think some few of them go to the extreme that I’d condemn as “Bible-worshipping” (and I’ll ask Friar Ted, if he passes by, for a parallax view on that perception), but most simply hold the Bible as being “inspired” in a different sense than a Catholic or Anglican here would use the term – one which puts God in a near-author role, with the human writers simply His collaborators or takers-of-dictation.
Some, not all, of the “Bible-believing”/fundy/evangelical/conservative Christian contingent do appear to behave, IMO, in the manner Jesus condemned the Pharisees for, of using God’s law, not as a guide for their own lives, but as a way to judge others. Others of them try to hold themselves up to that high standard and take a variety of views towards the behavior of others, and them I have no beef with, for the most part.
You’re welcome to take my stance as “putting more speculation” into Scriptural interpretation, but I’d disagree. Certainly we put more interpretation into it – because we’re looking for the meaning, the spirit, the underlying message, not merely the rote application of text. There was a classic (possibly apocryphal) story of a lawyer charged with defending a man who had stolen $250. The lawyer pointed out that petty theft was defined as stealing less than $250, and grand theft as stealing more than $250. But there was no law making it illegal to steal exactly $250 – which his client had done. (The law was speedily changed, but he got his client off.) The reason I’m telling that is that most people would be amused but judge that that was not fair – the intent was to punish theft by degrees, not to make that exception. For example, Paul prohibits women from speaking in church. And the conservatives believe that’s God dictating a bit of social policy. But we look at the context, and see that in the Greek cities of Paul’s day, the people he was writing to, women were not as a rule educated in the liberal arts or philosophy, the things they would need to be effective teachers and preachers. So the conclusion is not that it’s inherent in a woman not to be a clergyman, but rather that the women of Paul’s day did not have the training needed to do the job. Hence that’s an instruction specific to the area, just as Paul is careful to counsel the Corinthian women not to allow their freedom as Christians to induce them to dress in ways where they might be mistaken for prostitutes or wanton women. He’s not saying women in Singapore or Los Angeles cannot wear sheath dresses or let their hair down today – he’s saying it’s a bad move for 1st Century women in the port city of Corinth to do so. Likewise the prohibition on women teaching is specific to the time and places he applied it to.
Now, bottom line: 1) I’m as opposed to a theocracy as you or Der Trihs are, if not more so – I’ve seen what those guys can rationalize themselves into thinking. But if it ever became incumbent on me for some reason to have to render judgment on a divorce, just to play along with your hypothetical, I’d need to look at the specific circumstances. My job is to love God with all of myself, and to love my fellow man as I do myself, to do unto him or her as I would want done unto me, in like circumstances. It wouldn’t just be abusive relationships – that’s the good extreme example. But it wouldn’t be just because someone made promises while hot for someone else and the spark has died off now. I’d try to do right by them (and by the kids in the marriage) in looking at God’s primary, top-level commandments and how they apply to the situation I’ve been asked to judge. (For your information, this hits very close to home: a couple I’ve been fond of for years has recently split, the kids are upset about it, and I’m the sympathetic ear for all of them. And quite frankly I don’t have a ghost of an idea what I need to say and do – except my first job is to listen, to hear their hurts. If I’m to say or do anything to foster reconciliation or, so to speak, “bless the split,” I won’t know what’s right until I know what’s going on in their hearts.)
I hasten to add that I don’t ever expect to be in the situation of being a divorce judge, other than the very special situation with that close-friends family. But since you asked my opinion, I answered, working with your hypothetical. But it’s kind of like an IMHO, “What would happen if George Bush and Bill Clinton went at each other with Crusader shields and katanas in a steel-cage match?” not a reality-based situation.
Sorry, I was off on the “Bible believing” thing. It just reminded me of an old thread where “Bible-worshipping” was mentioned and didn’t think to look it up to see they are distinctly different. Mea culpa I guess I should also admit the obvious, kaylasdad99 and agree that there probably are a few out there who come pretty close to actually worshipping the Bible, not sure how many would cop to it.
When you apply your Constitutional Law analogy, does it go all the way? If a law is stricken down in reality it’s removed from the books - do you figuritively “cross it out” of the Bible? Similarly, text that you discount the face value interpretation of, due to historical context, is there anything left in those passages for spiritual instruction or guidance? A specific example would be the man shall not lie with man command in Leviticus being contextualized to actually refer to the transvestite Temple prostitutes (briefly described by Dio above). Is there any useful instruction left in that to a modern man?
Your answer to my hypothetical indicates to me that you would not consider it sinful to break a marriage on grounds notably below actual physical or extreme mental abuse. Correct? I know it’s probably a little to get into here but if you have any fav threads bookmarked from the past where you defended these exceptions to the divorce instructions it might flesh out any short answers you may give to my second paragraph queries.