Thank you for your post, Hamish, I thought it was very well written and I want to know more. Off to the stacks I go…
(Stacks are shelves of library books, for you internet-raised young’uns)
Did most of the problems really start WAY WAY back when we moved away from the Earth Goddesses to the Sky Gods? It seems that way based on my incredibly limited understanding of the arguments put forward so far.
Polycarp:
The rules I mentioned are by no means limited to fringe groups.
Don’t be gay - Most Chistian organizations believe that homosexuality is wrong, or at least unnatural. They may not be as vocal about it as Jerry Falwell, but they still believe it.
Don’t have sex with someone you are not married to - In modern American society, sex before marriage may be much more acceptable among the general population than it once was, but AFAIK most conservative Christians still believe that you shouldn’t do it before you say “I do”. Again, just because the fringe groups are the most vocal doesn’t mean they’re the only ones who believe a certain way.
Don’t use birth control - I don’t know if this one is widely believed outside the Catholic Church, but they are most certainly not just some loony fringe group. I apologize to members of any branch of Christianity that has no problem with birth control.
Grrrr…
Three stances exist among Christians:
Ignorant legalistic attitudes that fail to take human nature into consideration. They are generally held by people of the Christian-Pharisee type that I have been outspoken in condemning, though sometimes they are simply people who feel that the Bible defines the proper way for themselves and everyone else to behave. The latter demand of themselves no less a staunch upright behavior than they would expect of others.
Those who recognize that “all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God” – themselves included. They hold to a Scripture-based morality but are inclined to be compassionate towards others, recognizing that they themselves are equally guilty.
Those who reject the entire Scripture-based codification of sin, and say that the relationship and the as-close-as-possible adherence to the ideals Jesus sets forth for human behavior is what is right.
Your point may be valid, that more Christians belong to categories 1 and 2 than to 3. But, as David B. is fond of saying, truth is not determined by majority vote. I am proud to belong to category C. I preach it to the extent I can get anyone to listen. And it calls for condemning nobody. And it doesn’t set up categories that say that Esprix, Freyr, goboy, etc., are supposed to deny the truth of their own nature in a frantic effort to live up to a set of rules people with no idea what being gay is like created for them. It says, try to live your life the way God would if He were living in your body, and He will be present to help you do so, because at one time He was living in a human body, and knows what it’s like.
So I’m out to defend “Christianity” against allegations of bigotry the same way they would defend “homosexuality” against allegations of pervertedness. Granted that there are some true losers and some truly sick individuals who happen to be attracted to other males (particularly the prepubescent variety), they are no more equivalent to the gays I know than are the Fred Phelps/Sister Mary Elephant parodies of Christianity equivalent to those of us who try to live the life Jesus called us to, myself, Navigator, Jodi, RT Firefly, DITWD, and a few others included. And the only reason they “speak for Christianity” is because they are capable of making loud noises. So is an elephant, whose trumpetings do not therefore possess wisdom or truth.
As Harvard maintains for its motto, Magna est veritas, et prevalebat.
Polycarp, I’m sorry you feel isolated in your rallying round what you believe to be the purest form of Christianity. However, what I’m arguing about is the historical influences and philosophical patterns that Christianity has taken through the ages, not the way in which the most decent minority of Christians are choosing to interpret it now.