Re: [RC] [ RC ] Christians give up without a whimper / what does this say

[David R. Block]

Title: ORourke54.htm

"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head."--P. J. O'Rourke On 12/24/2010 2:34 AM, bil...@aol.com wrote: Turn the other cheek ?  I don't think so. I have several theories but that isn't one of them. Too much to lose. Like one's children. This varies widely. Once Baptized as a Lutheran or a Catholic, one is always a Lutheran or a Catholic. No matter how far they stray from the church's path. Other denominations have the outcome as the result of free will, and others as predestined, so "thinking ahead" for the next generation is not as frequent or as common a practice as one might think.   About science, seems to me that the  pro-life position benefited greatly by considerable use of science to make Christian points. But when it comes to the issue of homosexuality  the rallying cry was abandon ship. Almost no science and a heavy emphasis on morality, Christian tradition,  and  Christian interpretation of the Law. Prefect formula for defeat. May indeed be the perfect formula for defeat. I would say that a large number of Christians are not aware of any science against Homosexuality, other than that the plumbing doesn't make sense in that direction.   Ernie put together a list of 10 self criticisms of Christianity. I'd like to add number 11 :  For reasons that I do not understand, sometimes the order of the day is irrationality. Major Irrationality.   By no means true of all Christians but, believe me,  I have heard it a number of times on the issue, "all we need is prayer and reliance on the Bible."  OK if that is where you begin, but if that is the whole schmeer, well, guess what happens in politics.   Even when it is the Bible, seems to me a heck of a lot of people simply have not done their homework. There is over-reliance on a handful of verses and most people don't even seem to know how extensively the Bible criticizes ( condemns ) homosexuality. And Buckley's lie that Jesus never said a word on the issue is still bandied about as if it was something other than false. The art (and that is a highly subjective art at that) of scripture twisting and Biblical interpretation and polemics can most often be seen in the Calvinist-Arminian wars that are still being somewhat fought today. Same thing on eschatology. That is where the theological battles are being fought so that is what the theologians, much less the laity, have focused their attention. Yes, we know that the Bible strongly condemns Homosexuality and Lesbianism, but we would have to look up the verses. We are sometimes more interested that our Christian brothers and sisters adopt the right theology (which is MY theology, of course), than we are at making an impact once the theology has been corrected.  ;-) There are songs about the Earth not being our home, but rather heaven, so some are not too keen on fighting battles here once they think that they have their Heaven ticket punched. That's bad teaching from the pulpit.   Willingness to compromise on this issue was scarce in the 90s, now it is commonplace, that and indifference and defeatism. It is worse in non-Orthodox Judaism, but so what ? It is tepid among "orthodox" Buddhists, but also so what ? A good many of the politicians that folded on the Republican side of the fence are not going to suffer greatly because the states that they represent are not hotbeds of religious conservatives. Even if they were, the media has done a good job of portraying religious conservatives in such a bad light that religious conservatives are seen as more of an enemy than Islamic radicals.   Christians need a new and bold strategy and seem to me to be utterly clueless about what to do. This makes me sick, if you want to know. It's a two edged sword. At least one knows that we are not dealing with professional political advisers and consultants. On the other hand, we would hope that somebody would actually be one to get a good strategy going.    Luther, when the Turks kicked the butts of the Christians in battle said that the whole sorry mess on the battlefield disgusted him. Exactly how I feel about this issue in 2010. A lot of people have been listening to bad advice for too many years and now large numbers are tossing out the Bible on the issue as if the testimony of the Bible doesn't matter. Of course, first they'd need to know that testimony actually exists. Little evidence that they do. The testimony of the Bible largely holds value to those who hold to the Bible. To many others, it is irrelevant, or worse-to be tossed aside because it is a "religious" book.   Like I said, next homosexual target will be marriage. Will people finally wake up and actually get to work on a strategy that has a chance of success ?  An honest to God chance of success, not more of the same wimpy half-measures of a so called strategy where the positions of homosexuals are almost all conceded because we hate the sin and love the sinner. It is somewhat unfortunate that Jesus did not have an encounter with a Homosexual back in the day that was recorded in a gospel, but we don't have one. Love the sinner and hate the sin is strongly emphasized in John 4 and John 8 (the disputed part), so that's probably not going to be ignored.   Maybe so, but is that how to win politically if the issue is high rates of murder ?  High rates of kidnapping ?  High rates of arson ?  Hell no, you go after the crime with serious conviction and every necessary kind of homework needed to understand what it is you are up against.   As tough and smart as Christians have been on the abortion issue is how half-baked they have been on the issue of homosexuality.     My opinion of the matter   Billy   ======================================================                                                       message dated 12/23/2010 5:50:25 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, david.r.bl...@verizon.net writes: That they are listening to the "turn the other cheek" part of the message? Maybe? Or how about this one: They're tired of all of the unfounded abuse. Seriously. I take a Bible to work sometimes and I get asked why I support a Theocratic state. Didn't know I supported it at all. It also appears that a large number of people think that if one is a Christian that they don't support science, especially in the area of evolution. So if we are that stupid, so are all of our other views. Surely you know this. No?? David "There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head."--P. J. O'Rourke On 12/23/2010 2:05 PM, bil...@aol.com wrote:     About the Author Patrick Buchanan has been a senior advisor to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000. He has written ten books, including six straight New York Times best sellers: A Republic, Not an Empire; The Death of the West; Where the Right Went Wrong; State of Emergency; Day of Reckoning; and Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War. Christian Rout in the Culture War by Patrick J. Buchanan December 20th, 2010      Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture   A Democratic Congress, discharged by the voters on Nov. 2, has as one of its last official acts, imposed its San Francisco values on the armed forces of the United States. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is to be repealed. Open homosexuals are to be welcomed with open arms in all branches of the armed services. Let us hope this works out better for the Marine Corps than it did for the Catholic Church. Remarkable. The least respected of American institutions, Congress, with an approval rating of 13 percent, is imposing its cultural and moral values on the most respected of American institutions, the U.S. military. Why are we undertaking this social experiment with the finest military on earth? Does justice demand it? Was there a national clamor for it? No. It is being imposed from above by people, few of whom have ever served or seen combat, but all of whom are aware of the power of the homosexual rights lobby. This is a political payoff, at the expense of our military, to a militant minority inside the Democratic Party that is demanding this as the price of that special interest’s financial and political support. Among the soldiers most opposed to bringing open homosexuals into the ranks are combat veterans, who warn that this will create grave problems of unit cohesion and morale. One Marine commandant after another asked Congress to consider the issue from a single standpoint: Will the admission of gay men into barracks at Pendleton and Parris Island enhance the fighting effectiveness of the Corps? Common sense suggests that the opposite is the almost certain result. Can anyone believe that mixing small-town and rural 18-, 19- and 20-year-old Christian kids, aspiring Marines, in with men sexually attracted to them is not going to cause hellish problems? The Marines have been sacrificed by the Democratic Party and Barack Obama to the homosexual lobby, with the collusion of no fewer than eight Republican senators. This is a victory in the culture war for the new morality of the social revolution of the 1960s and a defeat for traditional Judeo-Christian values. For only in secularist ideology is it an article of faith that all sexual relations are morally equal and that to declare homosexual acts immoral is bigotry. But while this new morality may be orthodoxy among our elites in the academy, media, culture and the arts, Middle America has never signed on and still regards homosexuality as an aberrant lifestyle, both socially and spiritually ruinous. To these folks, homosexuality is associated with a high incidence of disease, HIV/AIDS, early death, cultural decadence and civilizational decline. And no sensitivity training at Camp Lejeune is going to change that. Behind these traditionalist beliefs lie the primary sources of moral authority for traditionalist America: the Old and New Testaments, Christian doctrine, natural law. Thomas Jefferson believed homosexuality should be treated with the same severity as rape. And 31 consecutive defeats for same-sex marriage in state referenda testifies that Middle America sees the new morality as the artificial invention of pseudo-intellectuals to put a high gloss on a low lifestyle. Not until recent decades have many in America or the West argued that homosexuality is natural and normal. As late as 1973, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. Today, anyone who agrees with that original APA assessment is himself or herself said to be afflicted with a mental disorder: homophobia. The world has turned upside down. What was criminal vice in the 1950s—homosexuality and abortion—is not only constitutionally protected, but a mark of social progress. Yet, just as busing for racial balance led to violence, white flight and the ruin of urban schools, this social experiment is not going to be without consequences. And it is the military that will endure those consequences. Yet, again, if we believe our armed forces to be the best in the world, why are we doing this, against the advice of countless senior officers and NCOs? What is the motivation other than the payoff of a campaign debt? What happens now to Evangelical Christian and conservative Catholic chaplains who preach that homosexuality is a sinful and shameful practice? Will they be severed from the service as homophobes? That cannot be far behind when the Family Research Council, a respected organization of religious and social conservatives that has fought the homosexual agenda from same-sex marriage to gay adoptions, has now been declared by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be a “hate group.” The advance of what was once a radical agenda has accelerated. In 2004, John Kerry may have lost Ohio and the presidency because same-sex marriage was on the ballot in almost a dozen states, bringing out committed social conservatives to the polls. Six years later, the gay rights agenda is imposed by Congress and Obama on the 82nd and 101st. Let the reader decide if the direction America is headed in is toward those “sunny uplands,” or straight downhill.   -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org