The Homosexual War against Christianity
Afterword:
Religion and Responsibility
Why do people choose to be uninformed? How is this possible?
Yet it is more than possible, you see it and hear it every day.
There are people who are blissfully unaware of events that
shake our society's foundations, that impact countless individual lives,
that redirect the trajectory of trends that effect everyone. And these
people -who may be good at heart, who may otherwise be
responsible men or women who carry out their responsibilities
to their families or their communities. But they are ignorant
of just about everything else.
Politically they are naifs, who, at most, know a few salient facts about
the issues of the time. And on the basis of what little they actually know
they
generalize about everything else, almost always wrongly. While for the
most part this may not matter -one vote out of a million cast- sometimes
it matters greatly. Sometimes that one "vote" makes the difference
between a family's success and its failure. Or it may result in poor
investment decisions or in lost opportunities.
Still, what one cannot help but wonder the most is how such people can
stand to look at their reflections in the mirror. Before them is the image
of a person who thrives on ignorance; someone who has no idea what
actually informed people are talking about, who then tries to take part
in a conversation among people who know ten times what he or she
knows, if not 50 times as much.
Who would not want to become informed and make the effort to
"get up to speed," to catch up with others whom he or she respects?
Yet the effort is never made.
What explains this condition?
I cannot speak for all cases but can offer an hypothesis about
one particular population, Evangelical Christians who comprise
approximately 1/4th of all US citizens and who are crucial in
American elections.
There exists among Evangelicals -not all, but many, probably a solid
plurality if not an absolute majority- a mindset that is often called
"reductionist." As the word implies, this refers to a tendency to
reduce all issues to their simplest possible characteristics.
Reductionism narrows the field of "what's important" to
a bare minimum and, in the process, shuts off consideration
of alternative viewpoints and of new sources of information.
This may sound arcane, as if the discussion was about obscure issues
that only have interest for academic specialists, but that kind of
interpretation would miss the mark badly. This is about very
common "philosophies" that characterize the thought processes
of millions of Christian believers. Which is very relevant inasmuch
as we are talking about a homosexual war against Christianity itself,
especially against Evangelical Christians.
It is important to keep in mind that in real life no generalizations
apply 100% to everyone in a population; that is impossible.
Moreover, even the most uninformed of people may know
enough about a small number of issues to believe that they aren't
uninformed at all even if they are 'weak' in some areas outside
of their usual purview. As if to say, "Uninformed? That's not me,
You are talking about someone else."
.
Almost no-one likes to admit being ignorant but this shortcoming
is hardly limited to Evangelicals. Instead of the attitude, "here's
something
I don't know, the only good course open to me is to admit it and resolve
to learn new things as soon as possible so that I can become informed,
glad to realize that this is something I need to work on," most people
do their own version of Donald Trump and refuse to admit ignorance
and try to compensate through ego assertion. They "know it all" even
when they don't actually know much of anything. As if watching TV news
shows consists of a knowledge base; no need to read scholarly articles,
no need to read books written by experts in their fields, no need to
attend lectures by authors, none of that is necessary. Maybe
look something up while doing a Google search but otherwise
they do no hard research at all.
And some people don't even watch television news, they operate on the
ridiculously mistaken assumption that scuttlebutt they are exposed to
via social media consists of reliable information when, at most, all they
are doing is picking up bits and pieces of information -and nothing is
learned in any thorough-going manner.
What does this have to do with Evangelical religion? This: The reductionism
that is rampant in among Evangelicals predisposes people to gloss facts,
to be superficial, to only focus on the obvious, and never really study
much of anything by objective standards.
What is reductionism? Here is one useful definition:
The practice of simplifying a complex idea, issue, condition, or the
like,
especially to the point of minimizing, obscuring, or distorting it.
There are several kinds of Evangelical reductionism, in cases with analogs
among Catholics or Jews or others. These are:
1. Red Letter Reductionism.
This is in reference to various editions of the King James Version of the
Bible
in which all the words attributed to Jesus appear in red print. The
tendency
of Red Letter Reductionists is to focus most of their attention on these
words
not to the exclusion of everything else but such that everything else is
regarded
as less important and less meaningful. Everything else is minimized, the
red letter
words are emphasized. In effect the Bible becomes a shrunken book
in which most of the text is regarded as supplemental, not crucial.
This allows believers to downgrade the Apostle Paul, in the process
demoting Paul's strong condemnations of sodomy to near insignificance.
Something of the same effect may be achieved among those Christians
who are pietists who focus nearly all of their time on the example
of Christ, since nothing else is nearly as significant and we are
supposed to live for Jesus anyway.
2. Neo-Marcionism
This refers to the heretical semi-Christian movement of ca. the 150s AD
led by a former bishop named Marcion who produced the first "canon"
of a New Testament. It wasn't until after Marcion that the standard
New Testament we now know was finally agreed upon with its
four gospels, with the Book of Acts, Paul's Epistles, miscellaneous
epistles, and Revelation.
Still there was what might be called an informal canon; this varied
from place to place depending on what texts were available locally
in that pre-printing era although at a minimum it included the Hebrew
Bible,
later called the Old Testament, as many Gospels as were on hand that were
regarded as authentic, plus at least some of Paul's letters. All pf these
sources
apparently had approximately equal status as scripture; as much as
possible
all of these texts were supposed to be consulted in determining the best
conclusions to reach about spiritual issues.
Marcion's canon only included an edited version of Luke, ten of Paul's
letters,
and nothing else, or almost nothing else since some Marcionites included
one or another additional Christian text. Marcion rejected
the Old Testament entirely.
There are no Marcionists today but the attitude that the New Testament
is supreme, the Hebrew Bible is inferior or only applied in the past,
is common enough to constitute a modern Marcionist heresy.
Related to Marcionism is Biblicism, the view that the Bible is all we need
to know in life, every other source of knowledge is ultimately superfluous
and unnecessary. Hence we get attitudes that are antithetical to most of
the sciences (there is a partial exception for physics and maybe
chemistry),
an outlook that denigrates the social sciences, that ignores the lessons
of psychology, and that basically regards the world of ideas as
a waste of time. A variant of the same thing is King-James-Only-ism,
the view that the only acceptable rendering of the Bible in the English
language is the KJV.
3. Spiritual Reductionism
This is the view, common among Pentecostals and sometimes Charismatics,
that what really matters is God and human souls and the workings of the
Holy Spirit among men and women, the Spirit taken to be an etherial
form of Jesus. The view is normative that "Nothing matters in life but our
personal, spiritual relationship with God and his people." Scripture
gets short shrift in the process, and religious faith become emotion
centered.
The view that the whole Bible is important may be given lip service
but is a dead letter in practice. There is nothing like a whole person
approach to faith, everything (or nearly everything) is exclusively
focused on "spiritual experience."
4. Theological Reductionism
This is the view that it is necessary to reduce the Bible, particularly the
New Testament, to its "essence." It is the view that theology is
unimportant
and that close study of the Biblical text that requires an education in
such
areas as history, philosophy, literary criticism, Comparative Religion,
etc.,
has no real value -even if not all Theological Reductionists go this far.
In any case, this is anti-intellectualism raised to the level of Christian
doctrine. In the end the ideal is reducing the Bible to one sentence,
a catchy slogan that anyone can easily remember and act upon.
5. Five-Point Reductionism
So called from the five points that some Protestant denominations seek
to reduce theology to, as if the sine qua non of Christian faith consists
of internalizing five cardinal principles and living day and night for
these principles and just about nothing else. Not that these principles
necessarily are "evil" in some sense. Still, as others have said, trying to
reduce the Bible to five points of doctrine is ridiculous; you could easily
compose a list of 100 points and still not express everything of value
in the Holy Book. The 5 Calvinists points -total depravity of the soul
and our overwhelming propensity to sin, grace from above that cannot
be resisted when it happens in anyone's life, etc- was formulated in
response
to 5 Arminian points -partial depravity which says we are mixtures of
good and evil, salvation that can be lost, and so forth.
So it can be argued that maybe we need our own 5 points, or maybe 7 points
or 10 points, simply to distinguish false beliefs from true faith. And
there is
something to be said for this approach. As the old joke has it, when an
Arminian listened to a Calvinist explain what he sincerely believed, the
Arminian replied, "why, your God is my Devil." Yet no-one can possibly
think that 5 points, or 25 points, does the Bible justice. No list of
principles
or of ideas or anything else can possibly be better than an
oversimplification.
6. No-Repentance Reductionism
There is no formal school of thought that uses this nomenclature
but it is useful to single this tendency out and call it what it is,
an inexcusable heresy. This is the view that we should be
universally forgiving, following Jesus' example on the cross.
In effect Christianity is reduced to forgiveness, first, last, and
foremost. Every sin is excused as long as someone comes around
to faith in Jesus. All of the many verses in the Bible -both testaments-
that insist that forgiveness is conditional on repentance are ignored
for the sake of trying to be Christ-like. You can call this "doormat
Christianity" if you prefer, or "Christian masochism."
7. Sermon-on-the -Mount Reductionism, aka: Tolstoyism
This refers to the religious beliefs of Leo Tolstoy although Dostoevsky's
views are often compatible. The objective is to literally follow Jesus
in every dimension of life, uncompromisingly. The best way to do this
so it is said, is to absolutize the Sermon on the Mount as the perfect
distillation of everything in the New Testament relating to the life
and faith of Jesus. In Dostoevsky's words, "I do not know the answer
to the problem of evil, ...but I do know love." Even the Sermon on the
Mount can ultimately be reduced to one phrase in John 1: 16,
namely, "God is love." Which, while it may be a noble sentiment,
is hardly realistic in the three dimensional world in which we must live.
And what about all other concerns? Don't we have the responsibility
to weigh good vs. bad and the fact that almost nothing exists on Earth
that isn't a mixture of good and evil? And what does this do to
Christ's violence in throwing out the money changers? Are we
supposed to explain away his righteous anger with the ludicrous
rationalization that Jesus was actually demonstrating love ???
What does this do to Jesus' repudiation of Satan? In so many
words this is reductionism at its irrational worst. It is a
reductio ad absurdum. It also is foundational to pietism.
8. What Would Jesus Do -ism
This refers to a book first published in 1896 entitled In His Steps,
basically a Biblical literalist's view of the life of Jesus of Nazareth
in which the Lord is a down-to-earth kindly pietist. This is where
modern usage of the phrase "What Would Jesus do?" originated.
It is also a Jesus without reference to the Antichrist, in which stress
is placed on the Holy Spirit that is in excess of the message of the
canonical Gospels, and in which Jesus appears as an "average man"
in the mold of a late 19th century American.
This Jesus is uniformly optimistic, generally speaking he does not require
believers to make serious sacrifices on his behalf, and is strictly
focused
on individual salvation, where the Christian community exists as
something
other than the "body of Christ" -the Church- and has limited significance.
That is, this approach denies the value of the Social Gospel of the era
when
the book was written and gives little attention to the need for social
reform.
This is the reductionism of a highly selective version of Jesus which omits
all kinds of dimensions of his life as found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or
John.
This is "middle class Jesus" at his best, as perfect as the more-or-less
air-brushed interpretation of Sallman's "Head of Christ" portrait
of a later era.
There are still other reductionist heresies but these are the basic types.
About which the point to make is that it seems inevitable that to some
extent
the kind of thinking we find in religious reductionism would spill over
into
secular life: In the form of simplistic ways of conceiving problems
or solutions to problems. That is, everything becomes a quest for
some one Golden Principle that accounts for everything else,
or 5 such principles, or everything becomes self-referential as if
study of relevant political issues or public policy measures really isn't
necessary because, so it may be believed, i.e., once you "get" some
axial idea you have all that you need. Which, in the real world,
is pure malarkey.
Reductionism is the kind of thinking that can be thought of as "short cut"
mentality. It is a quest for the easy way out. Life is tough, it is
complicated,
and who needs headaches that would arise if you decided that you really
should study something, give it your attention, and puzzle deeply about the
best ways to get things done? All of that is kicked to the side if you
choose a reductionist approach. But you deceive yourself that you have
the best answers when, in fact, the short cut you find yourself on
takes you over the nearest cliff. Or into a swamp.
There also is the temptation to believe that all you are doing is
perfectly legitimate -conceived as a form of Ockham's razor:
When there are multiple answers generally the best solution is
the simplest. But this ain't necessarily so.
Besides, the Ockham principle assumes that you should reduce a problem
to the least necessary parts. There may be 1000+ necessary parts, as in an
aircraft engine, in testing a medication for the human body, in dealing
with an environmental issue, a political dilemma, and so forth. Many
problems
require multi-dimensional problem solving, require a form of calculus,
not simple arithmetic. Otherwise the solution can only be wrong.
And so it is also with respect to religious faith. Get that wrong,
moreover, and you probably will get a many other things wrong
as a consequence. There are no legitimate shortcuts...
Then there is this:
What you may find especially interesting is that Reductionist Jesus
"never says a discouraging word." That is, reductionists are loathe
to make criticism part of their "witness." Their Christ is a gentleman
who does not say bad things about people; for them Jesus is all about
getting along with one another, all about reconciliation, all about
granting every possible benefit of doubt to everyone. Criticism
that matters -as opposed to railing against sin in the abstract-
is not part of the picture, or only is welcome in short cameo
appearances. It is a form of Christianity in which there are no
equivalents of movie critics, book reviewers, drama critics, etc.,
and certainly not social critics.
This is strange inasmuch as Jesus -whom reductionists say they seek
to emulate- could sometimes be a fierce critic of various people.
One religious website, The Missing Cross to Purity, features an essay
under the title: "Jesus' Criticisms of Hypocritical Religious Leaders."
A collection of no less than 39 verses from the New Testament
(nearly all taken from the Gospels) in which Jesus is an outspoken
critic is there for anyone who wants, to read and ponder. A few of
the selections don't really qualify as "criticisms" but 25 or 30 certainly
do.
In them Jesus isn't meek and mild, he clearly is angry or, at a minimum,
dismayed. A few examples:
Matthew 23: 27-28
'Alas for you, lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like tombs
covered with whitewash; they look well from outside, but inside they are
full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filth. So it is with you: outside
you look like honest men, but inside you are brim-full of hypocrisy
and crime
Luke 11: 52
'Alas for you lawyers! You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You did not go in yourselves, and those who were on their way in,
you stopped.'
John 8: 43-44
'Your father is the devil and you choose to carry out your father's
desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and is not rooted
in the truth; there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie he is speaking
his own language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
A search of your own could identify still other Bible verses in which
honest
criticism is featured including many from the Old Testament. In any case
the New Testament makes it very clear that Jesus was quite capable of
being critical of others. His criticisms could be harsh and angry in tone.
There really isn't any question about it. Yet some sites, like Got
Questions? org,
under the title "What does the Bible say about criticism?" insist that
doctrine
about Jesus is superior to what Jesus actually said. We are told that
criticism
should always be "gentle" and "loving." We are also told to be truthful,
but when we are exactly that, the advice to always be gentle, etc.,
can be seen for what it is, pietistic mush that is false to the Bible.
Criticisms shouldn't be stupid, nor needlessly unkind, and you need to take
account of the possible effects of any criticisms you make, and word choice
is crucial; the wrong words and you may make an enemy for life when this
was not at all your intention. But otherwise, through example, we are
taught to be critical, to make ourselves into good critics.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
Evangelical theology has something to do with it, a theology that sometimes
elevates 17th century doctrine, or 19th century doctrine, above an
objective
reading of the Biblical text.
The point isn't that there are no virtues in Evangelical Christian faith.
Any such view would be ridiculous. But the point is that there are serious
problems with Evangelical religion and it is unjustifiable to say nothing
when these flaws are causing damage wherever you look. It is going
too far to say that these flaws all result from pietism; human nature
surely plays a part, as does propensity to sin, and we all make
mistakes despite our best intentions. But pietism certainly
is a major factor and it is time enough to say so.
Pietistic faith is a caricature of Christianity.
It assures us that we can have authentic Christian faith without
controversy.
It tells us that there is such a thing as conflict-less Christian faith.
It tells us that we don't need to be realistic about much of anything
since prayer is a universal solvent that dissolves all dirt and grime.
It tells us that religious faith is all about emotional experience
and that education to issues of religion is unnecessary.
It tells us that we can have Christian faith without fighting for what is
right
It tells us that we can have a Jesus without anger, without fighting
spirit.
The virtues of pietism should never blind us to the failures of pietism.
Those virtues are important: Love and kindness and compassion
are not dispensable qualities for anyone who considers himself
or herself Christian in any sense. Its just that this is NOT the
whole story. Which is why we have a Bible that is approximately
1000 pages long. And you cannot reduce it to a few thoughtful
principles or several treasured proof texts or one or two
catchy slogans.
It all matters, all of it counts. Some counts far more than other parts,
some is in error, but it is an incredible example of a conscientious
attempt by people who lived thousands of years ago to pass down
to us their wisdom, the truths they knew and lived by, and something
of the spirit which made them what they were -in the name of Christ.
None of this is passive Christianity, none of this presents us with
a reductionist one-dimensional Jesus with no complexity, a Jesus
whose life consisted of nothing but piety.
What is said here does not presuppose strict Christian orthodoxy.
Quite the contrary. Indeed, clearly that kind of orthodoxy, speaking
especially of Evangelicals, can be an impediment. But the point has
to be that (1) drastic change is needed but also that (2) it is essential
that genuine Christian virtues are integral to any kind of "New
Christianity"
that might exist in the future.
My personal exemplar is Albert Schweitzer, not because I can live up to
him,
and not because of any interest in becoming a medical missionary in the
equatorial rain forest. Rather it is because he demonstrated, like no-one
else
before him, or afterward, that it is possible to maintain commitment to
Christ
while at the same time being realistic, being open to new ideas, being
ecumenical about faith, open to the truths found in other faiths, and
open to the truths of science and history.
There is zero reductionism in Schweitzer's theology. His one major failing,
to call it that, was his reluctance to be an open critic of events of a
turbulent
period in history. Yet in his case this was understandable. A German living
in a French colony did not have freedoms we take for granted in America,
and in the Europe of his era, when he was able to return home, saying the
wrong things could jeopardize the existence of his hospital in Africa,
which was his life's work.
This is written for people who aren't in that kind of predicament, which is
nearly everyone who lives in the contemporary United States.
Schweitzer was not in the least reluctant to study the latest rigorous
Bible scholarship, viz, actual scholarship. For the most part, at least to
generalize from what I have seen, Evangelicals are "scholarship averse."
They have the answers before they begin because that is what doctrine
insists upon. For them the Bible is error free, there are no mistakes
even if allowance is made for -we can call it- miscellaneous boo-boos.
Someone discovers that in the past a translator chose an inappropriate
word; there really aren't many repeated references to witches in the Bible,
only a few are authentic. In cases a better English language term might be
"sorceress" or something like 'medicine woman' or the like. But this
type of problem can be corrected easily enough with minimum damage.
However, serious scholarship is very different. It does not start with
the view that the Bible has a privileged position from which everything
else must be judged; it follows from the premise that the worth of
the Bible needs to be demonstrated just as this must be done for
the writings of Aristotle or Cicero or an ancient cuneiform text.
And it is open-ended. It is empirical and tests historical claims.
It also looks at literary structure, literary tropes, and literary
canons -precedents for various kinds of writings.
As much as he could in his era, Schweitzer made good use of
such scholarship. For him it illuminated the Bible in ways that otherwise
would have forever eluded him. It was a cherished source of truth.
He admitted that there were errors in the text; but the book was written
by fallible human beings. There is no crisis of faith; its just life, the
bad with
the good, and in the case of the Bible, a preponderance of good.
Is the Bible perfect? No. Is it -or can it be- inspirational? That is
an
entirely different question.
Philippians 4: 8
"And now, my friends, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is
just
and pure, all that is lovable and gracious, whatever is excellent
and admirable —fill all your thoughts with these things."
Is there a better statement of the best kind of human purpose available to
us?
What might that be?
Schweitzer, wherever his scholarship led him, never lost sight of
everything
good and noble and excellent in the Bible. And there is so much:
Ecclesiastes,
Song of Songs, many of the Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon, the Gospels
despite some serious questions, I Corinthians, Hebrews,
to mention some of the best writing in the history of literature.
For some people the mistakes and dubious passages spoil everything
and motivate them to abandon faith altogether and become Atheists.
Bart Ehrman is a prime example, someone whom I otherwise think
very highly of; having read several of his scholarly books, each with
deep interest. Yet for him everything leads to Atheism. For him
the truth claims in the book are what matter most to the
exclusion of all other considerations. But is that approach the
only one thinkable? Of course not.
What about the beauty in the Bible? What about its ability to inspire us
to achievement? What about the many prompts in its pages to study
history to get at the solution to important historical problems.
What about the example of Jesus? Or Paul?
And what about the many passages that tell us that there are truths
in other religions that have value, that show us unique kinds of beauty
and that provide us with new kinds of education? One of my favorite
verses is Malachi 1: 11, already quoted, which is truly remarkable.
Malachi is a direct reference to the living religious faiths of that
period
of history, which the prophet would have known from time he spent within
the Persian Empire where many religious traditions flourished, to repeat
the list, besides Judaism itself, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Brahminism,
Taoism, Confucianism, and the Goddess religions of the ancient Mid East.
The choice is not absolute belief or absolute non-belief
and abandonment of religious faith. There are other real-world
choices and, as in Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 and Acts 10: 35,
these choices are between faiths each of which offers its
own truths. The Zoroastrians say that their's is the best among
good religions; a Christian can say the approximately same thing and,
in the process, affirm the value in other faiths without diminishing that
of his or her own. What a Christian must add, however, is that
Jesus necessarily is at the center of faith, the messiah.
If an Atheist objects to traditionalist Christianity because its
metaphysical
claims cannot be verified what, exactly, justifies Atheist metaphysical
claims
that cannot be verified, either? How does anyone "know" there is no God?
It isn't possible. About such issues knowledge is out of reach and the
best option is agnosticism, that is, an agnostic attitude.
Bart Ehrman also is guilty of another fallacy. In his view, the existence
of
suffering discredits the concept of God and more-or-less "proves"
his non-existence. This really is simplistic thinking -conditioned in
Ehrman's
case by his many years as an Evangelical true believer. It is unfortunate
that he never seems to have read a 1983 book by Rabbi Harold Kushner,
When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Why is there suffering? Why does a just God allow evil things to happen?
Because, contrary to doctrine that is not in the Bible, God is not
omnipotent.
Satan exists whether it is fashionable to say so among graduates of elite
universities or not.
Satan has powers that, while they are inferior to those of God,
nonetheless are considerable. So-called "acts of God" like devastating
natural disasters, either are structural to nature itself or, to the extent
they may be intentional, really are acts of Satan. As are unjust wars,
the oppression of innocent people, horrible crimes, and still other evils.
God, said Kushner, simply cannot prevent these terrible events
from happening. Maybe in the long run things will change, maybe
God will finally defeat Satan at Armageddon. But until or unless
that happens, Satan ruins everything possible for everyone possible
and that is the sober fact of the matter.
What we can say, however, is that there is far more good than evil
in the world, sometimes our lives are incredibly blessed, and to
the extent there is intention involved, it makes sense to attribute
such things to a higher power. God grants life, or the Holy Spirit
grants life, and with life comes many good things even when
you may wonder about the timing.
I do not know of a more elegant and viscerally true solution
to the problem of evil and suffering. Claiming that God is omnipotent
has the practical effect of attributing to him the works of the Devil.
Some theological positions need to be abandoned.
The Bible may be imperfect but that is like saying your wife
is imperfect. You don't demand perfection, do you? And it is lucky
that she doesn't demand it of you. But think of all the value in a good
and loving marriage. It would be insane to throw it all away because
there are bad days, arguments, irritations, or worse. The question
is one of value. And if your wife isn't perfect in some absolute sense
there surely are some things about her that are priceless and perfect
in their own ways. That, it seems to me, is all anyone could ask; it is
more than enough for real happiness in life.
At the end of the day I remain agnostic about a good number of things
in the Bible; and some passages do not pass basic tests. However,
so what? Martin Luther despised at least two books in the Bible,
James and Esther, yet he 'loved' the Bible as a whole and dedicated
his life to the truths in its pages. For myself, James and especially
Esther
are among my favorite books. The two books I detest are Ezra
and Nehemiah which, in my estimation, are classic examples
of unjustifiable bigotry. That leaves 64 books which are very
different and constitute a spiritual 'gold mine.' That's good enough
for me; indeed, it is a treasure of incalculable worth. There may well
be a lot of problems, some which are huge, but that is reality
and life is like that.
Evangelicals cannot take that kind of approach, or only rarely do so,
because doctrine forbids it. The result is a lot of unconscious lying,
not admitting serious problems even when they are monumental.
If this spills over in to secular thought you can guess
the possible consequences.
The result may also be wilful avoidance of controversial issues.
An article in the August 12, 2016 issue of the Christian Post points out
that only a little more than a third of Evangelical pastors ever talk
about sodomy during their sermons. This was over the course of
several months, the time period for a poll of 4,000 Christian
believers who attend church regularly. To judge from personal
experience at churches I have attended in the past, even these
references may be perfunctory, just enough to make a point
before going on to a topic that isn't nearly as embarrassing.
As the article concluded, "if clergy are reluctant to provide bold
leadership and instruction on these difficult issues, it is easy to see
why conservative Christians are reluctant either to act politically
or to engage their fellow citizens."
As for mainline denominations, basically this is a lost cause. Pastors
in those churches, if not all a large percentage, are accommodationist
toward homosexuals and have no use for the testimony of the Bible
on the issue. They prefer to hopelessly distort the meaning of the Holy
Book
through reference to such studies as John Boswell's discredited 1980
volume, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality,
which is a travesty of scholarship.
.
Another example makes the same point somewhat differently. This refers
to an article provided by the Associated Press for November 2, 2014,
under the title: "Evangelical college gay rights stand causes uproar."
The Rachel Stoll essay concerns events at supposedly one of the most
conservative Christian schools in America, Gordon College in
Massachusetts.
Maybe that was true in the past but it no longer is the case in the
here-and-now: Despite one meek and half hearted stand for principle
by the school's president, D. Michael Lindsay.
This concerns the Non-Discrimination Executive Order that Barack Obama
signed, a law that "forbids any federal contractor from discriminating on
the
basis of sexual orientation or gender identity." This presented a problem
for Lindsay because Gordon has always been opposed to hiring anyone
who engages in “homosexual behavior.” Lindsay then asked Obama for
an exemption on religious grounds.
This led to widespread attention in the news media. The Boston Globe and
the Washington Post ran stories. Then the mayor of Salem, Massachusetts,
in reference to Lindsay's open letter, "canceled a longstanding building
contract
with Gordon." As well, the "New England agency responsible for
accrediting
private colleges and universities decided to review Gordon College in its
upcoming meeting, even though the college had not been scheduled for review
until 2022." As if that wasn't bad enough, "nearly 4,000 students,
faculty,
alumni, and supporters signed a petition urging President Lindsay to
rescind
his letter to the White House, and numerous instructors voiced disapproval
through op-eds and blog posts." And while this was happening, OneGordon,
an on-campus homosexual organization, became active on the Web
by providing a forum for critics of the school and of Lindsay.
He also said, in a direct quote :"I'm OK in civil society for there to be
civil unions, insurance rights, domestic partnerships, all those kinds
of things."
Which, of course, is an absurdity; homosexuals have no place
in any institution that calls itself Christian. And Christians should, by
conscience,
be opposed to any kind of toleration of homosexuals or homosexuality.
And what does this kind of position do to the witness of the New Testament?
It eviscerates it, it denies the truth of the Gospels and of Paul's
epistles.
As the article continued: "Lindsay said he has received several offers
from legal groups who want to represent Gordon in lawsuits that would
allege the broken partnerships amounted to unconstitutional retaliation
for free speech. He insists he will not take that path. Instead, he has
been working to ease the controversy."
In other words, Lindsay prefers appeasement to principle and,
anyway, on the issue of homosexuality he is a creature of public opinion
who is hopelessly uninformed and cannot out-argue anyone on the merits.
Moreover, Lindsay has said that he is supportive of homosexuals among
students, on the faculty, and in his administration.
A professor at the school said the following with respect to the
controversy:
"[ Lindsay] made a mistake in signing it," adding that ''the middle ground
begins to wear when you're oppressing people."
That point of view, of course, is an absurdity.
Oppression? What oppression? When you insist that homosexuals are
psychopaths that need urgent psychological treatment how is this
"oppression"?
Of course, if you have never studied the issue scientifically, if you don't
know
the research, if you spend close to zero time doing any research, you can't
possibly have any confidence that you are really, really in the right. That
is
the problem, plain and simple. If you think that all you need are Bible
quotes
you would be out of your mind.
This is typical of how far, how fast, things have fallen among
Evangelicals.
For many of them their faith has become a shadow of what it once was.
There seems to be no way to even reach Evangelicals with reminders
of their Biblical heritage, let alone provide information supportive
of the Biblical view of sodomy, something it rejects as monstrous
and evil. Hence at places like Gordon there is no courage of
convictions on social issues because the Bible has effectively
been abandoned. Except for the part that says Jesus is savior,
and the part that says everyone should tolerate everyone else,
no matter what, which, of course, is the opposite of
the message of the Bible.
Many Christians, probably most Christians, are unable to make any kind
of case in opposition to sodomy except one based on the Bible as they know
it,
which, on the issue of homosexuality, may be very little. And so they fail
and fail some more, and fail again and again, all the while insisting
that they aren't making any kind of mistake in their approach.
They won't listen to anyone. When you are able to reach them, somehow,
the reply may be along the lines of "its not something I know anything
about and therefore I won't comment." Which, as far as it goes,
is entirely rational. But what if the reply was:
"I get the idea. This is serious -and dangerous to all Christians.
What can I do about it?"
Unfortunately, I never hear that kind of reply.
Not that there is a one-size-fits-all answer available. There isn't.
And the best answer has to be whatever answer the individual arrives at
knowing his or her strengths, knowing his or her own willingness
to invest time and effort in responding to this threat to all of us.
---------------------------------------------
Until early in 2017 it still was possible to refer to the Christian Post
as
a valuable resource. It covered news from a Christian perspective,
its stories all written by professional journalists, many of these stories
not available anywhere else.
Since early 2017 the paper has become a nightmare; it is loaded with
pop-ups,
it has an audio system for advertisements that invades your computer
and then blurts out ad slogans hours later, its stories can no longer be
copied
for reuse later, to send to others. Basically, the Christian Post has
become
a bad joke as a newspaper.
Still, once in a while I look up the site; maybe it has returned to sanity
is my hope. So far, it is immune from criticism and its editors seem
determined to kill the paper through irresponsible management.
I'm tempted to say: "Well, that's typical of Evangelicals,
they really don't know what they are doing."
But one time when I looked at the site recently, a headline caught
my attention. It said:
* _Evangelist: Church Failing Millennials by _
(http://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelist-church-failing-millennials-by-not-giving-them-a-caus
e-117073/) Not Giving Them a 'Cause'
As much as I could tell from that little I was able to read of the article,
just some text from paragraph #1, the point was being made that
millennials do not see where Evangelical Christianity offers them a cause
to believe in. To which one would suppose that Evangelicals would say
that their's is the cause of Christ. I get this impression from
Evangelical
churches I have attended in Oregon at various times.
Not that there is anything the least "bad" about Evangelical emphasis on
the
well being of families. On the contrary it is all for the good, but it
must
be said that there is precious little to believe in that can be called a
"cause"
outside of that. And the theology involved is utterly simplistic. Which,
(said sarcastically) is sure to inspire the thoughtful young with a lot to
seriously reflect upon. Like, "what am I dong here? This place is
meant to appeal to people who are dead from the neck up."
This is religion that exists in a bubble.
There is close to zero interest in changing the world
for the Good despite occasional words to different effect.
And there is a point to be made. How much, realistically,
can a church congregation actually do to reform an
entire community?
But there must be something, anything, even if there are limits to how far
a church can actually go. All too often there are, instead, excuses for
inaction
portrayed as loyalty to higher principle. When there are tentative steps
in the direction of real world action all punches may be pulled as if
to ensure that anything that might be done fails from excessive caution.
What is Christian conscience? Sometimes you could not ask for more.
Do you need help on a personal level. Do you need someone to talk to
so that you can unburden yourself from inner turmoil? What about
recovering a sense of decency, a sense of caring for others, a sense
that there is more to life than ego aggrandizement? Yet what also
cannot be denied is that Christian conscience can be
very selective
and predicated on conformism to public opinion. NOT on
changing public opinion.
It is in this context that the saying about how "all it takes for evil to
prevail
is for good men to do nothing" comes to mind.
The Christian Church is in the middle of a war. The Church did not ask
for this war, it was attacked by homosexuals, who are continuing to attack.
Part of this war is a war of ideas -but part consists of physical
violence
against Christians and against their physical churches.
As things stand, with no effective actions to defeat the homosexuals,
Christianity in America has become a suicide cult.
Paula Ettelbrick, formerly of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education
Fund, currently is the executive director of the International Gay and
Lesbian Human Rights Commission, is on record as saying:
"Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the
same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. … Being queer means
pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process,
transforming the very fabric of society. … We must keep our eyes on
the goal … of radically reordering society’s views of reality."
Homosexual spokesman Steve Warren has said that the Bible would
require a face-lift. "Finally, we will in all likelihood want to expunge
a number of passages from your Scriptures and rewrite others,"
such editing intended to remake the Bible into a pro-homosexual
document in which sodomy is celebrated.
I guess everyone is terrified. Surely about homosexual outrages and about
violence of homosexuals but possibly even more terrified at what others
might say if they actually took a stand against homosexual ideas and
homosexual criminality.
Meanwhile Christians are on the defensive wherever you look, in the
schools,
in government, in courts of law, in corporations, you-name-it. Christians
who do speak out may become the subject of smears -and they may be
ridiculed as "know nothings" or Tea Party looney birds.
The facts are irrefutable. The outrages against Christians committed
by homosexuals rises to the level of felony crime. There is no sign
this is going to stop.
What has been the response of Christians?
"It will all work out in 10 years" is one excuse for inaction, a
justification
for hand-wringing rather than productive counter measures.
That kind of rationalization should be seen for what it is: A confession
of incompetence to do anything practical that can make an actual
difference
in the real world. Its not merely bringing a knife to a gun fight, it is
running away from the fight. The word for this is "cowardice."
These are the realities Christians need to face for what they are, and then
think deeply about. Followed by the will to change everything that
denigrates
and vilifies and attacks the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in the process
attacking men
and women of good will in a score of other faiths that share many of
the core values of Christians -which also are core values of most Jews.
But no-one can turn back the clock; nor should this be anyone's intention.
Christian faith must be re-thought, examined in new ways, and become,
whatever else it must be, to be Christian, a new kind of education
based on a mission to educate the world to truths that are lost to
far too many people. What is needed is a revolution in values
that has the power to transform society.
What is needed is nothing less than a Reformation for the 21st century.
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