Posted on 05/10/2006 6:28:01 AM PDT by bondjamesbond
A believer spells out the difference between faith and a political agenda
Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.
The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them--and respecting their neighbors' choices. That doesn't threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.
And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.
I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will." So Christ is a conservative Republican?
Rush Limbaugh recently called the Democrats the "party of death" because of many Democrats' view that some moral decisions, like the choice to have a first-trimester abortion, should be left to the individual, not the cops. Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents "godless," the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The "Christian" vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.
What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?
So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.
That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.
Read how comprehensively St. Paul develops the truth that the Church is the Body of Christ:
1 Corinth. 12"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit....
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 1For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body...
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
This shows that the Church is an organized body. We don't all have identical roles.
Rev. 2:7, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The Spirit teaches the chuches.
Acts 20:28, "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."
The Spirit has appointed overseers, shepherds for the flock.
1 Tim 3:15T The Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth
The truth is entrusted to the church, not to each sheep going its own way.
Eph. 4:4-6, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all."
The Church is not a disorganized swarm of single-celled organisms, like a billion plankton drifting about in the sea. The Church is one body: the Body of Christ, organized into structures, each structure (hand, foot, eye) having a different function inthe one one body. A Christian must "think with the Church," the "one body" spoken of with such dramatic effectiveness by St. Paul.
There's no support here for the view of "every man for himself."
I don't disdagree, but this is only a partial truth; and as long as it remains partial, it's distorted. Jesus Christ founded a Church to carry on his mission to teach, to govern, to sanctify, a visible Church of which He is the invisible head. This church is intended by Him to function as His body here until He comes again.
So start your own church, dumbass.
A church is a body of Christian believers in an area and the members of all churches are the body of Christ. Like my tag line, the churches, including the Catholic church, make the church. Each individual is the repository of the Holy Spirit because each one is human.
That the leadership of a church governs is a consent of the governed, not a requirement of God, because He gave each individual the tools to be self governing.
God made each of us so that we don't need our relationship with God defined for us and our spiritual path in life. Where the rubber meets the road, our salvation is our responsibility. Every man for himself in the sense that nobody can do it for him.
And you can prove that...how?
Nice job. Sullivan makes a play for the muddle-headed, and needs to be refuted.
Oh, more like an inference than proof. I don't know what would be called proof.
You use "church" to refer to a congregation and the building where they meet. But the definitions for "church" add up to a like minded group of religious people. The word "church" is just a sound that was assigned to that concept because people needed to refer to the reality. Grouping together, as in a church, is a natural human behavior. It just happens without anybody thinking about it.
People that are like minded on a certain point or points seek each other out and hang with one another. So Jesus would haven't "found" a church, as with the deliberate and willful act of "creating a church"; it would come about as a natural process of being human beings.
And I just assume that Jesus was understanding enough to know that process.
Uh... actually, no I didn't. I referred to the Church as the Body of Christ: we who are His "members" in this world.
"So Jesus would haven't "found" a church, as with the deliberate and willful act of "creating a church"
Uh... actually, yes He did. "On this Rock I will build My Church." (Matt 16:18).
"And I just assume that Jesus was understanding enough to know that process."
I assume that Jesus, understanding as He is, probably agrees with me...
:o)
A good evening to you, Mr. Terrell, and a good morrow as well.
Maybe Jesus was referring to a process He knew would happen when people started to hear and agree on His teachings, becoming like-minded. Being as how the like-mindedness grew from the gospel He was teaching, He would recognize what would happen.
Perhaps Peter, being single eyed and loyal to the teachings, was the type of person that would form the core of those who would hear the gospel and come together. Perhaps Peter would evangelize creating a large number of like minded people.
The point is like-minded people come together of their likemindedness. Jesus would know full well how human beings work. We know human beings work like that because they do now, and have in recorded history.
Individuals come together and form a church "for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21) and God is the guidance and fountain of knowledge and understanding for each person. Part of that guidance and understanding is seeking others who are brothers.
OK. Yes. But would you deny that "part of that guidance and understanding" is seeking, not just brothers, but "the leaders and teachers appointed by God"?
1 Corinthians 12:28-29
And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 29Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?
I'd like to see credentials for the "the leaders and teachers appointed by God". I haven't been impressed so far. Note: that a man or woman, or the organization to which they belong, says they are appointed by God does not impress me.
According to the New Testament, were the Apostles appointed by Christ? According to the New Testament, do the Apostles have successors?
BTW, you haven't refuted or even discussed the logic in my prior posts; you leave out all those parts. When will you address it?
Would you like me to repost it all?
On the other questions: Why not repost one or two points at a time?
I require credentials, beyond self testamony, otherwise the natural connection with God within each individual charts that individual's course.
I only had one point about a "church" and individual determination. Go back and read. They weren't long posts.
You accept no authority? You think the church was a Christ-founded, Apostle-structured community until the death of the first-generation successors of the Apostles, and then became a "community" of atomized individuals? Each one of whom was equally well-equipped to determine doctrine, even if they disagreed with thousands of other equally-well-equipped individuals?
That's not how it actually happened, historically. If I believed that way, I'd call it "Missusdonnoism." And I'll admit, it has its advantages. You never need to accept any truths bigger than your own hat-size.
I accept the authority of God and HIs Son Christ Jesus. I follow His law and His teaching. That is sufficient.
What is all this about "doctrine"? The way to live is well documented in the Bible we have. The Urim and Thummim are alive and well in each heart.
I accept the truths that are made known to me so long as they square with the foundational principles in the Bible, and the teaching of Jesus found therein. What else do I need?
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