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.
True. The Jews would probably consider Christianity a cult, but we weren't talking about Jews, so you once again display your ignorance of logic. In brief, when you discuss apples, you discuss apples, not oranges. Freshman rhetoric students understand this. You, obviously, do not.
> but we weren't talking about Jews
We were talking about what defines a "cult." Since you admit that Christianity is a cult, you basically have redfined the practical definition of the word into meaninglessness.
You're ignoring what Christ taught us through St. Paul about the necessity and nature of His Church, into which we must be incorporated as members of His body. There's no way I can force you to look at this. Good day. God bless you.
Hi, Troll.
You made the declarative statement "So are gods." So it is up to you to PROVE that statement for ALL cases.
I won't hold my breath.
Cheers!
Hi, Troll.
So by your logic, freedom *FROM* speech is part and parcel of freedom of speech.
So if someone happened to hit the abuse button to get you banned, that would be supporting your freedom of speech, then?
Cheers!
I agree wholeheartedly. This is why I prefer revealed religions to those where people figure their god out on their own. This is also why I tend to ignore those who look at religion and say, "I don't believe a god would act like that." Particularly, modern scholars like those in The Jesus Seminar worry me. They want to speak for G-d rather than listening to Him.
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?
The morality of conception? What the @*#! does that mean?
But I digress. I remember back when Doonsbury was funny, Duke was talking to Honey about how difficult it must be to know when Mao was saying something to be quoted and when he was just running at the mouth. Honey said, "He makes it easy. He says, 'Quote that sucker!'"
If G-d had not told us, we would not know.
But G-d has told us, and so we are without excuse.
Shalom.
If my neighbor is hopping and skipping his/her way toward Hell
heterosexism, I am compelled by my faith to try and make them see the error of their ways in a compassionate way WITHOUT beating them over the head with my faith
homosexuality.
If the homosexuals would say this, I would be a lot more comfortable with their demands that I be more circumspect about the demands of my faith.
BTW: I am not accusing you of being a homosexual advocate.
Shalom.
He also spoke of sin and judgement.
Jesus knew the human heart better than anyone. He had no illusions as to what was necessary to govern men.
Shalom.
I had one tell me that he couldn't be pro-life because he knew his daughter was beautiful and sexy (and he was right). If she ever came home pregnant he would have an easier time getting an abortion for her than letting her attend the youth group pregnant.
I guess it never occurred to him to father her.
Shalom.
Wrong. We can know God through his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "No man can come to the Father but by me." And, "He that has seen me has seen the Father." We can have a personal relationship with Jesus and Jesus is God, of the same substance and equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The attitude of God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son are exactly the same on every issue.
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?
First of all, God is not ultimately unknowable, he tells us a lot about himself in his written word and we can learn more about him through our fellowship with Jesus Christ. To know Jesus is to know God.
But anyway, there are easy answers for three of those four issues. Simply read what God said in Holy Scripture about taking innocent human life, the role of women in the family and the church, and about homosexual perversion. God makes no secret of his position regarding those three matters.
I don't know of a scripture passage that refers to contraception, but I remember a brief passage in Genesis saying that God was so displeased with a man named Onan who "spilled his seed on the ground" instead of impregnating his dead brother's widow according to the custom of that period that he caused him to die before his time. Does that indicate that God regards "seed" as human life, or that he punished the man because he refused to perform his duty to his dead brother? I honestly don't know, but the context seems to favor the latter interpretation. IMHO there is probably ample room for honest disagreement among Christians on that issue. Of course the official RC position is quite clear, but I understand that there is considerable private disagreement with that position among the RC laity.
Yes, there are many and they are called heretics.
Yep, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with politics.
Doesn't matter if we lived in a monarchy, democracy or communist collective. Heresy is what it is. It is not defined in relation to the form of government.
"Joiners" really tick me off.
Go find a religion that fits you, people! You look ridiculous "wearing" Christianity. Or at least have the courage of the agnostics, and be honest to yourself and others.
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