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.
simple...
Deuteronomy 29:29
"The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law."
Go back to what the founders had in mind. It was FULL of Christianism. There is a Holy Bible buried under the Washington Monument. Scripture is scrolled all over the walls. They WANTED the Bible taught in our schools. Yes even Thomas Jefferson!!!
Someone should do a movie on the ACTUAL history of our Christian heritage. It's WHY we have been a blessed country.
People have been brainwashed!!!
And Andrew, you don't like it??? Tough!! When I think of homosexuality it just reminds me of anal sex. Sick!! It is not normal no matter how much you tell us it is. Maybe you better identify with your own sex, that is fine. But anal sex is a CHOICE. Sick!! To many of us, it is the same as beastiality. Do what you want in your closet, Andrew, but I do not want to hear about it and guess what... If you shut up about your business, even we Christians will leave you alone.
Sorry for the crudeness of this post!
Here's a clue Andrew, and since apparently you know the Bible so well, liberalism and all of its beliefs, you know, Godly things such as:
Ripping living babies from the womb after "Osterizing" them [read hacking them into tiny bits];
Favoring the killing of innocent adults for whatever reasons are politically expedient;
Stripping references to God and Judeo-Christian morals out of every semblance of American life;
Favoring leniency towards people that destroy life, you know, Hussein, violent felons and child molestors, et al.;
Desiring to give equal credence to gods and religions when Jesus Christ himself stated that he and he alone was the only way to the Father! Or haven't you read that one quite yet. I realize that it's in the lesser read four gospels.
Paul, you know, the author of the vast majority of the NT after the gospels, also says that if anyone will not work, then neither should he eat. (2 Thess. 3) Yet, liberalism takes the opposite view. Food for all regardless of how lazy or unwilling to work they may be.
How many of those things do you think that Jesus Christ and the Living God, you know, the pivotal figures of Christianity, agree with there Andrew?!
There's more, but that should be more than enough to tie up your mind in coming up with more ridiculous excuses as answers to them.
And since Conservatisim is the antithesis of liberalism, and frankly, built on Judeo-Christian values, that yes, Christ would be much more inline with Conservative ideology!
Hi Ikemeister,
While it's true that Jesus, in His day and time, would've been considered a "liberal" (or more rightly, a "radical"), those terms have turned 180 degrees today. Jesus came to save mankind and thus abolish the LAW. That was considered blasphemous then.
Today, however, society has become extremely liberal, far beyond the changes Jesus was proposing. I firmly believe that Jesus today would be considered a conservative, or, to snatch a popular title, a "compassionate conservative". He'd tell people, lovingly, to go and sin no more. Yes, that would include abortion, homosexuality etc.
Just my .02,
Brian
Only toward unrepentant sinners, particularly the self-righteous.
To repentant sinners, he was and is compassion itself.
1. Joking
2. A moron
He's not joking, but just like all good libs, talk/words mean more than actions, results, and actual performance.
Andrew spoke a good game, but as usual with libs, the talk ALWAYS precedes the results which, interestingly, just never seem to follow.
Ask Hillary and her plan to "revive Upstate NY!" LMAO
"The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist."
(Here we go again with insane absurdity; *sigh*)
I make no distinction between "Moslem" and "Islamist". The religion just plain is hostile and hateful, whether you're passive or not.
So, trying to tie in any Christians at all in with Moslem so-called "extremists" - or Islam at all - is absurd and ridiculous to me.
A.S.hole doesn't seem to understand that Jesus was emphatically NOT a liberal. He had no tolerance for fuzzy thinking and didn't think that we were supposed to follow the Ten Commandments only if we felt like it. He didn't ever refer to them as the Ten Suggestions. Not once.
A.S's got the usual problem liberals have with Christians who actually try to live their religion. He doesn't like the idea of compassion and love that still demands a person act with the moral authority to resist evil. He wants to define a "good Christian" as someone who goes along with the degradation of the moral level of society as promoted by the liberowackjobs that currently run the demonRATS.
You might want to check Matthew 5:48.
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
You said: I don't see how someone can be a Christian and a liberal at the same time.
***
Neither do I, but that is because I view Christianity through the window of MY faith. We all do that. That is the central tension of religion and society. I acknowledge that what I believe I believe by faith. I cannot prove the existence or nature of God by any secular means. (I believe God intended it that way, again as part of my faith.)
The problems seem to come in when any of us, now firmly believing by faith, disagree with the tenets of anyone else's faith. I believe, for example, that abortion and homosexual behavior are wrong. Others, also claiming to be Christians, disagree, using various arguments to support their positions. I have options in how to deal with them: I can ignore them and continue my own beliefs;
I can attempt to convince of what I believe is the error of their beliefs;
I can allow them to convince ME of the error of my beliefs; I can force them to conform by my personal strength or that of the government, if I can convince it to do so;
I can join together with others who believe as I do to worship. (I am sure there are many other options)
Sullivan and his liberal friends seem to think, somehow, that my exercise of my personal faith is an affront to what they may or may not believe. I have never understood that. As long as I don't interfere with YOUR faith, why should you be concerned about mine (except as a spiritual matter)? If you don't believe in God, or don't believe in hell, why should my belief, for example, that if you don't believe as I do you will spend eternity there bother you in the least? Convince me otherwise, allow me to convince you otherwise, or just ignore me. (I suspect that people don't like hearing about the strongly-held faith of others because their own beliefs are NOT that strongly-held, but I don't know.)
Lastly, some of my beliefs, informed by my faith, have an impact on my secular life. In some of these matters there is widespread agreement, even across faiths, which often results in laws dealing with the subject (most everyone believes theft is wrong, even atheists, so we see laws against it.) In other areas there is disagreement, and no law deals with the situation. In yet others, abortion comes to mind, there is a sharp division on the matter, but it cannot be left purely as a matter of personal belief, because there are innocent victims whose voices cannot be heard except through others.
Sullivan disagrees with most Christian beliefs, at least on social matters, and thus wants to shut Christianity up. His faith must triumph. I suspect most of the rest of us disagree.
As well there Andrew, I have a problem with people that "co-opt," to borrow your word in your absurd piece, Christianity and turn it into whatever it is that they want.
Again, since you're so well-versed in the Scriptures, that would be the Bible, naturally you're aware of what Paul, again, you know, the author of most of the NT that you claim to believe in, says about those that tailor the Scriptures to their own needs, eh.
2 Tim 4:3
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
I'll just go ahead and toss you into that category there Andrew! Pardon my judging you, but hey, let's just call it what it is, OK.
"Ah yes, the usual desire to label someone."
Rather than forcing us to take on a new moniker, perhaps his kind should go by the new label, "Religious Retard". It's not that his religious faith is completely worthless, it is just that his religion is not growing at a healthy rate.
"I disagree completely; Jesus command was for his followers to do it voluntarily"
Absolutely. And to do it OF THEIR OWN ACCORD. Just because you let a mugger steal your money and he sprinkles it on the homeless, DOESN'T MEAN *YOU* ARE GETTING ANY POINTS IN HEAVEN!
One of the things I love about Jesus is His clearity. Yes He forgave but He was very clear about the need to stop the sinful behavior too.
What is so hard to interpret? He wasn't nonsensical about the truth. He didn't compromise. He didn't make excuses. He basically said stop it, I love you, you are hurting yourself.
Sounds just like another liberal making comparisons, labeling people, and making judgements. The writer should just live his faith and not worry about what others are doing or thinking. Basically it reads like jibberish; what is he really blabbing about on and on and on? What is his problem?
Ping to read later.
For one thing, Christianity is not just a hobby. If it was, it would have never been persecuted in ancient Rome. It would just be another check point in the pantheon of the time.
This old saw about everyone tolerating everyone else is a fantasy.
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