Posted on 08/04/2003 8:58:46 AM PDT by presidio9
At its general convention, which began last Thursday in Minneapolis, the Episcopal Church of America has been debating the Diocese of New Hampshire's election of the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop. Opponents of Robinson's election have threatened to leave the global Anglican Communion.
Conservatives are also threatening schism over a resolution endorsing "blessing ceremonies" for same-gender unions. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church last week began an all-out offensive against gay marriages.
The Christian right has so monopolized the terms in these debates that to suggest alternative definitions is - according to conservatives - to place oneself outside the Christian fold. Still, what does it mean to be a Christian? If a Buddhist is someone who follows the teachings of Buddha, then a Christian is someone who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. But in the conservatives' free and easy invocation of the label, what teachings are being invoked? When I turn to the Christian Bible to address the question, I find no evidence of the flaxen-haired favorite of the political right.
Instead I find a portrait - remarkably consistent across all accounts - of a renegade anti-establishment proto-feminist communitarian bachelor Jew. Jesus never comes closer to endorsing orthodoxy than the ambiguous "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," even as he frequently advocates inarguably radical behavior.
I began my return to Bible study with the notion that the liberal left had allowed the term "Christian" to be hijacked. I believed that the word ought properly to describe someone who was more like - well - me. Then I actually reread the Gospels, only to discover that they made me squirm.
The fact is that for the most part I am reluctant to follow Jesus' example. In the comfort of my office, I was willing to contemplate turning the other cheek, but later that same day I tailed a rude driver for blocks, hoping to cut him off exactly as he'd cut me off. I gave up the chase less because I was willing to turn the other cheek than because my ice cream was melting in the back seat. Far from "leaving the dead to bury the dead," I'm writing now from my childhood home, where I've come to help my aged mother in her increasing infirmity.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
"'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly." -Leviticus 25:44-46
"Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to. " -Corinthinans 7:20-24
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. " Ephisians 6:5-9
A typical ploy by religious quacks to instill a perpetual sense of guilt and shame.
Such a statement is proof-positive that Fenton Johnson only reads his Bible with a whisk broom if, in fact, he reads it at all.
I guess the prospect of the apocalyptic catastrophy that happened to Sodom and Gomorrah doesn't scare him in the least.
That has got to be the screweist description of Jesus I have ever read.
And BTW, the 'right' didn't highjack Christianity, everything is spelled out in the Bible.
However, after reading then entire article, I think your judgement was correct; it's not worth posting the entire thing. One knows what shallow argument the author is going to write before he even writes it. Why waste the bandwidth?
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A passage from the link you kindly provided to Phenton's article. If I read the article correctly, he's conceding the point of the people on the Right whose attitude towards homosexuality he condemns: the Bible itself---Old and New Testaments---prohibit homosexual conduct. In effect, he's not really arguing that the "Right" has "hijacked" Christianity---he's just urging the Left to go try to "hijack" it.
Holy moly! This guy is really asking for it, isn't he?
Of course it is in the "good book." That's the point -- religions are invented to control other people. No better way to control them than to tap into a natural impulse and label it shameful. People can be controlled by shame.
There is a biologically driven impulse to mate. Anybody who buys into feeling shame for those feelings is actually acting against his or her own nature.
There may be good rational reasons not to act on such impulses, but NO ONE should feel shame or guilt over merely feeling them. I don't care what some book of mind control mythology says on the subject.
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