Posted on 11/08/2004 6:27:21 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
I know bunches of people who take their faith very seriously and shudder at the works of George Bush: the WARMONGERING, the DISREPECT FOR THE POOR and the WEAK, the ARROGANCE.
Here’s the problem: RELIGIOUS LIBERALS don’t wear their faith on their sleeves. We don’t evangelize; we consider it disrespectful to shove our spiritual views down other people’s throats.
Faced with a movement that has no such scruples, unfortunately, we’re flummoxed.
We’re always on the back foot, being forced to resort at the last minute in an election cycle to taking out ads in newspapers under the umbrella of People of Faith Against the outrage du jour: wars, the death penalty, assaults on women’s rights, whatever.
Candidates like John Kerry who share our values feel they have to make uncharacteristic public noises about their religious views. It all seems kind of tacky. We’d prefer to wear our faith like a nice little black dress, not like a G-string.
If you think that analogy is over the top, consider a conversation my kid had at school last week. They were discussing the election, and the other child said, “KERRY’S for QUEERS.” She also informed my daughter that “GOD KILLS QUEERS.”
You see the problem? The other side’s ammunition is so inane, we haven’t taken it seriously. But they’re WINNING. These little slogans, appealing to gut instinct, beyond rational discourse, have power. That’s partly what being a liberal is about: live and let live.
But times have changed, and we need to change with them. The RELIGIOUS BIGOTS, who think it’s CHRISTIAN to hate gay people and who are ready to forgive any degree of callousness toward their fellow humans — as long as it’s cloaked in pious clichés — are winning the ideological battle in this country.
The rest of the world is horrified and perplexed. Friends from other countries ask me, “How could you let this happen?” I have to admit that I don’t have a good answer. Or maybe the answer is just too uncomfortable.
We’ve screwed up. We haven’t found a way to counter the religious right, because we’re all too damned tasteful and tolerant to be pushy about our beliefs.
That has to end, friends. We have our work cut out for us. If we’re going to rescue this country from the GAY-BASHERS, the CREATIONIST SCIENCE-HATERS (Good Lord, what more gorgeous divine plan could you find than evolution?), we’re going to have to stop being so nice and restrained.
We’re going to have to start doing some pulpit-thumping ourselves. We’re going to have to put OUR VALUES(you remember the ones: CHARITY, LOVE, that sort of thing) back into the public eye and we’re going to have to be loud about it.
We’re going to have to stop being so WASPY and RESTRAINED. We’re going to have to take on these neo-Pharisees, Bible verse for Bible verse.
We haven’t really lost this fight. The problem is that we haven’t been fighting at all.
Susanna Rodell is editorial page editor of The Charleston Gazette. E-mail: srodell-wvgazette.com
Jews for Jesus are a scam, mostly baprists who want to trick Jews...
It is quite simple: if you believe in Jesus, you are not, I repeat you are not a Jew... This was actually confirmed by the Israeli Supreme Court in a famous case...
Very simple..
Oh yes: I read the perphets in the original... No sign of Jesus there...
"baprists who want to trick Jews..." LOL, thank you.
so I take it you have never read the New Testament or New Covenant as it is sometimes called?
Thank you! I assume you are also a Wesleyan. Where are you located? We never heard of the Wesleyan denomination until a couple of years ago. We're very happy we became members.
Ummm... if you say so. Tasteful and tolerant is not something I normally associate with the Michael Moore left, but hey, whatever delusion gets you through the day pal.
The Presbyterian Cchurch(USA) medical benefits plan is mandatory for all installed pastors. Abortion for any reason, at any time during pregnancy, is a covered service of the denomination's plan.
The coverage includes partial birth abortion; it includes abortion by means of chemicals, such as RU-486; it includes abortions for minor dependent daughters with no requirement for parental notification; it includes no requirement for medical necessity.
General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick, when he was President of the Board of Pensions--the PC(USA) entity that designs and administers the plan--said, "The simple fact is that the medical plan pays for elective abortions as ordinary medical payment."
The fact of abortion coverage affects not only the pastors, their families, and other denominational staff who use it, but also those who pay the dues for the plan. The tithes and offerings of contributing church members are used to pay the dues.
http://www.ppl.org/MedBenPlan_2002.html
[This is why I had to leave the Presbyterian Church after being a lifelong member.]
You can withhold any of your offering to anything they do that you don't agree with, simply inform the church.
None of my offering goes to the national, for instance.
Religious Liberals think the Bible is just an old collection of suggestive guidelines and shouldn't interfere with liberals establishing their own morals and values, sorta like Kerry and abortion!
My mother and her widowed friends still go to this Presbyterian Church USA that I left. My mother knows that the pastor has abortion coverage because I told her. The other ladies don't even know about it. I informed people about it at a Stewardship meeting, but one man said, "What do you want us to do about it?"
The Pastor NEVER stood up in the pulpit and told everyone he has abortion coverage. When I asked him to exempt our church from this coverage, he was uncooperative.
IMO staying at this church was like being a member of the Democrat party. I searched my heart and couldn't be a member of a church that took members' offerings and paid for abortions with it.
All I'm saying is that leaving isn't the only solution, it is one solution.
I'm not blaming you for doing it, just wishing you had stayed and fought with those of us who still think there is a chance to save it. If God wants it to happen, it will.
For once in my life I'm speechless.
I wanted to say "May God have mercy on them" - and He would if they would ask for it - but it doesn't sound like they will.
You did the right thing by leaving.
Thank you! We had peace of mind after we left the Presbyterian Church USA for a pro-life church.
Which Bible do these "deeply religious" liberals adhere to, I wonder? It's disrespectful to evangelize, as the Bible clearly commands us to do? Sharing what God's Word says is "shoving it down someone's throat?"
The apostasy materializes a bit more fully with each passing day.
MM
The bible of political correctness.
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