Comments on: A new test of orthodoxy

By: Richard Willmer

Richard Willmer — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:54 +0000

@ Zoe Brain : I agree it that what’s going with regard to religious extremism in the USA is very worrying.

By: David

David — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:54 +0000

@Mark Yarhouse:
I just wanted to congratulate you on the 1-hour videotaped seminar you gave at Liberty University, in which you affirmed your pre-existing belief that “change” is possible via the Christan “seal ethic.” It is the mark of a great Christian academic that he begins with a conclusion and then seeks evidence to bolster it. BTW, I look forward with interest to hearing about any ex-gay study that: 1) assesses “change” after the therapy or religious counseling ends, not while it is still ongoing and/or 2) measures or at least corroborates reported arousal patterns through objective measurement rather than relyiing on self-reporting alone. Please do let us know when you get around to doing that.
@Richard Willmer and Throbert:
You can’t call CBN, AFA, FOTF, FRC, etc. “extremist” because by every objective measurement, they are mainstream American Christianity. Throckmorton is the extremist. CBN’s last reported revenue was over $600 million, including over $200 million in contributions from supporters. This is the annual revenue that came in *after* Pat Robertson declared on the air that God sent the earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in Haiti because Haitians had entered into a pact with Satan to free themselves from slavery. AFA brings in $20 million per year, in spite of the regular assertions by its senior policy analyst that Muslims have no First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and that Native Americans are savages who were brutalized because they failed to accept Jesus.
FOTF regularly brought in well over $100 million per annum for many years following James Dobson’s demand that 6 out of the 9 Justices of the US Supreme Court be impeached because they struck down an anti-gay measure that was passed in Colorado.
How many supporters does Throckmorton have? How many supporters and how much money do evangelists like Tony Campolo have? The answer is: a tiny fraction of what Robertson, Fischer, and Dobson have. So it makes little sense to call the latter group extremists.
As for Throbert’s point, Christianity is what Christians make of it. You can insist all you like that “real” Christianity should be determined by adherence to this or that creed, but the reality is that “Christianity” will mean what the consensus of Christians says it means. Today, the evidence is overwhelming that by consensus, Christianity means a cruel reactionary political ideology with a neurotic obsession with all matters sexual. Just for lulz, set aside a few hours and do some date-restricted google searches for “Christian and mortgage fraud” or “Christian and oil spill”. Now do date-restricted searches for “Christian and homosexuality” or “Christian and sexuality” or “Christian and lust” and compare the results, both in quantity and content.

By: Zoe Brain

Zoe Brain — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:54 +0000

Query: is this Christian behaviour?
http://lezgetreal.com/2011/11/lesbian-marine-with-severe-ptsd-harassed-by-evangelical-nurse-at-va/
Note that it could be worse – we’ve had Indian physicians advise such patients who are transsexual to open their veins to get another spin of the karmic wheel.
Then again, we’ve also had pastors and priests say that while suicide is a sin, under the circumstances, He would understand. This can be utterly devastating for true believers.
The thing is – they may truly have been giving that advice out of compassion in both cases, rather than revulsion. I’d like to believe that anyway.
“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Meanwhile, untrained amateurs like myself must do our fumbling and incompetent best to pick up the pieces and undo the damage these people – people who are supposed to be professionals – have done, as best we can. Sometimes I feel so ignorant, I really need some professional training here, anyone with a high public profile has to do so very much, there are so many anguished e-mails and phonecalls. All asking for advice I’m completely unqualified to give, and tell them so, but have to give it anyway. First, prevent harm ( a rather stronger statement than Primum Non Nocere).
Unlimited compassion and concrete aid helps. Deeds not just words. Be unreasonably forgiving if they lash out at you in their torment. Don’t concern yourself with trifling slights. 1 Corinthians 13 cover it.
I don’t think Evangelical Christianity as it’s practiced in Liberty and Regent universities is very big on that.

By: Richard Willmer

Richard Willmer — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:54 +0000

Throbert
I hope that, in relation to the first two questions, I could have given rather better answers than did the ‘Christian’ in your imagine dialogue!
(I’m not going to answer them here, as it would take me at least an hour’s worth of typing to even begin to do them justice!)
Perhaps because I am someone who is unashamedly ‘liberal’ on the issue of same-sex relationships, I really do take the view the Bible has nothing to say about loving same-sex relationships, unless one assumes that there was a sexual element to one or more of the David-Jonathan, Ruth-Noami or Daniel-Ashpenaz friendships.
Of course there is much biblical material that clearly points to Marriage as an ideal. But ‘ideality’ (which none of us fits) should not be confused with ‘morality’, and certainly not with ‘legality’!

By: Richard Willmer

Richard Willmer — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:54 +0000

The danger of doing any kind of study from some kind of ‘religious’ starting point is that one end up ‘assuming the answer’ rather than properly evaluating the evidence.
As I have said, perhaps the key point on this thread is ‘what constitutes a Christian approach?’ Well, anyone who takes God seriously understands that they can ‘never know it all’ (because ‘the truth’ is always bigger than they/we are) – and so they search and question and draw ‘conclusions’ that they know perfectly well are relative and proximate … and then they search and question and … (etc etc etc). Saint Paul, despite his propensity for seemingly ‘dogmatic’ statements, so often says “something, something, something, and yet ,,,”

By: Throbert McGee

Throbert McGee — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:54 +0000

a lot of boys feel “attracted” to older, more masculine boys or men. And as far as I see, it’s extremely difficult to make out how that “attraction” differs in heterosexual boys and in homosexual boys.

For me, as a boy who grew up to be homosexual, the key difference may have been in how I felt about women and femininity. I can remember that in middle school and early high school, I enjoyed drawing both naked men and naked women — but the enjoyment from drawing boobs and vaginas was rather abstract, and similar to the gratification I got from drawing a dog or a geranium or a Coke bottle and having it turn out more or less true-to-life (it was the satisfaction that I had produced something aesthetically pleasing). But drawing a naked muscular man and what I thought his penis might look like produced a much more gut-level (but paranoid) satisfaction.

By: Throbert McGee

Throbert McGee — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:51 +0000

ME: Why would God permit the Nazi Holocaust to happen? CHRISTIAN: Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways. ME: And why does God ordain that innocent young children shall be afflicted with painful terminal cancers, while the world is full of total ***-holes who live to be 95? CHRISTIAN: The ways of the Lord are indeed mysterious... ME: Hmmm, is it possible that God isn't particularly upset by homosexuality, and in fact He planned all along for 1-2% of the population to be homosexual, but for reasons known only to Himself, He decided not to spell all this out in the Bible? CHRISTIAN: Whoa, whoa -- let's not be ridiculous, now! The ways of God may be mysterious, but He ain't THAT freakin' mysterious!! (Seriously, it's a very strange sort of theodicy that is able to rationalize famines and plagues as "part of God's larger plan", but balks at the idea that God might have chosen to leave some significant nuances out of Scripture, because that would be dishonest of Him.) P.S. I don't mean to pick on Christians specifically . I mean, there are also Jews and Muslims who are endlessly inventive at speculating why a Just And Merciful God allows this or that catastrophe to happen -- but the possibility that God might actually WANT some people to be homosexual, because He perceives some very subtle constructive purpose for gay sex, totally eludes their powers of imagination...

By: ken

ken — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:51 +0000

Dennis# ~ Nov 4, 2011 at 1:08 pm "Do you really mean that the underlying feelings aren't important, as long as a person behaves a certain way?" According to most christian churches with respect to homosexuality, yes. All Mark was doing was pointing out that most of the christian churches, which condemn homosexuality, condemn the behaviour, not the state of being gay (orientation). I.e. a man being attracted to another man isn't a "sin", however if he acts on that attraction and has sex with another man, that would be a sin. Mark was just showing how LaBarbera demand is inconsistent with this belief.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:51 +0000

I, too, am amazed that some here apparently do not understand the unique difference between actions and feelings and how this whole issue gets polarized about this point.
Just speaking basic Christianity here … Being a Christian / being Christlike often involves going in a direction that does not parallel or is even opposite to one’s personal feelings. If Christians waited for their feelings to come around before they acted .. it is doubtful that a change in action would occur at all. Following Christ often involves sacrifice and doing things that we might not feel like doing or feel comfortable doing. For example .. there are days when we may not feel like acting in a loving way to our children / spouse / coworker/ family member/ enemy / friend / and so forth yet we (hopefully) do it anyway out of obedience and love for Christ. Similarly .. (assuming you believe in waiting until marriage to have sexual relations) if you had to, as a single person feel like not having pre-marital sex in order to meet this requirement there woud be a scant few who could pass the test. Or to put it simply, some new rule that said we had to feel a certain way .. not just act a certain way would put most of us to shame (which is pretty much what happens to people when orientation change is demanded or expected as the litmus test for whether they are a genuine Christian. )
Dave

By: Throbert McGee

Throbert McGee — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:49:51 +0000

One surprise for me — for some reason I had always pictured Dr. Throckmorton physically as a sort of cross between C. Everett Koop and Robert Bork, with a silver beard or goatee!