I understand why these leaders are so adamantly opposed to associating with such sinners. The danger is real. I’ve witnessed what can happen to people’s ideologies when they’re forced to deal with the actual humanity of such sinners. It’s easy to condemn gay or trans faceless “others.” It’s much different when dealing with one’s own kid or nephew/niece or grandkid. When your best friend’s child is in a happy enduring gay relationship and your own heterosexual child stumbles from one terrible relationship to the next despite having the correct beliefs about Jesus, it’s hard to avoid an existential crisis and a realignment of one’s theology.
These leaders have no doubt seen what I’ve seen, rigid homophobic worldviews shatter in the presence of joy, and it makes them tremble.
As near as I can tell, about the last thing today's evangelicals care about is actual morality. They prefer to use their religion as a cudgel to punish everyone they disagree with. They value goose-stepping conformity above all else, and their reaction to this radio preacher's advice to this grandmother is an example of it.
Really? One would think that the critical issue is that this bigotry on display is contributing to the permanent mass exodus of young people from the church.
“And people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.”
Okay. There’s so much in this little sentence that is just so … ugh.
Yes, people need to just deal with their own salvation. Stop getting involved in other people’s salvation. You cannot save them, they have to do it for themselves. Even though he’s not saying this really, he says you have to witness to them so they can save themselves. But I am saying that has nothing to do with your own salvation and others don’t appreciate you getting involved in theirs.
What is so appealing to be saved by someone that requires you to be so fearful you tremble just thinking about it? It does not come off as “be fearful to not be saved” it comes off as “be afraid of your savior.” All the time, every reference to fear god, is about his being is what should scare you. What do you call a father that instills fear of his children with his presence? Abusive. Living with people like that is not appealing, no one wants to do it if they can help it. Why is god and religion an exception? I honestly want nothing to do with that. It makes hell far more desirable.
Also, salvation is a crock of shit. If God wanted to forgive my sins, being God and all, he could just forgive me. Essentially, sin is disobedience to god anyway, and biblically he’s shown no reason to obey him and no morality involved in his orders and I wouldn’t want to not sin. All that to say, though, it’s made up nonsense that doesn’t exist, no god, no sin, no repentance, no heaven no hell. So, take your witness and shove it up your ass.
“Judge not, that ye not be judged” - Jesus the messiah.
“ By implication, it means to condemn, punish—avenge, conclude. It also carries the idea of having discernment. The passage where Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” ( Matthew 7:1 ) goes on to show us how to have discernment. Love is the proper motivation for not judging and for using good judgment.”
“ Mercy appears in the Bible as it relates to forgiveness or withholding punishment. For example, God the Father showed mercy on us when he sacrificed his son, Christ Jesus, on the Cross to pay the price for our sins.”
I can see why the Christian Reich reacted the way they did to Begg's suggestion that one of his callers attend a transgender wedding. Repeated exposure to alternative sexuality might just cause the observer to understand what's going on with trans people and [HORRORS!] begin to empathize with them! EEEEK! Can't have that!
Meanwhile, Begg is clearly thinking that his caller going to the wedding might influence one or both of the participants of the supposed "error of their ways," and possibly wind up being the fly in the ointment of what should otherwise be a happy event. I suspect that's a non-starter. Any couple who considers being relatively public with such a ceremony are more than likely strong enough to stand up to a less understanding point of view.
Turns out both Begg and the AFA are on the wrong side of this situation (big surprise, right?). Neither of them can deal with anything relating to alternative sexuality, and their knee-jerk reaction is to either attempt to spoil it or reject it out of hand ... and they both deserve any opprobrium they get.
I guess we shouldn't be surprised by this. Jesus himself said he came as a sword to divide family members against each other and that anyone who loves their son or daughter more than they love him is not worthy of him.
A group of Republican legislators held a brainstorming session on The Cesspit Formerly Known As Twitter, in which they admitted that their "endgame" is to ban gender-affirming care for everyone, regardless of age, and that all of their "protecting the children" and "fairness in sports" horseshit was never anything more than a way to chip away at the issue of trans folks 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 until they could move openly to criminalize transition, period. Apparently they forgot to deselect the "publish" option, or something, so their little bigot circle-jerk is now out in the open.
For that is the only way to stop the sinners from sinning.
There are whole congregations that actively reject the Sermon on the Mount because it is too soft, it isn’t hateful or hurtful enough for their tastes. They reject Jesus for turning the other cheek, or offering kindness forgiveness and sympathy.
There is too much acceptance of LGBTQ people for Christianity to sustain this thinking for very long. There’s already an arterial bleeding of adherents of Christianity, and the more cruel the churches become the heavier the bleeding. This laser focus on bullying LGBTQ people of the church will only kill it off.
How many of us, or them, would recognise a transperson right of the bat ? Who can know if the cashier at the supermarket is not one ? Will they bath in holy water every time they pass someone in the street just in case ? Bigots make being ridiculous an art.
I understand why these leaders are so adamantly opposed to associating with such sinners. The danger is real. I’ve witnessed what can happen to people’s ideologies when they’re forced to deal with the actual humanity of such sinners. It’s easy to condemn gay or trans faceless “others.” It’s much different when dealing with one’s own kid or nephew/niece or grandkid. When your best friend’s child is in a happy enduring gay relationship and your own heterosexual child stumbles from one terrible relationship to the next despite having the correct beliefs about Jesus, it’s hard to avoid an existential crisis and a realignment of one’s theology.
These leaders have no doubt seen what I’ve seen, rigid homophobic worldviews shatter in the presence of joy, and it makes them tremble.
Bigoted Christians ostracize bigoted Christian for being insufficiently bigoted. In other words, there is no hate like Christian love.
As near as I can tell, about the last thing today's evangelicals care about is actual morality. They prefer to use their religion as a cudgel to punish everyone they disagree with. They value goose-stepping conformity above all else, and their reaction to this radio preacher's advice to this grandmother is an example of it.
"𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑤," 𝑉𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑜 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝐴𝐹𝑁. "𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑙, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑦 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝐺𝐵𝑇𝑄 𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑎."
Really? One would think that the critical issue is that this bigotry on display is contributing to the permanent mass exodus of young people from the church.
“And people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.”
Okay. There’s so much in this little sentence that is just so … ugh.
Yes, people need to just deal with their own salvation. Stop getting involved in other people’s salvation. You cannot save them, they have to do it for themselves. Even though he’s not saying this really, he says you have to witness to them so they can save themselves. But I am saying that has nothing to do with your own salvation and others don’t appreciate you getting involved in theirs.
What is so appealing to be saved by someone that requires you to be so fearful you tremble just thinking about it? It does not come off as “be fearful to not be saved” it comes off as “be afraid of your savior.” All the time, every reference to fear god, is about his being is what should scare you. What do you call a father that instills fear of his children with his presence? Abusive. Living with people like that is not appealing, no one wants to do it if they can help it. Why is god and religion an exception? I honestly want nothing to do with that. It makes hell far more desirable.
Also, salvation is a crock of shit. If God wanted to forgive my sins, being God and all, he could just forgive me. Essentially, sin is disobedience to god anyway, and biblically he’s shown no reason to obey him and no morality involved in his orders and I wouldn’t want to not sin. All that to say, though, it’s made up nonsense that doesn’t exist, no god, no sin, no repentance, no heaven no hell. So, take your witness and shove it up your ass.
“Judge not, that ye not be judged” - Jesus the messiah.
“ By implication, it means to condemn, punish—avenge, conclude. It also carries the idea of having discernment. The passage where Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” ( Matthew 7:1 ) goes on to show us how to have discernment. Love is the proper motivation for not judging and for using good judgment.”
“ Mercy appears in the Bible as it relates to forgiveness or withholding punishment. For example, God the Father showed mercy on us when he sacrificed his son, Christ Jesus, on the Cross to pay the price for our sins.”
In summary: Be kinder than is necessary.
I can see why the Christian Reich reacted the way they did to Begg's suggestion that one of his callers attend a transgender wedding. Repeated exposure to alternative sexuality might just cause the observer to understand what's going on with trans people and [HORRORS!] begin to empathize with them! EEEEK! Can't have that!
Meanwhile, Begg is clearly thinking that his caller going to the wedding might influence one or both of the participants of the supposed "error of their ways," and possibly wind up being the fly in the ointment of what should otherwise be a happy event. I suspect that's a non-starter. Any couple who considers being relatively public with such a ceremony are more than likely strong enough to stand up to a less understanding point of view.
Turns out both Begg and the AFA are on the wrong side of this situation (big surprise, right?). Neither of them can deal with anything relating to alternative sexuality, and their knee-jerk reaction is to either attempt to spoil it or reject it out of hand ... and they both deserve any opprobrium they get.
"...don’t understand Jesus and don’t understand that he is a King."
I understand that Jesus is a fictional character and that we (royal we ; ) fought a war to get rid of Kings.
I guess we shouldn't be surprised by this. Jesus himself said he came as a sword to divide family members against each other and that anyone who loves their son or daughter more than they love him is not worthy of him.
OT- Another one for the "conservatives saying the quiet part out loud" file... https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/ohio-michigan-republicans-in-released
A group of Republican legislators held a brainstorming session on The Cesspit Formerly Known As Twitter, in which they admitted that their "endgame" is to ban gender-affirming care for everyone, regardless of age, and that all of their "protecting the children" and "fairness in sports" horseshit was never anything more than a way to chip away at the issue of trans folks 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 until they could move openly to criminalize transition, period. Apparently they forgot to deselect the "publish" option, or something, so their little bigot circle-jerk is now out in the open.
Shun them just like Jesus said.
Judge them just like Jesus said.
Stone them just like Jesus said.
For that is the only way to stop the sinners from sinning.
There are whole congregations that actively reject the Sermon on the Mount because it is too soft, it isn’t hateful or hurtful enough for their tastes. They reject Jesus for turning the other cheek, or offering kindness forgiveness and sympathy.
There is too much acceptance of LGBTQ people for Christianity to sustain this thinking for very long. There’s already an arterial bleeding of adherents of Christianity, and the more cruel the churches become the heavier the bleeding. This laser focus on bullying LGBTQ people of the church will only kill it off.
"This is a critical issue in the body of Christ right now,"
I thought that it was that giant bean burrito he ate. For you's sake, at least light a candle, Jeezy.
Christians are so warm and fuzzy, aren’t they?
How Christian of them.
How many of us, or them, would recognise a transperson right of the bat ? Who can know if the cashier at the supermarket is not one ? Will they bath in holy water every time they pass someone in the street just in case ? Bigots make being ridiculous an art.
Dammit, it's my birthday and Hemant hasn't produced a new column. Maybe he forgot. :)