Some conservative Christian blog covered the story (offering an especially ugly take on an already ugly story) and posted the letter from the pastor to this dear lesbian couple. Just to let people know that this awful discrimination still exists (amazingly), I'm posting the letter here, with the names of the lesbian couple removed, but the church name and the pastor's name still left in.
Here it is. Trigger warning, the Pharisaical arrogance is strong, here...
Greenwood Baptist Church
Southaven, MS
Dear Mary,
It's been about a year now since you left your church family to live an unbiblical lifestyle with [your spouse]. At the outset, I kindly, but firmly reminded both of you that a homosexual relationship is forbidden in Scripture and against God's original design. For a professing Christian to live openly and unremorsefully in sin is degrading to the name of Christ, defiling to his/her church family, and destructive to himself/herself. I told you that the church could not allow you to live in unrepentant disobedience without addressing it. We love you too much to neglect you.
I had hoped you would repent. However, after numerous attempts by family, church members, and friends to convince you of your error, you have remained resistant. In fact, you entered into a “marriage” contract with [spouse] on Father's Day, no less. Therefore, on July 14, 2019 the deacon body unanimously recommended that your church membership at Gracewood Baptist Church be terminated. With much sadness, the church held a special business meeting on August 7, 2019 and voted without objection to end your membership.
Upon your request and evidence of repentance and reformation, however, you may be restored to full fellowship at Gracewood by the vote of the body. As the Father rejoices over one “lost sheep” being found, we will celebrate your “homecoming.” We will pray and wait expectantly.
In Christ,
Barry Baker, Pastor
Southaven, MS
Dear Mary,
It's been about a year now since you left your church family to live an unbiblical lifestyle with [your spouse]. At the outset, I kindly, but firmly reminded both of you that a homosexual relationship is forbidden in Scripture and against God's original design. For a professing Christian to live openly and unremorsefully in sin is degrading to the name of Christ, defiling to his/her church family, and destructive to himself/herself. I told you that the church could not allow you to live in unrepentant disobedience without addressing it. We love you too much to neglect you.
I had hoped you would repent. However, after numerous attempts by family, church members, and friends to convince you of your error, you have remained resistant. In fact, you entered into a “marriage” contract with [spouse] on Father's Day, no less. Therefore, on July 14, 2019 the deacon body unanimously recommended that your church membership at Gracewood Baptist Church be terminated. With much sadness, the church held a special business meeting on August 7, 2019 and voted without objection to end your membership.
Upon your request and evidence of repentance and reformation, however, you may be restored to full fellowship at Gracewood by the vote of the body. As the Father rejoices over one “lost sheep” being found, we will celebrate your “homecoming.” We will pray and wait expectantly.
In Christ,
Barry Baker, Pastor
++++++
For most people today (I believe, and thankfully), the arrogance, presumption and Pharisaical nature of this letter is evident. The shame is on this church and her congregation who, if it can be believed, voted unanimously to kick these dear sisters out of their church.
The joy is that, increasingly, these sorts of perverts (the church and her arrogant congregants) are a dying breed. The strong, brave, noble LGBTQ crowd and their allies have won this argument in the population at large. We're not going back to days where gay folk were shamed into hiding... no, it is deviants who believe writing a letter like this who are increasingly shamefacedly hiding in the shadows. And good riddance.
To be sure, giving them the benefit of the doubt, the members of this church are, no doubt, trying to be sincerely helpful, even as they adopt an evil level of arrogance. But the road to hell, good intentions and all that.
So, I'm just writing this because it is in fitting with the review of Pharisaism I've had going here and just to celebrate the golden efforts of our LGBTQ sheroes and heroes out there and the progress they've made in human rights.
I'm not looking for any further comments from any who'd try to defend this church. As noted, the fundamentalists (Muslim, Mormon, Christian, whoever) have already lost this argument. It's not up for debate. I might entertain very respectful, sincere questions, but no negative comments or attacks on LGBTQ folk. Not here.
To those who support this church, just know that in 20 years, you will truly be dinosaurs. You will be viewed by your children and grandchildren in the same way that the bigots and anti-miscegenists are today (usually). You will be laughed at for your shameful, sick behavior as just sad and deluded. Hopefully, you'll one day recognize the error of your ways while you're still living (as I have) and have time to repent and begin to make amends.
Why not open your mind, your eyes and your heart and repent today? Save yourself some shame later on, down the road.
47 comments:
What a horrible place, why would this couple want to be a part of such an evil bunch.
Why do black people want to live here?
Jesus God, Craig has internalized all the unconscious brutalizing tropes.
1. Please, on topic comments.
2. Hint: Asking about what I might say about Muslim mosques in a post about Christian churches is not on topic. Intimating that I don't mind that many Muslims might be equally hurtful in their approach to LGBTQ is just stupid as hell. Don't be stupid.
3. What a horrible place, indeed. That is the take-away that many of our dear LGBTQ friends have to learn to live with. If THAT is the sort of discrimination and hateful language that a place/group would use, we truly don't want to be a part of it.
4. However, when we're talking about our families - our ACTUAL families who are supposed to love and support us, and our CHURCH families who, too, are to love and support us - it is painful as hell to have to give that up. That some people don't get how painful such hateful rejection is just points to how privileged and removed from the real world their candy-world lives are. We ought not be douches and fail to recognize how painful it is when families reject you.
5. If we truly DID recognize how painful that sort of betrayal and rejection is, THEN maybe we could begin the road to repentance from being the ones who cause such oppression and pain.
6. Again, don't be a douche. Or, if you don't like that analogy, don't be a white-washed tomb. A blind guide. A snake.
The Weird Science of Homophobes Who Turn Out to Be Gay
A 2012 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology generated a fair number of headlines that year—including The New York Times’ “Homophobic? Maybe You’re Gay”—for suggesting that some self-avowed straight people who showed signs of same-sex desire were more likely to hold discriminatory attitudes. Two authors on the study—psychologists Richard M. Ryan and William S. Ryan—wrote in their accompanying New York Times opinion piece that they had asked 784 college students to rate their sexual orientation on a 10-point scale and then told them to sort “images and words indicative of hetero- and homosexuality” into categories.
The “twist,” as they put it, were subliminal flashes of the words “me” or “other” before each image that can theoretically reveal subconscious bias based on how long it takes the subjects to sort images that don’t match their self-described sexual identity into the right category.
The result: The researchers isolated a “subgroup of participants”—more than “20 percent of self-described highly straight individuals”—who “indicated some level of same-sex attraction,” and who were “significantly more likely than other participants to favor anti-gay policies; to be willing to assign significantly harsher punishments to perpetrators of petty crimes if they were presumed to be homosexual; and to express greater implicit hostility toward gay subjects.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-weird-science-of-homophobes-who-turn-out-to-be-gay?fbclid=IwAR3YgOK0u1s1I9JCthbS-80a0FTNdGqXdw-l4CxKdYboe25pg8lZ10uzfTY
“Thus our research suggests that some who oppose homosexuality do tacitly harbor same-sex attraction,” they concluded. The psychological mechanism behind this subgroup’s anti-LGBT vitriol is, in theory, relatively simple: They are taking out their own issues with sexual identity on other people.
I love how Craig’s church and the KKK stand in equal positions from his point of view. Best summary of the brutalizing substructure of his faith that I can think of.
You wanted a lie pointed out, just look up one comment.
I thought you said you could demonstrate the lie. Go ahead.
The brutal rules of a segregationist Pharisee:
“If there’s a church that has well established and we’ll known guidelines for membership, and the members all agree with those guidelines, and if there are 4 million other churches within a 20 minute drive, should someone be able to force the church to accept a member who won’t agree to the same things as all the other members?”
Water fountains. Bathrooms. Restaurants. Churches.
There is so much wrong with this post, its tone and the implications for the Church. As you stated questions may be entertained, I will take your word on that given you've already deleted comments totally on topic. So, in what way is the decision of this congregation "ugly, filthy, disgusting discrimination" given its total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings. You assert this claim repeatedly with no explanation as to how it is so.
8 straightforward questions, Marshal:
1. Does your “church” allow married women to teach children?
2. Does your “church” allow single women to teach children ?
3. Does your “church” allow men to teach children?
4. Does your “church” allow mixed dancing?
5. Does your “church” allow divorce?
6. Does your “church” allow adoption of children of other “races”?
7. Does your “church” allow interracial membership?
8. Does your “church” allow interracial marriage?
1-3. All my kids are adults, and they all were when we began attending our current choice. As such, I've never inquired about teaching kids. But as there's no Biblical restriction as to which sex is permitted or whether the teacher needs to be married or not, I would suspect that "yes" would be the proper response to all three questions. But I can't say with any certainty.
4. Absolutely not. No one tangos when it's merengue time.
5. So long as it follows Biblical teaching, I would say "yes". But again, I've never inquired on the subject. I'm assuming based on this church's adherence to Scrpture.
6-7. There is no Biblical restriction in mixed race membership, marriages or adoptions. So once more I would say "yes" to these three questions.
Normally I wouldn't waste my time with you, feo, given I'm still waiting for you to man up and present your entire "plan" in one place in a mature manner, but I'm intrigued by this line of questioning. I can't wait to here how you'll butcher Scripture to make a lame point.
Dan, check out Craig’s latest anxious flight into lies.
And my response:
“Being honest is important and prior to definitions. Without honesty, there are no definitions. And people can divert, dodge, prevaricate, and lie in order to protect themselves.
You and I both honestly know that when you wrote, “bias in the media,” you weren’t referring to social media. Social media is inherently and naturally biased because there is zero compunction to place the subjective self behind assuming an objective position of reason that generally any reasoning person could also take or reasonably argue with without resorting to primarily personal opinion. Twitter has no trained professional ethics of the sort.
So, social media is for the purpose of bias. Two or more people may tacitly practice objectivity but objectivity is not inherent.
What you and I honestly know is that when you wrote “bias in the media,” you meant print, online, and broadcast journalism, with an ethic of objectivity.
But, because you cannot be publically honest with your shallow failure - shown to be shallow solely by my presence or Dan’s because, who else has the slightest depth in this coven? - you here resort to diversion (listing definitions without relevance), dodge (bitherism), and prevarications and lies:
Twitter isn’t media that is included as an object in any rational use of the phrase “bias in the media.” Because Twitter isn’t journalism media...
You bare faced, lying, coward of a man.”
To your question, Marshal. LGBTQ people have historically been oppressed, harassed, beaten, marginalized, and otherwise been kept down by dominant Society. That's just an historic reality.
Do you recognize that reality of history? The deaths, the beatings, the blackballing? Did you know that soldiers that were suspected of being gay have been killed in the US military?
Do you recognize the reality of how much harm is done to one's psyche when one has been the victim of such brutalization? Do you know about the results of psychological research on this topic?
LGBTQ folk have been forced into corners and into hiding, often at the threat of physical harm, or murder, and almost always at the threat of societal harm. AND, the church has been a part that process of systematic oppression. I grew up in a world where gay folk were victimized as pansies, as evil, as child predators. It was clear in the church circles I was part of that being gay was evil. Similar to what brought down hell upon Sodom and Gomorrah.
WE don't want to be like the evil monsters of Sodom and Gomorrah, do we?
This is what churches taught. And yes, by the 1970s and on, we were (mostly) no longer thinking that it was okay to beat or kill gay folk, but that we had "progressed" beyond physical assault, it was still clear that gay folk were part of Satan's world, not the church world. Not even good, moral "heathen" world.
Now, if I disagree with a fellow Church person about the sin nature of smoking a cigarette or driving a car, on whether or not it is a sin to go to an R-rated movie or remarry after a divorce, I can disagree with that church member and not be threatened with being kicked out of the church. I won't be told that I am evil for smoking or for going to an R-rated movie. I won't be associated with the devil and his minions.
But YOU all (and me, once upon a time) have picked this one "sin" (ie, a behavior that YOU believe is a sin) and decided that it is an especially grievous sin, one that we can't disagree about. On THAT one sin, if you disagree, then you can't be part of the church.
This church in the letter are perpetuating some of the same oppressions that have been foisted upon gay folk for millennia. For THOSE pharisees, you can't disagree with them about marriage and be part of the church.
Such attitudes are wrong and harmful. AND, when such attitudes are directed towards an historically oppressed group, it is even more deviant, even more harmful.
We, Christians, are to be on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressors. This church has taken a stand against the oppressed and joined the oppressors. They have more in common with the extremists Muslim fundamentalists who'd kill gay folk than they do with Jesus.
Marshal,
160 years ago your church banned married women from teaching in schools because married women belonged solely at home. This was argued to be, in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings."
120 years ago your church banned single women from teaching in schools because being married was a sign of maturity and protection and single women needed to be at home. This was argued to be in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings."
Until 100 years ago, in your church men were not allowed to teach children as they did not have caring and supportive qualities necessary and men should not be saddled with child rearing. This was argued to be in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings."
Until 80 years ago, your church did not allow male and female couples to dance together, This was argued to be in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings."
Until 50 years ago, your church did not allow divorce. This was argued to be in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings."
Until 40 years ago, your church fought against adopting foreign and non-white children. This was argued to be in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings."
Until 40 years ago, your church wold not approve of interracial marriage. This was argued to be in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings."
You faith is a faith in dead dogma not living doctrine.
____
I've exposed you repeated Trumpian lies. You yourself wrote about the plan and knew that Craig had the other part. You refused to ask. He refused to ask. You both claimed you wanted - but that turned out to be a lie: you both couldn't ask the other. Now you have it a third time here at Dan's. You claim you want it - but that's a lie because you haven't availed yourself of it.
You've said you block me because you don't have the plan - but that's a lie because, as I've just pointed out yet again, you've had it within your grasp 3 times, but you turn your back in the anxious knowledge that you have zero ability to respond with common sense reason.
Your behavior continues to manifest your corrupt character which undergirds your corrupt, Shari-like need for certainty - which is the opposite of faith.
Excellent points, Feodor. I doubt that Marshal will get them, but others who might read will.
Just to attempt to head him off... Marshal, the point that Feodor is making (it seems to me) is NOT that, "Oh, those churches in the past were WRONG on those points... but I'm not talking about those points... I'm talking about living 'in compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings...'" The point is that, of course, those churches were mistaken in their firmly held, sincerely believed attempts to demand others live according to how THEY THOUGHT was a biblical, godly manner. The point is, you too, will one day see you were mistaken in your attempts to demand others agree how YOU THINK was a biblical manner.
Why not open your eyes now and repent and avoid the long embarrassing history of the now thoroughly embarrassed anti-miscegenists and other Pharisee types who laid rule upon rule upon people's backs... rules that were THEIRS and not God's?
For any who might be interested... If you WERE a church/group of the type that wrote this oppressive, Pharisaical letter, here's how to address your concern and write a letter dealing with your beliefs in a manner that does not contribute to systems of oppression...
Dear Mary,
It's been about a year now since you married your spouse who, I know, brings you great joy and is dear to us, as well. At the outset, I know I talked with both of about MY OPINIONS about gay folk marrying. I was, no doubt, harsh and judgmental (and not in a positive way! At all!) I know that I told you that "a homosexual relationship is forbidden in Scripture and against God's original design." and other awful and arrogant and presumptuous notions. Clearly, I conflated my opinions with God's Word, as if I was The Chosen One who gets to decide what you should and shouldn't do.
I am sorry for overstepping my bounds. I was wrong and arrogant and ignorant and I hope you can forgive me and please, the both of you, let's stop for a coffee together, if you can see your way to forgive an old man his prejudices and ignorances.
I will pray and wait expectantly.
Marshal just saw the dead dogma of his faith in the mirror and anxiously diverts to and stays diverted on a whine about an ice cream cone that wasn’t handed to him in the right way.
He cannot answer to progress in christian theology. A leather bound book cannot make progress. So the scriptural argument fundamentalists raised against interracial marriage and all the rest has to be erased completely from memory.
Don't bother, Marshal. You're sick, deviant in heart and soul. I'm sure you don't see it, but that doesn't make it any better. Just go away. You will not post any perverted, oppressive, deviant, soul-sick vomitus here.
Marshal, regarding extending grace towards the oppressors, read my next post. Yes, we need to extend grace to people. But that BEGINS with extending it towards the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed. In order to extend grace towards this group, you HAVE to oppose strongly the oppressors.
Guess which group you've sided with?
"160 years ago your church banned married women from teaching in schools because married women belonged solely at home. This was argued to be, in your words, "in total compliance with Scripture and the spirit of its teachings.""
There's no Scripture that supports this position. There is Scripture that supports the congregation's actions against the lesbians. The same is true for all of your weak attempts to pretend there is some equivalency between their actions and your list of poor Scriptural understandings.
Christian theology hasn't changed. What's changed is that some are more bold in rejecting Its teachings in order to avoid the difficulty in guiding loved ones away from their sinful desires and risking being rejected by them as a result. It's a false love that motivates false Christians who tell themselves they're not risking God's love by doing so.
1. Of course, the reality is that Christian theology HAS changed over the centuries. What Christians believed to be moral or immoral has changed over the centuries. Just as a point of reality.
Marshal, if you want to continue commenting here, tell me, do you recognize that historic reality?
2. Re, "There's no scripture that supports this position..."
You're right. No, there's no scripture that supports that position, that literally says that. in the same way, there's no scripture that literally supports your position in opposition to gay folks getting married. Both you and those older Christians had Bible verses that they thought clearly supported that position. They were wrong. You will one day recognize that you are wrong. Just as they were wrong.
“Whether or not a woman should work outside the home is a struggle for many couples and families. The Bible does have instructions regarding the role of women. In Titus 2:3-4, Paul gives these instructions as to how a young married woman is to be trained by older women: “...train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the Word of God.” In this passage, the Bible is clear that when children are in the picture, that is where the young woman's responsibility lies. The older women are to teach the younger women and to live lives that glorify God. Keeping these responsibilities in mind, an older woman's time can be spent at the Lord's leading and her discretion.
Proverbs 31 speaks of “a wife of noble character.” Starting at verse 11, the writer praises this woman as one who does everything in her power to care for her family. She works hard to keep her house and her family in order. Verses 16, 18, 24, and 25 show that she is so industrious that she also moonlights with a cottage industry that provides additional income for her family. This woman's motivation is important in that her business activities were the means to an end, not an end in themselves. She was providing for her family, not furthering her career, or working to keep up with the neighbors. Her employment was secondary to her true calling—the stewardship of her husband, children, and home.”
Marshal: “There's no Scripture that supports this position.”
Yes, Marshal, we know. We’ve known for some time. Your position represents a change in the Church. Which we are honest about. And you are not.
So you're not going to provide me clarification so that I can answer your question? You simply want me to accept YOUR reality as ACTUAL reality? At least have the balls to admit it if that's the case.
Well... now that we’ve established - and Marshal has agreed - that the interpretation of scripture changes according to a Christian culture’s perceived spiritual needs for its time, we only need now to move toward evaluating the character of any such reinterpretation of scripture by any discrete culture in the context of its time.
Marshal helpfully supplies the hermeneutic value of “enlightenment.” And, as we well know, the Enlightenment established the principle that before the law - in addition to before Christ - all are equal. And we certainly know that such equality has deepened and broadened in three hundred years history to be ever more sensitive to the myriad of conditions in which human beings come. Not just land holding men, but all men. Not just men but women. Not just white men and women but other races. Not just races but also mixed race. Not just straight but gay. Not just straight or gay but bisexual as well. Not just cis male or cis female, but trans.
In this way both secular societies based on western enlightenment values and Christian communities have demonstrated progress in interpretation of law and scripture respectively. Together the commonweal of all have progressed such that freedom in Christ for which Christ came and enlightened love of God and our brothers and sisters everywhere in other faiths and in secular law understand the fellowship we have as commonweal societies.
As Christians, we celebrate this marvelous movement of liberation spring from the Holy Spirit. Not least because, as Marshal glimpses, it is enlightened and not benighted. It is elevated love for all rather than gutter fundamentalism that seeks and always seems to find ways to cast out, to exile human beings in the same hateful spirit as the pharisees.
You wrote that there’s change and there’s change, clearly inferring that interpretation of scripture has always been shifting, sometimes progressively and sometimes regressively.
And I wholeheartedly agree.
Then you wrote that what doesn’t change is becoming ever more enlightened in our love of god.
And I wholeheartedly agree.
I just fleshed out the details which you yourself set down: that scripture, rather than being a rules master is rather a guide to love. And joyously welcomed you to History of the movement of the Holy Spirit in the modern age and how god has worked with the Enlightenment to bring about greater and greater understanding of the worth and equality of all living persons.
Marshal, to your question of, What has changed?
1. Theology. First century Christians believed in a ransom theory of atonement, believing that Jesus' death was a "payment" to the devil or, in some cases, to God. Inerrancy, as a theory, didn't exist. They weren't settled on the precise notion of Jesus' divinity and how that looked. For starters. Mostly going from memory, here.
2. Structure. There were no church buildings, Sunday Schools, pews, music leaders, Sunday AM and Sunday PM services. They were more communal in nature, at least for a while, often sharing things in common. Most giving that was done then was to support the needy, the common needs and not for salaries and certainly not for buildings.
3. Sin. The first century church almost certainly did not condemn slavery (the owning of another human being). Women were better off under church rules, but they were not fully equal citizens. At all. The early church didn't condemn polygamy.
For starters. What they viewed as sinful has changed over the years to what we believe to be sinful (which is, itself, a scattershot of ideas, since modern christians hold a wide variety of views about what is and isn't sinful).
2019
“This is where we are right now. A couple in Mississippi had planned on using this event center, “Boone’s Camp Event Hall” for their wedding. But when the owner found out one of them was Black, they refused them service.
“First of all, we don’t do gay weddings or mixed race, because of our Christian race—I mean, our Christian belief,” the woman tells Welch in the video.
“Okay, we’re Christians as well,” Welch replies.
“Yes ma’am,” the woman says.
“So, what in the Bible tells you that—?,” Welch beings to ask, before getting cut off by the apparent Boone’s camp employee.
“Well, I don’t want to argue my faith,” the woman says.
“No, that’s fine,” Welch replies.
“We just don’t participate,” the woman says.
“Okay,” Welch responds.
“We just choose not to,” the woman continues.
“Okay. So that’s your Christian belief, right?,” Welch asks.
“Yes ma’am.”
feo,
Surely you can find more cherries to pick than that one.
Dan,
1. a) There are several (around seven) theories of atonement, of which the Ransom theory is but one. First, to whom the ransom is paid was always a matter of opinion. Secondly, some of these theories existed simultaneously. Thirdly, as I reviewed them, the are pretty much all variations on the same theme.
b) Inerrancy as a word might not have existed, but as a theory it did indeed. Clement of Rome is an example of one 1st century figure who promoted the concept.
c) Polycarp and Ignatius were two 1st century bishops that preached Christ is God. And of course Paul was working in the 1st century and he preached Christ is God. Add to him the Gospel writers, who related Christ's own assertion to that effect and you have a pretty good notion that the 1st Century church was well into the concept.
2. This point is totally irrelevant to the issue. The place and manner of worship does not denote anything that relates to the beliefs of the worshipers.
3. To make hay out of the belief that 1st Century Christians didn't condemn slavery is weak if not deceitful. They simply didn't view slaves as any different than anyone else, in the same way they did not play favorites regarding the wealthy. All were treated the same. The condemnation, therefore was implicit. The same is true with regard to women. They were equal, indeed, despite the notion of gender roles being more concrete in the culture. The condemnation of polygamy was more than implicit, as Christ, then Paul, spoke of divorce and remarriage being adultery. Any marriage meant no relations with others, so...
Thus, aside from your presumptions that don't actually match reality, what's more important is that none of that which you set forth in your argument is the same as a direct and unequivocal command such as Lev 18:22. There's no way to "interpret" your way into any tolerance for the behavior. I would therefore posit that modern Christians who hold a wide variety of views regarding what is or isn't sinful are Christians who do not care to give up the sins they find personally pleasing, and as such not very devout Christians to be sure. Moral and immoral behaviors are laid out quite clearly in Scripture such that "wide varieties of opinions" on them are not opinions at all should they conflict with Scripture, but desires looking for a loophole.
1. You're not informed on the Atonement theories. Read more, they're not all the same.
1a. My point remains, people used to believe that believing that God paid a ransom of blood (to the devil? to himself??) used to be the mainstream thought of early Christians. We by and large no longer believed that. Our theology has changed.
Do you recognize that reality?
3. Slavery, the owning of one human by another human, is flatly wrong. It is a human rights atrocity.
Can you agree with that reality?
3a. The early church and prior cultures (as well as later) did NOT believe that the owning of a human being was inherently wrong. Our views on what is moral have changed. The church's views on what is and isn't moral have changed.
Do you recognize that reality?
1. Yes I am, and yes they are. Your point is a defense of "progressive" theology that isn't shared by those who are not "progressive". In other words, YOUR theology has changed...not necessarily that of the entirety of Christendom. THAT is the reality.
3. I don't recall I've ever supported the practice, or even implied that I ever did. That wasn't event he issue.
3a. I disagree. The OT already prohibited "man-stealing". And the teaching of the early church clearly opposes it by virtue of what it supports...that we are all the same in the sight of God. And again, it's not the issue. The issue was slavery not being condemned. My position is would it have been necessary to condemn that which was obviously counter to what they supported? Also, I'm unaware that you can prove the contention that they did NOT believe slavery was wrong.
It is NOT a "reality" that views on morality have changed within the church, and you've provided nothing to prove or even suggest that it is true. The "reality" is that throughout the history of the faith, going back way before Christ to the present day, there have always been those who chose, and always will be those who choose, to believe differently about particular behaviors for personal reasons...not because of a better interpretation of Scripture. For a legitimate change of opinion, a "thou shalt not" in Scripture requires a "thou can" somewhere else in Scripture without which the changed view is illegitimate.
Last chance, Marshal. Do you recognize that one person owning another person, IE slavery, is a great moral evil? Always wrong?
Do you recognize that ancient Israelites had no problem with one person owning another person? That ancient Israelites had no problem with selling off their daughters into slavery? That nowhere in the New Testament is the notion of one person owning another person condemned? Indeed, that slaves are told to live peaceably with their masters?
Marshal: "Surely you can find more cherries to pick than that one."
Your church has changed, Marshal. On scripture, theology, and Jesus. And will change on LGBTQ+. That you cannot admit that is due to your holding dark corners of brutality.
:
Mississippi Event Hall Refuses to Host Interracial Wedding, Then Apologizes
"Boone’s Camp Event Hall said in a statement on Tuesday that the owners had previously been taught to believe that “interracial marriage was against the teachings of the Bible.” The owners realized they were wrong after they consulted with their pastor and others, the statement said."
Previously taught. Now untaught. 50 years late. Your children will be good on gays in 2070.
“Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition.”
from Vol 1 of the 5 volume The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine by Jaroslav Pelikan
"Last chance, Marshal. Do you recognize that one person owning another person, IE slavery, is a great moral evil? Always wrong?"
I recognize you're changing the subject...something you prohibit to those like me. I recognize you insist it's a "great moral evil" and demand others do, too, lest you condemn them in some way for daring to disagree.
I recognize you refuse to accept any possibility wherein "one person owning another person, IE slavery" might be a great benefit to the person who is owned versus that person's liberty.
I recognize you aren't concerned with whether or not God regards a given behavior as "a great moral evil" if you do or don't.
I recognize that you cite Scripture on the morality of any given behavior when it suits you to do so, and not so much when it doesn't.
"Do you recognize that ancient Israelites had no problem with one person owning another person? That ancient Israelites had no problem with selling off their daughters into slavery?"
I recognize your perception of these issues are erroneous, and willfully so in order to move your agenda forward.
"That nowhere in the New Testament is the notion of one person owning another person condemned?"
I recognize that it is wholly unnecessary for New Testament condemnation of your understanding of slavery given what it does teach.
I recognize you're very selective in a very self-serving way about the significance of Scripture...Old OR New Testament...being silent on a behavior.
"Indeed, that slaves are told to live peaceably with their masters?"
I recognize that you're perception of this point is purposefully corrupt and erroneous.
I recognize that how the owning of another person manifests is far more important that the mere ownership of that person.
Finally, I recognize that upon reading this response you will use it to disparage my position and character because I dared to part with you in total agreement without caveat or exception, and you will show your typical cowardice, lack of grace and tolerance by deleting this comment, rather than responding with some form of mature and thoughtful response of your own.
“I recognize you refuse to accept any possibility wherein "one person owning another person, IE slavery" might be a great benefit to the person who is owned versus that person's liberty.”
Marshal knows because some of his best friends are happy slaves.
Holy fuck. Holy shit. Good Lord.
You cannot come right out and condemned slavery.
You cannot condemn one human being owning another human being as a great evil.
I don't know what to do with that.
Marshal, go away.
I really don't want to have someone commenting on my pages you can't condemn slavery. This is just evil. I'm going to leave your comment, just the way of evidence of what great dementia has fallen upon so many in the conservative world.
But seriously, go away. You're not invited here anymore, nor are you welcomed.
Craig or any other conservatives who might be reading this, if you can't condemn slavery as an evil, the owning of one human being by another human being, then go away. Craig, you particularly, I need you to tell me that you can condemn slavery as an evil. Don't try to make it complicated. Don't do your typical Dodges about biblical slavery vs American slavery. I'm talking about one human being owning another human being. It is evil. Can you agree with that? If you can't, then go away, as well.
It's the manner in which you pose the question that's problematic, as if it ranks right up there with murder, abortion or a number of other behaviors. Did I not say I don't agree with the practice? Am I to suppose that I MUST agree absolutely with you to the letter as if you're heaping upon me laws not demanded of me by God Himself...as if you're some sort of Pharisee? As if YOU get to decree what constitutes the worst of evils? As you can tell by what I actually said and what I didn't, I gave no indication that there IS a situation where owning a person might be beneficial to the person owned, but only that you refuse to so much as consider such a possibility exists. I appreciate you confirming that you lack the grace and tolerance you insist others have. You're a pip.
It is quite enough for me to assert that one person owning another is less th as n desirable. I don't feel any need to feign outrage in order to convince anyone I oppose it.
You yourself say Scripture doesn't condemn it, while that which it does condemn you enable and celebrate and suppose God would bless those who engage in it if they do so in a manner of which you approve.
You're no Christian. That's crystal clear. May God forgive you for your heresies.
Marshal is a brutalizing corruption. Waaay too many white men like him alive.
Good Lord.
No, you pervert. No! It's NOT enough to say that slavery is less than desirable. Slavery is an evil. It is a corruption of and an assault upon human rights and decency. It is perverted, deviant, diabolical, twisted, sick, evil.
I'm not asking a trick question. I'm guessing the vast majority of the world has no problem affirming that slavery is evil.
Why do I even have to say that out loud?! Do you understand how stupid that sounds even saying it out loud??
Holy shit, Feodor! He doesn't even understand how sick and depraved he is in saying this. How can people be so clueless?
At least Craig, for his part, has the decency not to say that out loud. I think he is at least aware that it's an evil thing to say, this inability to condemn slavery as evil and not a mere inconvenience.
“He doesn't even understand how sick and depraved he is in saying this. How can people be so clueless?“
He has been subconsciously trained by everything in our society around us, often including family, that white people are better than everybody else and always should be the principle winners in the American Dream. So many religious and “rationalistic”conscious, subconscious, and unconscious strategies of propaganda and myth have been employed by those in power in order to keep the white populace in support of 400 years of the social agenda of dispossession, enslavement, and profiteering from native, black, and brown bodies.
Marshal, Craig, Stan and about half of all of us white peoples, still believe in the propaganda and myths. But he thinks it is Christian faith.
As the guarantee of the American Dream - that white children are ensured of living better their parents - collapses, these people do not choose to follow their conscience and realize the lies. They double down on their corrupt belief and re-channel their guilt as rage. They brought us Reagan. They brought us WBush. As their rage becomes ever more consuming they’ve now brought us Trump, who, fortunately, totally unmasks their racist, misogynist, bigoted motivations of irrational rage.
While they are to be pitied for how the machinery of brutalizing capitalism chews them up just like everyone else, they nonetheless stand in condemnation for their resolve to choose inhumane and twisted hate.
Marshal is exemplary in all the above putrefaction.
Depending on who's doing the counting, there are between 195 and 247 countries/nations in the world. Of those (again, depending on who's counting), 167 still have slavery. In a world of about 7.7 billion people, the top 15 of the slave countries (in terms of most slaves) have a total of over 4 billion people (holding an estimated 31.5 million people in slavery). Again, that's just the population of the top 15 countries where slavery still exists. Thus, 167 countries that still have slavery, it's safe to say that the vast majority of the world disagrees with you on the subject of the morality of slavery.
OF course, I'd never insist that every free person in every one of those 167 countries believe slavery is OK, anymore than I'd insist that every single person in the rest of the world believes it isn't. But your attempt at another Bandwagon fallacy pronouncement fails pretty hard once again, when you'd have a hard time coming close to supporting it. That's pretty sad for the world, I'd say, but the world is a sad place that isn't at all served by people like you speaking for it. Indeed, you make it look worse by supposing you know that the "vast majority" believes as you do only find out it doesn't necessarily...which makes it's fallen state more obvious.
"It's NOT enough to say that slavery is less than desirable."
Sure it is. I don't agree with it. I don't abide it. I oppose it, and I think less of those who would dare enslave anyone. Again, I don't feel the need to posture as outrageously horrified, getting the vapors at the thought of it and condemning any who don't oppose it as strongly as I do. See the problem here, little Danny? It's not the opposition, it's the manner in which you express it, as if by doing so in such a manner as you improves your image as a Christian, while you support and defend the mass murder of innocent, unborn human beings. Color me unimpressed.
So, there's nothing "sick and depraved" about me...certainly not to the extent there is about you and your sock puppet, feo. And to have such as yourselves condescending to me doesn't really have much of an impact on me.
"not a mere inconvenience."
I never said that. I never said anything remotely like that. I protested your demand that I must join you as your panties get all bunched up over it, while you continue to defend that which in my opinion are far worse.
I also questioned your attitude towards it as an alleged Christian who supposedly spent a lifetime studying the Word of God...that you assert there is no condemnation of slavery in Scripture, yet you regard it as a great evil...which is clearly, then, a case of you inventing a rule I must abide, like a Pharisee, while ignoring that which is unambiguously prohibited by God because YOU don't believe it is for you, just like a Pharisee. The absolute irony of this entire episode is lost on you despite your immense love of irony!
And you think I should be embarrassed of myself! I can't tell you what a kick I've gotten out of all of this!!! This is one of the best days I've had in a while in the blogosphere! I'm definitely saving this one!
Marshal flirts with realizing the scope of the humanitarian violence of slavery. But then, being at base a brutalist, he treats it like an issue of fluoridated water. “Hey, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’d advise otherwise. But if those with power want, so be it.”
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Globally, 65 million girls are not in school. There are 31 million girls of primary school age not in school. Seventeen million of these girls will probably never attend school in their lifetimes. Girls with eight years of education are four times less likely to marry as children. A girl with an extra year of education can earn 20 percent more as an adult. A child born to a mother who can read and write is 50 percent more likely to survive past the age of 5.
So much of the world doesn’t agree with the equality of women. You’re in that party.
I think you romanticize and thrill to these vestiges of human rights abuses.
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72 countries criminalize homosexual acts. 13 of them apply capital punishment by stoning to death.
That’s 530 million people living with laws that kill anyone caught in a homosexual act.
So much of the world doesn’t agree with individual rights. You’re in that party.
I think you romanticize and thrill to these vestiges of human rights abuses.
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2 million children and women are held in sexual slavery.
Many places in the world subjugate women and children to male desire of whatever kind. Punishment. Sex. You have only one foot of such a culture yourself.
I don’t think you romanticize this phenomenon of human rights abuse.
But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that you unwillingly thrill to it.
Sick.
And now in Craig's latest, he becomes one lying piece of shit twisting condemnation on Christine Blasey Ford without any basis for his vile opinion.
"we find out that the accusation was a lie."
You found out shit, Craig, you self-deceiving lying motherfucking weasel.
If a sexually assaultive young man is now as an adult about to be put on the Supreme Court by a sex assaultive President, there's a million reasons to speak out. For the victim, yes, keeping him from deciding what can or cannot happen to other women's bodies is EXACTLY a patriotic and moral reason to speak up.
God but you are a brutalizing bastard.
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