There’s a conversation (or a thread) at Christianity Today about the Ugandan anti-gay bill that its sponsors say will pass in time for Christmas, jingle jingle jingle. I just want to look at one comment because it’s such a pure example of how not to think about such things. It’s not at all surprising; don’t go expecting anything like that; it’s just that it’s usefully pure.
I do not advocate killing homosexuals. I think Uganda is on the wrong track here. But I also do not believe that we should glorify a behavior that God has clearly condemned. Sin is sin. Sin is rebellion against God. You cannot be a Christian and live a holy life unless you repent and turn from all sin. Otherwise you do as the writer to Hebrews says and “crucify Christ all over again.” I do not hate homosexuals but I am called by God to preach the life giving Gospel to all people who are all sinners so that they might be freed from their bondage. As a Christian the Bible teaches us the thoughts of God and how to live a righteous life. I do not understand it all. Some things may not always make sense but I accept it by faith just as I accept God’s gift of salvation for me.
See what I mean? It’s got it all, and it’s just disastrous.
There’s a behavior that “God has clearly condemned” so we have to condemn it too, without further thought and for no other reason. It’s just an order, that’s all. “Sin is sin.” No further thought. “Sin is rebellion against God.” No further thought. Just the dogmatic insistence on obedience to a magical name, who is purported to have clearly condemned something (clearly? really? more clearly than other items in the bible that no one pays any attention to?).
And then he (his name is Jeff) admits he doesn’t understand it all and that he accepts it by faith. Fabulous. What about the bit of the bible that says to kill the witches? What about the passages that command genocide? What about everything that’s missing from the bible?
It’s so pure. Sin is sin. Sin is rebellion against God. The bible teaches us how to live a righteous life.
Disastrous.
I believe in lots of healthy rebellion against god. Because, otherwise, this.
Oh thank you, THANK YOU, from the bottom of my dykey little heart.
/weeps in gratitude
Never has someone so graciously donned the treacherous, burdensome mantle of the minimum standard of human decency.
Better hope Jeff isn’t wearing clothes made of mixed fibres, or a fan of lasagne, and that he sacrifices oxen to please his Lord,
Oh, and what was that big, big sin… Can’t think straight, I’ve been watching Drag Race Allstars… what was it… Stupid homoladybrainz…
Oh yeah, I remember!
JUDGEMENT!
That’s right. Sitting in fucking judgement of your fellow fucking man.
So fuck Jeff, fuck god, and fuck Uganda.
Mabus spew @ #2.
And the interfaitheists wonder why we don’t want to turn our back on our Friends in Faith (TM). No, I’m not saying the US religious groups involved in interfaith stuff would talk about killing me—that would be absurd. But only because faith has been (relatively) tamed here. It’s all part of the same spectrum. When you cannot base your acknowledgment of reality, the equality and rights of others, and commitment to sound public policy on anything more shifty than faith, anything goes.
Snort!
Because killing someone/”glorifying their behavior” are the only two options possible.
patterson,
Unfortunately,
treating somebody like an equally worthy human being = not haranguing them about their “choices” = glorifying their behavior
is all the same for those haters.
When all else fails, play the superstition card.
The bible teaches us how to live a righteous life.
To quote from The Good Book of Minchin:
There are a lot of things that are repugnant about that comment. But high on the list would be the way it presents itself as claiming a reasonable middle ground. Because the commenter isn’t an extremist who wants homosexuals to be killed – he just wants them labeled as sinners, presumably until the day *God* destroys them. So his position is all moderate and reasonable, and stuff.
Huh. NoLight, Josh, I also do not advocate killing you. I can haz cookie plz?!
No, wait, I don’t advocate that because I am a sufficiently decent human being that it would never even fucking well *occur* to me without these creepy pieces of shit rationalising it. AAAARRRRGHHH!
But the BEST part, the very BEST part of all this faith stuff is that everything we know about god and what he likes and doesn’t like and how we should treat others, we learned because, sometime in the past, god whispered his special desires into someone’s brain.
The fancy theological name for it is “Revelation”, but it is really nothing more than a person listening to the voices in their head.
And we had just better obey those voices from someone else’s head because the voice also gave permission for them to hurt or kill us if we don’t.
So rebelling against a god who tells you what to do and (crucially) not to do without reason is bondage? I would have thought it was the exact opposite of bondage. Bondage to what?
For me. But not for you.