Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

As much as I would like to express intolerance of other religions, I cannot in good conscience go against the 1st amendment, which as you know, guarantees us the right to worship whatever Diety that we want. Most liberals agree that we have freedom of religion in this country, as long as it isn't the Cristiam religion. Then it is freedom FROM religion. Actually, this is the main reason i am not a liberal.
 

Well, come on. Many, if not most, liberals are godless hedons. However, the Religious Left has a rich legacy in this country, and where else are Christian liberals to go but the Dem Party? They sure ain't welcome in the GOP, despite reports of bumper stickers in Texas declaring it to be God's Own Party. That's not just disturbing; it's scary and, I dare say, Talibanesque.
 

Dude, I like this one:

"Focus on Your Own Damn Family."

Being "nice" has jack to do with being a "Christian."

The same thing happened to the word, and concept, of being "gentlemanly." It used to refer to one's station in life, not how one acted.

Christians, of whatever political stripe, were never wimps until recently. See that whole Reformation thing. And nobody who ever took the Gospel into a place where it literally had never been heard before did so by goin' in with their hat in their hand.

Jesus was a liberal. But he was no wimp.
 

So two lesbians going to hell is a good saying for a bumper sticker? I can see how it would be. It just warms my heart to think of all those sinners in helpless agony. I think God should send more people to hell so we can feel that glorious sense of self righteousness all the time.
 

Oh, come on. Is it funny, or not? That's the question. Made me laugh -- not at the very real notion of eternal separation from God, which the godless don't acknowledge or care abut anyway. But for the same reason ANY joke is funny: It's gets you goin' one direction, then jerks you in another direction. That's why people laugh, sometimes even at things that are cruel.
 

Plus, it's an inside joke. ... Look, there are way more reasons to be torqued off at the Religious Right. Not this. This is funny to anyone who knows the book, the controversy surrounding it, and who knows what most of mainstrwam Christianity says about unrepented sin. So, pbbtthh. (Just for you, Nick.) ... Oh, and befoere anyone accuses me of discouraging opposing views, ah, no. Bring 'em on.
 

I don't think it's one bit funny. Now let me tell you why.

We all, every single one of us, is an unrepentant sinner about some sin, some secret burrowing into our souls, until we lay it at Jesus' feet.

So tell me, just who decided they were in the position to say that a repentant lesbian or gay man's sin was still so horrible that they, above all of us sinners, should be thrown in the fire?

Maybe we should remember two words: Justice and grace. Justice is getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you need.

We ALL need grace, and practicing Christians should remember that above all. But for the acknowledgement and acceptance of the saving GRACE, we'd all be in that lake of fire.

Leave the sorting out of souls to the One who is appointed to judge the quick and the dead. And worry about your own damned family, like the bumper sticker says.
 

Oh, this is cool. I agree with Trixie, except for the part where she doesn't see the joke as funny (but, hey, that's just a matter of taste), and I agree with Nick. First one who calls me Laodicean for it gets a good ol' country ass-whuppin'. :-)

Why don't Baptists have sex standing up? 'Cause they're afraid people will think they're dancin.'

Now, is that funny, or insulting -- or both? The answer is yes, yes and yes.

Yosemite Sam, guns drawn, on a T-shirt (seen in Christian youth circles in the early '80s): "Heaven or Hell? Turn or Burn." ... Funny, insulting and funny -- but it's an inside joke.
 

Well, I'll be damned. In a figurative sense. Nick. Either grow some balls or quit pretending. I can't believe you took your ideas (deleted yer comments) and went home. This ain't a church site, but for God's sake, and I mean that literally, to remove yer voice from this forum is selfish. I am hurt, disappointed and a little disgusted. I challenge you to come back, in the name, and for the sake, of not only the causes you espouse, but as a brother, in the name of the Lord. No one insulted you personally -- and the Lord can take care of Himself. ... Dude if this is the only place where anyone ever challenges your thinking, then you especially need to keep coming here!
 

Nick has explained his reasons, and I accept them. I caution anyone who draws a conclusion without all the fact to, well, to not.
 

Someone told some jokes and I missed them? dang it! I love a good sacreligious joke, and so, I believe, does God.
 

Most liberals agree that we have freedom of religion in this country, as long as it isn't the [Christian] religion

Huh? Since when? A lot of liberals ARE Christian. Probably most of them, actually--just as most Americans are Christian.

I'm sorry, but received anti-liberal talking points like this that bear absolutely no relationship to reality really annoy me. All feminists hate men, all liberals hate Christianity, all leftists hate America, blah blah blah. Gimme a break.

On Christianophobia, the only thing I will say is that it isn't parallel to homophobia at all (and "homophobia" is a word that covers a lot of prejudice against homosexuals, not exclusively fear of them, so just deal with it, ER, my friend); gays have good reason to fear Christians, as vocal Christians have often done very evil thing to gay people.

On the other hand, very few gay people have done evil things to Christians in the name of gayness.
 

B, what do you think I'm doing? I AM "dealing" with it. My views are evolving. Are yours? Maybe so.

But I think on this topic, you might be more rockribbed stuck on yer views than I am. :-) Have you done anything to "deal" with the fact that not everyone who is opposed to the normalization of homosexual behavior is fearful, or hateful?

"Prejudice" has become a bad word only in recent decades. I am proudly prejudiced against enemies of this country. I am prejudiced against right-wingers. Holy crap, if I were a member of the Lions Club, I might very well be prejudiced against the Rotary. And I am comfortably prejudiced against those who want to normalize homosexuality.

"Homophobia" is not the right word. It has a too-garbled etymology. So, I don't think any concrete comparison of it with "Christianophobia" can really be made. Besides, I was talking about political rhetoric, which ain't exactly science

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia for a pretty good discussion.
 

I'm sorry. Maybe I should qualify my remarks a little better. I did say MOST liberals, not all. But the liberals I was refferring to are liberals like the ACLU and that ilk. They would like nothing better than to remove any mention of God, or Christiainty from the English language, and, if you don't believe that, go to any web site which lists the lawsuits that the ACLU has brought in this country the last several years. To be fair to them, they have brought suits against other religions also, but not nearly as often.
 

What? Mark, that's simply not the case. The ACLU has no desire to remove the word "God" from the English language. What they do is work to keep Church and State separate--in keeping with the American constitution.

They also fight on behalf of religion, because freedom to practice religion is fundamental to the constitution as well. All you're doing is changing the label for your strawman.

ER, you're right: I'm pretty firm on gay rights. And I'm not going to go along with "proudly prejudiced" on anything, ever. I have zero idea what you mean by "normalize homosexuality." If you mean treat gays and lesbians as human beings, equals, and when you like them, friends, then yes. If you mean "turn everyone gay! Make gayness the norm!" then no--'twould be impossible anyway. But you're right: I just cannot see any reason at all to oppose accepting gay people other than fear or hatred. None. I see no reason to oppose accepting *any* group of people other than fear or hatred.
 

I was gonna see if someone wouod correct Mark's perception the ACLU. :-)

B, behavior. Behavavior. Behavior. Being gay is not a racial issue. Nor yet is it clearly a genetic issue. Not to my mind. I am, however, open minded. Just show me some data I can understand.

And somebody please tell me why encouraging traditional gender behavior is bad. I mean, little manly boys and little girly girls. Over at yer place, that encouraging such is bad seems to be a given. I don't get it. I get the difference between sex and gender (I guess, although it seems like one made to parse this very idea for socio-political purposes). But I want someone to make a solid argument to me as to why it's not a good thing to encourage little boys act like young men, and little girls to act like young men. I'm listening. (And aberrations are just that. I want an argument that does not insust I adjust my thinking to make outliers appear to be part of the norm.)
 

Oh, that whole separation-of-curch-and-state thing, while I support the notion to protect both, is more tradition and custom, I think, that the constitution, strictly speaking (pardon the expression). I mean, doesn;t it materialize somehwere between the lines of the penumbra of the stare decisis?
 

The reason encouraging traditional gender roles is bad is that traditional gender roles are limiting to people's full humanity.

Simple example: little boys aren't supposed to cry. But little boys have feelings too, and they get sad and scared, and discouraging them from crying is unhealthy for them.

Little girls are supposed to be "ladylike." What this often means in practice is don't argue, don't speak your mind, defer to others. I wasn't raised to be ladylike. I was raised by feminist parents who put me in jeans and play clothes and encouraged me to run around and get exercise and speak my mind when I had an opinion. I got called a "tomboy" and worse when I was a girl. But you seem to like how I turned out.

I'm not going to round up all the evidence on gayness being biological for ya. All I'll do is point out that most gay people say they always knew they were gay, that many of them tried, real hard, not to be gay for years, that gayness is heavily stigmatized, and say to you: not being gay yourself, don't you think you owe gay people the respect to believe them when they say, "no, it wasn't a choice for me"?
 

I guess my approach would be, and is with my own Bird: be a girl -- but be ready to kick somebody's ass. In other words, be a woman, but be a strong woman.

If I had a boy, my approach would be, be a man -- but be ready to cry when you need to, or be scared, because being honest with your SELF, when you are of whatever sex (gender?) is the best way to be honest as a human, which means being honest to your own sex (or gender).

I admire feminine, but strong, women. And I admire masculine, but sensitive and (insert your own comparable adjective here) men.

As for the homo thing, you know by now that yer trump card with me is freedom. Those three legs of society? Freedom, order and equity? Yes, damn you, freedom trumps the other two on this question. Grrrr.

Used to be, the church -- at least the autonomous, democratic Baptist church I grew up in, my preference churchwise: autonomous and democratic (used to be called congregational more than it is now) -- I have orphaned another verb -- used to see itself as one thing, and "the world" as another. And we all scurried our selves through and among what we thought were islands of sin and danger in the world to get to the sanctuary of the church.

Change the world? That, IMHO, is the work of the devil, actually, meant to dissuade so-called Christians from ministering the gospel and trying to change individuals. Resist the world! Persist among your enemies and enemies of the church. Pray for all, always. Love all, always.

Getting the damn government involved, and cheapening the gospel of Jesus to the level of just another PAC, why that's an abomination where I come from. "Ichabod" goes over the door of 'em all.
 

OK, after havin' slept on it, I see that last night I let my own rhetoric run away with me, with that last comment.

Trying to change the world is not the work of the devil. It is, however, often the work of ego, or politics, or some other thing that really is much less than what I think -- what I, I, I think -- should be the Christian mission. But, I honestly think trying to change the world politically is dangerous for Christian, who, rather, should be trying to assist people by helping them DEAL with the fallen world, and by helping them simmer down long enough to hear that still small holy voice that still draws people, even amid the din of loud, bombastic human voices that seem sometimes to drown out Him out.

But this, I stand by, and repeat:

Used to be, the church -- at least the autonomous, democratic Baptist church I grew up in, my preference churchwise: autonomous and democratic (used to be called congregational more than it is now) -- I have orphaned another verb -- used to see itself as one thing, and "the world" as another. And we all scurried our selves through and among what we thought were islands of sin and danger in the world to get to the sanctuary of the church.
 

NIN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED ADAM AND EVE,NOT BARACK AND JOEY