We are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it's also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated.
The S&M segment of the homosexual community would undoubtedly appreciate Obama’s logic. After all, there are masochistic homosexuals who wish to be hurt, and sadistic homosexuals who wish to hurt them. The Golden Rule!
I often use masochists as an illustration for why the Golden Rule is not a Christian standard.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't everyone in their right minds, if he or she had all of the facts, not want to be corrected and put on the right path concerning their behavior rather than being pat on the back on their way to hell? I hope my friends, who would "do unto me as I they would have me do unto them" would reprove me, not encourage my damnation.
ReplyDeleteFor African-Americans, I'd imagine it's especially difficult to take the Bible at face value when it was used by men like Richard Furman of the SBC, Thornton Stringfellow and a whole host of other American pastors to justify the use of their ancestors as slaves for profit.
ReplyDeleteIt's not as if Furman and others were an anomaly within Christendom: early catechetical documents like the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions both of suggested that slaves should accept their positions in life as God ordained (echoing Paul):
"As for you who are slaves, with respect and reverence you shall be subject to your masters as replicas of God."
So yes, "the Bible says" slavery is just fine (Exodus 21:20-21 even condones physically abusing one's domestic help) ... but society as a whole has come to different conclusions on the matter.
So perhaps you should blame the abolitionists for all this.
James said:
ReplyDeleteFor African-Americans, I'd imagine it's especially difficult to take the Bible at face value when it was used by men like Richard Furman of the SBC, Thornton Stringfellow and a whole host of other American pastors to justify the use of their ancestors as slaves for profit.
It's not as if Furman and others were an anomaly within Christendom: early catechetical documents like the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions both of suggested that slaves should accept their positions in life as God ordained (echoing Paul):
There's an enormous difference between claiming the Bible justifies the perpetuation of chattel slavery and offering advice on how to live within in an entrenched, immoral institution. You seem to conflate Biblical practice with the practice of later generations without giving due justice to either, such as the fact that Christians also worked to abolish the slave trade. You also forget that Paul encourages slaves to go free if they can, and that Scripture condemns, in no uncertain terms, the entirety of the slave trade.
So perhaps you should blame the abolitionists for all this.
Perhaps you should make sophisticated, relevant objections supported by logical argumentation.
James,
ReplyDeleteYour objection is fiddled with fallacies:
i) Many black Americans are professing Christians, including some highly educated conservative pastors, viz. Tony Evans, Thabiti Anyabwile.
ii) Black Africans sold their own people into slavery.
iii) It’s naïve to assume that lawmakers endorse whatever they regulate. If lawmakers regular casinos, that doesn’t mean they necessarily endorse organized gambling. They may simply prefer it to the alternatives.
iv) Peter, Paul, and John were all political prisoners at one time or another. They didn’t approve of how the authorities treated them. Yet they didn’t foment revolution.
v) That some white Southerners tried to prooftext Southern slavery from Scripture is hardly news.
Dabney and Thornwell were smart enough to realize that Scriptural appeals were inadequate to justify Southern slavery. For even if you accept their interpretation, their prooftexts don’t single out white masters and black slaves. In principle, you could flip that around, viz. black masters and white slavrs. If the tables were turned, blacks could use the same prooftexts in reverse.
Dabney and Thornwell were aware of that, so they felt the need to supplement their prooftexting with a theory of white racial superiority. That’s not something they got from Scripture.
vi) Another problem with analogizing from the Mosaic law to Southern slavery is that Jews could only be enslaved for 6 years. By analogy, a black Christian could only be enslaved for 6 years.
vii) You’re also selective about what you quote. For instance, ANE law codes had extradition treaties for runaway slaves. Yet the Mosaic law forbids Jews from extraditing runaway slaves (Deut 23:15-16).
viii) Then there’s the NT condemnation of the Roman slave-trade. Cf. C. Koester, “Roman Slave Trade and the Critique of Babylon in Revelation 18,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 70 (2008): 766-786.
ix) What’s your alternative to Biblical ethics? Evolutionary ethics? Why is it wrong for primates to “physically abuse” other primates? Happens all the time in the wild? Why do you draw the line with human primates?
James said:
ReplyDelete"So perhaps you should blame the abolitionists for all this."
Do you mean people like John Newton, William Wilberforce, and Harriet Beecher Stowe who were Christians as well as abolitionists?
Anthony Carter is another highly educated African-American Christian. Likewise Ken Jones, whom I've had the privilege of hearing preach. They (along with other African-American Christians) include their conversion stories or testimonies in Glory Road. As I recall, Carter also writes about slavery in On Being Black and Reformed.
ReplyDeleteSo the poster mocks Christ's words to gain a few internet points?
ReplyDeleteTruly you have your reward.
No, the poster mocks the misuse of Christ's words by Barack Obama. Or perhaps you agree with Obama that the Golden Rule requires sodomite marraige.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, James grasps at anything, whether valid or invalid, whether it be lies or caricatures, in order to try to legitimize his own pet sins.
ReplyDeleteThis is what disturbs me so much about homosexual activism. The highest principle are the urges in the homosexual's head, and anything, no matter how immoral or coercive, is permitted as long as it serves his cause.
Thankfully, I think this may backfire. People are seeing what is going on here, which accounts for why all popular votes on the issue result in a rejection of redefining marriage.
I would just ask James to reconsider: why do you think all of society should allow a small minority to redefine ethics based on the urges that pop up in their heads? Why do you worship this thing and dedicate your life to this thing?
It seems to be a kind of idolatry. Christianity is dedicated to something personal, transcendent, absolute. Not to some perverse urge. Why do you continue to be a slave to sin, when you can be freed from this?
Using the Golden Rule as an isolated plank for an otherwise ungrounded view of morality still only provides an ungrounded morality. Talking about committed and loving relationships and trying to imply that merely using such words demonstrates the equivalency of [insert sinful relationship here] with a Christian view of marriage only turns a grounded definition into silly-putty.
ReplyDelete"Indeed, the root human sin...is a self-centered, self-gratifying orientation, which in Christian thinking is to be put to death. One of the main thrusts of the Christian gospel or good news is that believers have died, and must actualize that dying, to an array of 'orientations' that are at cross-purposes with the revealed will of God. An integral component of the gospel is the call to radical life reorientation, which takes place in spite of an ongoing and often intense struggle with sin." - Gagnon
People in a homosexual relationship cannot be loving towards each other because they are participating in each other's destruction, in both a physical, psychological, and spiritual sense.
Picking up on the Golden Rule/S&M theme, I have been pondering a parallel rhetorical analogy based on a heterosexual married couple that demonstrates their love for each other by periodically cutting off part of their body for the consumption by the other. I would then ask if there was a problem with this ritual as a demonstration of commitment and love.
Now, part of me was weighing the likelihood of any random post-modern simply not seeing any moral issue here. But part of me was also wondering if I was taking a hypothetical too far away from reality until I saw this.
I guess this also ties in with Steve's post about God healing amputees.