Moderate US Christians face conservative Goliath

[deadparrot]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Rev. Timothy Ahrens had heard his share of fiery rhetoric from Ohio's religious right and seen conservative Christians turn out in droves to ban gay marriage and re-elect President Bush in 2004.

But when an evangelical pastor stood outside the Ohio statehouse last fall to declare he was "locking, loading and firing on Ohio" to campaign for more religion in public life, Ahrens decided it was time moderate Christians spoke up.

"People are fed up with having religion represented in such a skewed way," said Ahrens, senior minister at The First Congregational Church in downtown Columbus.

He called moderate church leaders together to counter the conservative presence in American politics -- and convince mainstream voters that Christians care about more than banning gay marriage and abortion and restoring school prayer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/religion_politics_usa_dc

[unda cova brutha]

1. is there such a thing as a moderate Christian?

[JHB]

2. Depends on who you ask, but...

...on the practical level, yes.

[bluestateguy]

3. Of course there is

There are liberal Christians too. The problem is that they have let all of the fundamentalist extremists do all of the talking for the last 30 years.

[Bush_MUST_Go]

5. This response from moderate religious leaders is LONG overdue.

Fanatics & maniacs do NOT respect a polite opponent.

You cannot reason with fanatics & educated people have to stop letting them have the last word.

Once they are truly challenged they will be forced to reveal their true colors & people will see them for what they are.

[SPKrazy]

21. It Is Always Important To Confront Fanaticism

I remember my friends who are Presbyterian ministers who had been on missions into central America and had been working in Nicaragua and Honduras.

They not only spoke up against the fanaticism of the Reagan era when the Reaganites were funding the Contras, they acted on their beliefs and helped the people who did not want he Contras running things as the Contras were funded by America and were really only trying to win a war for corporate interests who saw CHEAP LABOR in Central America, and unexploited resources there.

I've known lots of Christian people who in my lifetime have spoken out the LOUDEST and fought the HARDEST against the right wing fundies

So I find it interesting to think that Christians have not spoken out or done anything while the RW fundies were working to create a theocracy in America.

[IndianaGreen]

10. I think they are as rare as "compassionate conservatives"

There is something systemically wrong with a religious belief that holds itself as the one and only true faith, that belittles other views by proselytizing, and by advancing retro views on sex and gender. I don't care how compassionate and humanist the followers of such a religious belief happen to be, their acts of kindness cannot negate a theology that is full of hatred and intolerance.

[Bill McBlueState]

17. most of what you describe doesn't apply to mainline Christians

*holds itself as the one and only true faith
*proselytizing
*retro views on sex and gender
*theology that is full of hatred and intolerance

None of those are true of the churches the average Christians on DU attend, I would wager. Certain popular churches do hold retro views on sex and gender, etc., but modern theology has moved beyond much of this. Of course, to do that, you have to ignore a lot of the Bible or find very creative ways to interpret some passages, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

The problem is that people who are theologically opposed to proselytizing will always have a harder time being heard than those who embrace it.

At any rate, those of us who reject religion should at least be aware of the diversity of religious belief. It can help us to identify potential allies.

[Kahuna]

14. There are plenty of them here on DU. So careful with that broadbrush.

nt

[SPKrazy]

20. Of Course There Is

I find it ridiculous that you even have to ask such a question

as if all Christians are fundies? is that what you think?

[Warpy]

4. These chickenshit mainstream preachers are part of the problem

Keeping silent for the last few decades is called "tacit approval" of all the tactics of the Calvinist far right. They've been pussyfooting around all this stuff because they've been terrified of annoying a few well heeled conservative GOP church members. Their silence in the face of religious fascism is nothing short of complicity in it.

I just hope more mainstream reverends start standing up to the Calivinist bullies and to their own wrongheaded members and fighting this stuff.

I just hope it isn't too little, too late.

[Ezlivin]

8. Why should they speak up? They are gaining from religious oligarchy

They may not agree that gay marriage or abortion is the most pressing issue, but they probably agree that Jesus is the Only Way and that you are bound for hell without trusting him as your personal Lord & Savior.

Will they give up their tax-free status to protest?

Will they refuse any government funding?

Will they stop putting bibles in every hotel room in the world?

[Bill McBlueState]

19. actually, the phrase "personal Lord & Savior"

is specific to the evangelical churches. I grew up in mainstream Methodist and Presbyterian churches and never heard that phrase until I fell in with an evangelical campus ministry. (I'm an atheist these days, by the way.) Also, most mainstream pastors and theologians don't believe in a literal hell. That's one of the reasons the fundamentalists hate them so much.

The problem, as Warpy said, is that mainstream preachers fear that if they deliver a sermon saying that hell is a metaphor and not a real place, the rich people in their congregations will get pissed off and go down the street to another church. Nothing admirable about that.

[Bill McBlueState]

18. yep, that's a huge problem

The people who occupy the pews of the mainline churches often have a nineteenth-century understanding of Christian theology because their pastors are afraid of controversy. They're basically good people, but they would be shocked to hear that the vast majority of modern theologians don't believe in a literal hell, don't think there really was a great flood, and consider Adam and Eve to be metaphors.

I'm thinking of my mom and dad as I write this, so I do have some personal experience.

[SPKrazy]

22. Blahhhhh!

if that were true, it would be a shame

however, there are plenty of Christians that have and continue to speak up

[JerseygirlCT]

26. You ought to know by now that one can be not at all

"silent" and still not be heard.

How often have we complained about the MSM and its coverage of important things Dems have to say?

Same deal here. Moderate and liberal Christians have been talking. And more important, doing. Just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it isn't happening: church by church, person to person, all over the place.

The ultra conservatives are very loud. But they are a minority. They've just got the attention of the Republican party, which has the attention of the media. Don't let that fool you.

[SPKrazy]

27. No Kidding, Does CNN Have Liberal Christians On

nooooo, they put Falwell, or Robertson, or some other fundie on when there is some issue of religion

they aren't the majority!

[FuzzyDicePHL]

6. "People are fed up with having religion represented in such a skewed way,"

And some people are just fed up with having religion represented, period.

[w4rma]

7. Way to represent the other extreme. (nt)

[Evoman]

15. If its true, its true.

I hate religion; I find even moderate or liberal christianity to be non-sensical and idiotic. Its like everybody is in on a joke, and they are trying to pull my leg when they talk about jesus or mohammed or whatever. And then I realize...no, people are not joking. They actually believe this shit.

In order to prevent flaming, I will reiterate that I do not under any circumstance find liberal or religious christians to be stupid or evil or anything else. Most of my friends are christians, and I respect them deeply. But religion is so goddamn stupid it boggles the mind.

I do not want religion anywhere near my goverment, deciding the laws I follow, or deciding what my children (when I have them) will be taught. Although I would never work actively to destroy religion, my fondest hope is that enough people climb out of that pit of ignorance that religion self implodes.I don't mind exposure to religion, especially if I expose myself by my curiosity.

I do believe that liberal christians exist. However, I sincerely question whether any of them would stand up for the atheists, the gays, and the rest of the non-christian community if Christianity did take over the U.S. It seems to me that too many people get huffy when anybody presents even the least bit of criticism of christianity, but stand around and scratch their balls when others are attacked. I've seen it happen on DU, I've seen it happen in real life.

When push comes to shove, will the christian left fight for us? I'm starting to doubt it.

[FuzzyDicePHL]

16. Thank you.

I was going for succinct; I'm glad I got it right.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Jesus: "No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Isn't that the sort of statement one would hear from Wahabism? Any time a religion or a cult proclaims itself as the "one true way," we know that its followers will go to extremes to achieve their ends, no matter the piety they might display in public.

[SPKrazy]

23. Those Kind Of Statements Bother Me Too

I don't believe for one minute that a God would only make there be one way to reach s/he

I think that religion has abused belief by taking a scripture like that in only a literal sense.

Another way of interpreting it is to look at the context. At the time that Jesus came on the scene, the purity laws of Judaism were the way of the world in the world that Jesus lived in.

Jesus brought a subversive idea to the scene. Instead of purity to reach God, one needs compassion.
One does not need to follow the law to please God, instead one needs to believe that God is a compassionate God.

so I read it as the message, the wisdom (or Sophia) incarnate in Jesus is showing the way to God.

I don't think that if Jesus said this (coming from John, it isn't necessarily a statement that is as always attributed to be something Jesus actually said (see the Jesus seminar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar)

Literalism is probably not the best way to interpret the bible, after all it was written a couple of thousand years ago, has been translated (maybe mistranslated) by many

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. Much to the annoyance of conservatives, the Episcopalians don't see it

like that.

"This type of language was used in 1920s and 1930s to alienate the type of people who were executed. It was called the Holocaust. I understand the intent, but I ask you to allow the discharge to stay," said the Rev. Eugene C. McDowell, a graduate of Yale Divinity School and Canon Theologian for the Diocese of North Carolina.
...
Drafted by the Rev. Guido Verbeck, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Western Louisiana, Resolution D058 declared the Episcopal Church's belief in an "unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved," and it acknowledged evangelism as "the solemn responsibility placed upon us to share Christ with all persons when we hear His words, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No-one comes to the Father except through me' (John 14:6)."
...
McDowell explained that how one lives his life is the more important issue than whether one affirms Jesus as Lord. To place a statement of belief over actions is the essence of "self-righteousness," he said. "Actions speak louder than proclamations...What Jesus calls us to do is to live our lives."
...
The final tally on the electronic vote was 70.5 percent for discharge (675 votes) and just 29.5 (242 votes) to consider the resolution affirming Jesus Christ as Lord.

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/print.php?storyid=4311

[Magleetis]

9. I have often

wondered if there are moderate or liberal christians, and if they do exist why don't they speak up? Why do they continue to let christianity be hijacked by fanatics?

[gratuitous]

13. Because we spend our money on ministry

Our teeny tiny congregation feeds hundreds of poor people every year. We give space to the office of a homeless family shelter network. We participate in disaster relief, and provide training and materials for disaster preparedness. We send people all over the world, helping rebuild communities devastated by natural disasters like floods and hurricanes. We support other programs in and out of our denomination advocating for people like the Gwi'chen, who subsist on the caribou herds that migrate through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and whose very existence is threatened by the prospect of oil exploration there. We support Heifer International, providing livestock and animal husbandry expertise to farmers and ranchers all over the world. We have people in Christian Peacemaker Teams working in trouble spots to alleviate suffering, and some of them, like Tom Fox, die in the effort.

We don't hire a public relations firm, however, to run and tell the newspaper and the television stations about every little act of kindness, charity or assistance we do. We don't hire men in thousand dollar suits with their own press agents to go on every cable talk show and tell other people how we think they should live.

Sorry we've slipped below your radar, but we're kind of busy undoing a lot of the damage being done by folks who can devote thousands of dollars to blow-dried spokesmen to go on the television so that you can get a distorted picture of how Christianity has been hijacked by fanatics.

[midnight]

11. "Religion represented in such a skewed way"

Reminds me of what my father once told me. He was a former student for the priesthood. He told me that the devil could quote the bible.

[NMMNG]

24. Excellent

The more moderate/liberal Christians who speak up, the better. Non-believers like myself speak up but we normally get dismissed as kooks or immoral slime.

[Odin2005]

28. My hometown's Lutheran pastor is a liberal Christian

He's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. He not only has a training as a pastor, but also as a biologist (and he thinks the creationists are nuts). His sermons are never about fire and brimstone, but about Jesus's love. He is totally for gay marrige, anti-Iraq war, and is a loyal Dem.