Re: Here's the link
Submitted by Heather on July 21 1999 at 23:37:24
In reply to Here's the link Submitted by Jimf3 on July 21 1999 at 22:55:06
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Okay, what I see F.O.D. as saying is that Jesus Lover's post was simply his views on the nature of God and evil and that it wasn't a personal attack on you. Obviously, I read Jesus Lover's post differently than F.O.D. does. What I don't see F.O.D. saying is that you are evil – I think he may simply have missed that element in Jesus Lover's post, possibly because a lot of your posts have been attacks, not on how individual Christians view things, but on Christianity itself. So maybe he made the mistake of abstracting Jesus Lover's pointed remarks about you into a treatise on Christianity as a whole, so he naturally felt called upon to defend Christian beliefs while perhaps missing the fact that Jesus Lover was using his own interpretation of Christianity as part of a personal attack. That's my guess, anyway; only F.O.D. can explain his actions. But I certainly don't believe that F.O.D. regards you as evil, nor do I think that he believes all non-Christians are headed for hell – we've had plenty of conversations about the latter subject. "I can much better understand now why he said he had never seen any hatred of homosexuals in his church. He's simply blind to it." As someone who struggled with the moral issue of her same-gender attractions during her teens, I doubt that I would have missed it. I've attended six Episcopal churches since I was ten – two of them very conservative – and I've heard homosexuality mentioned exactly four times in church: in a study group at one of my parishes, when our priest expressed his opinion that the Church may change its views on homosexuality in the same manner that it changed its views on the universe during the Scientific Revolution; in a study group at another of my parishes, when the people of the parish were strongly divided on the matter but the retired bishop who had charge of our parish expressed his support of same-sex unions being blessed by the church; at my local parish, whose priest is the president of North America's gay Episcopal ministry; and at Washington National Cathedral, when the assistant bishop of my diocese condemned homophobia. "Aren't you ashamed sometimes of the association of your beliefs with the Christian name?" No, I'm ashamed of the association of hate-filled beliefs with the Christian name. I don't consider what I wrote in my post to be my beliefs – I consider them to be Christ's beliefs. The head of Androphile – who has strong words to say against Christianity – has a lovely phrase at the end of one of his essays: "The teachings of Him who preached love were used to deal the final blow to a timeless love, and the long dark ages began." The only difference between his view and mine is that I think there have always been true followers of Jesus in the Christian Church, just as I think there have always been true followers of Jesus (sometimes unknowing followers) outside the Christian Church. So I'm not prepared to condemn Christianity simply because it's filled with evil people and evil beliefs, like all institutions are. I think that enough of Jesus' beliefs remain within Christianity that the Church can be redeemed; I hope this will also be the case for the people who commit sinful acts in Jesus' name. My denomination has a prayer on Good Friday that ends in this way: "For those who are enemies of the cross of Christ and persecutors of his disciples, For those who in the name of Christ have persecuted others, That God will open their hearts to the truth, and lead them to faith and obedience." Heather |