Liberal Christianity - Still Wrong
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
Liberal Christians are, at last, making a little more noise within their own communities… Yet I’m still dismayed that they continue to go and form their own break away churches rather than remain and tackle the wrongness within their congregations.
Smulospace (I was led there by friendlyatheist.com) is a conversational blog that interests me, and many atheists, because the blog is liberal and christian. Yet still the old prejudices remain.
Commenters state that they are for or against gay marriage and go on to say things like:-
People obviously don’t understand what marriage actually is. It is not a natural state; animals don’t marry, and a lot of humans don’t bother. The only reason humans marry is because we recognize there’s something sacred in the permanent commitment that people make to create families (usually with children). Since this commitment is properly understood as being before God, both instituted and sustained by Him, it makes marriage inherently religious.
Notice how this redefines marriage as a solely Christian concept. Marriage, I would point out has ALWAYS been a secular institution that was grabbed by the churches in the fourth and fifth centuries. It was so far removed from the churches that, even up to the fifteenth century, most marriages took place in the porches of churches with the couple only entering the nave for blessing.
I’ve made a general comment of the last blog entry Gay Marriage In California
I’ve looked carefully through all the comments on many pages before I wrote this.
I think you should all be ashamed of actually being either Christians or Christ Followers.
Why? Well… I look at what people do rather than what they say. What I see happening is mouths opening and speeches about love but actions that are hateful. In a lifetimes work as a psychotherapist I became convinced of the damage that churches do to young gay men and lesbians, evidenced by self harming and suicide attempts.
The double standards, cherry picking at biblical verses to confirm personal prejudice, sly undermining of individuals’ self worth had led me to condemn, in full and without exception, nearly all religious statements and the individuals tht make them.
Set at the base of Christians’ philosophy lies the concept of sin and it often seems as if this is what leads to the abnegation of life, love and self, the joyless miasma based on fear of punishment that wafts around the churches.
I realize that this is, to an extent, an overgeneralisation and I’m posting this on my own blog http://www.nobodysthere.com/blog if people what to take me to task about this.
