Theology III

[Earniel]

I've always wondered, with people having this strange desire to find and burn all witches, how do you know you've got an actual witch and not some new prophet or even Jesus' second visit or somethin'? Suppose someone can do so tricks or even do a miracle (I don't believe in that stuff personally, but let's say hypothetically.) Seriously, how do you tell?

I recall some tales of children in Africa being abandoned by family, sometimes hurt pretty badly because some nut-job relative or local priest is convinced the children are witches and that against the Bible. If that what is takes for religion, I think I'll pass.

[Mari]

Funny, the theology thread here makes me feel like a very liberal Christian, whereas the thread of another forum I visit makes me feel like a very strict one... >_<

[BeardofPants]

Personally, I like the anglican approach to xtianity. My boyfriend's granddad is an anglican pastor, and he's a firm proponent of science and the theory of evolution, etc. There's an anglican church in town that has rainbow sermons (for teh gays if you don't know).

[Curufin]

Personally, I like the anglican approach to xtianity. My boyfriend's granddad is an anglican pastor, and he's a firm proponent of science and the theory of evolution, etc. There's an anglican church in town that has rainbow sermons

That sounds great. The Anglican church in the States (Episcopalians) had a big debate a few years back over whether to allow gay bishops. I'm afraid they're not quite as liberal as the Anglican church in England.

My grandma and my family are Quaker, and while I reject the Christian teachings of it personally, the social morality has influenced me a great deal. They're really left-wing too. My grandmother has attended several gay civil-unions done by the Quaker church in Vermont.

[Insidious Rex]

All Christians should really be "left wing" if you go by much of what we read in the Bible. The fundies and wack jobs have given Christianity a bad name. It wasnt too long ago that many true Christians were acting as radicals sometimes violently attempting to over turn the slave trade because they knew it to be morally wrong. I have no real issue with Christians who passionately oppose abortion to the point of causing civil disobedience if they truly believe its a moral wrong. But so many of them prove themselves enormous hypocrites by simply pandering to right wing issues rather than being consistent and acting truly Christian and being just as radical about the poor, about war, about the homeless, the death penalty, the environment, etc., issues on which they generally simply follow along based on political ideologies rather than moral ones.

[Curufin]

Amen!

I've never understood how or when the right appropriated Christianity. All through the Civil Rights movement people like Martin Luther King Jr. used Christianity to further human and civil rights, and even further back, Christians (including Quakers, my ancestors), fought for women's rights, prison reform, and ran the Underground Railroad.

Why do people think that liberalism and Christianity are so incompatible?

[Mari]

Perhaps because that would include the possibility of several correct opinions. There is not one absolute truth anymore, but most people like an absolute truth. That truth being preferably their own.

[Curufin]

Absolute truths have always bothered me a bit.

Perhaps that's because in Quakerism (the religion in which I was raised) we have Queries instead of Dogma - questions that we're supposed to ponder and come to a decision based on our own direct relationship with God.

I think this is a good idea.

I don't think there's half enough thinking going on in modern day Christianity, while there's far too much following. As I said before, I have no gripes with Christianity as a religion. It's got some great ideas. I just wish people would think their ideas through before they accepted them as solid fact.

[Mari]

I am particularly bothered by those nice Evangelistic Christians I grew up with who tell me I'm not a Christian because I don't mind people being gay and gay marriage, etc. It got scary when my cousin whom I've always looked up to told me I would go to hell, after she tried to "convert" me. (She's come around now, but that was scary!)

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Perhaps that's because in Quakerism (the religion in which I was raised) we have Queries instead of Dogma - questions that we're supposed to ponder and come to a decision based on our own direct relationship with God.

I like that. It sounds like an interesting way to approach the debates and let people figure it out for themselves.

[Curufin]

That's the way I've lived my life.

It's led me away from traditional Christianity into a form of spirituality that is very much my own (and more Pagan than anything else), but at least it's truthful...

Mari - I feel for you. I've been told I'm going to hell so many times by so many people that I hardly listen anymore...

[Mari]

Oh, we are going to the same church now, so I guess it's okay. I'll reserve a spot for her down there (She was "reconverted"... yay for her husband)

[Earniel]

I think I've only been told once I was going to hell. I think it was also the only time I made such a speedy reply: "Fine, safe me a seat when you get there, will you?" (Which seems to be about the only right answer, eh Mari? )

[Mari]

Hehe, yup, but I didn't tell her that. Just wanted to get out of there is quickly as possible, without permanently damaging family ties. Back then we still saw eachother twice a week with the rest of the fam.

[Nautipus]

I've been told "go to hell" and "you can go to hell", but never that I was "going".

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Curufin

That sounds great. The Anglican church in the States (Episcopalians) had a big debate a few years back over whether to allow gay bishops. I'm afraid they're not quite as liberal as the Anglican church in England.

My grandma and my family are Quaker, and while I reject the Christian teachings of it personally, the social morality has influenced me a great deal. They're really left-wing too. My grandmother has attended several gay civil-unions done by the Quaker church in Vermont.

The Episcopal Church is lookin' right now to be just about the most liberal branch of the Anglican Communion. The Church of England is considerably more conservative; they are left-leaning, but not near so much as the Episcopal Church. Case in point: same year as Gene Robinson was elected Bishop, Canon Jeffrey John was nominated for a bishopric in England. Due to the controversy, the ABC asked him to withdraw his nomination; he was appointed as dean of a cathedral as a consolation prize. +Gene Robinson, on the other hand, was nominated, elected, installed, and is happily serving as the Bishop of Newark.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

All Christians should really be "left wing" if you go by much of what we read in the Bible. The fundies and wack jobs have given Christianity a bad name. It wasnt too long ago that many true Christians were acting as radicals sometimes violently attempting to over turn the slave trade because they knew it to be morally wrong. I have no real issue with Christians who passionately oppose abortion to the point of causing civil disobedience if they truly believe its a moral wrong. But so many of them prove themselves enormous hypocrites by simply pandering to right wing issues rather than being consistent and acting truly Christian and being just as radical about the poor, about war, about the homeless, the death penalty, the environment, etc., issues on which they generally simply follow along based on political ideologies rather than moral ones.

I know what you mean, IR, and I essentially agree with you. However, I will say that Christians should not be "just as radical" about the poor, war, homeless, etc. as they are about abortion. If you look at it from a Christian perspective, abortion balloons up to an absolutely enormous size; to us, it is the willful ending of millions upon millions of completely innocent lives, sanctioned by the State. Christians should definitely be more concerned about the poor, about war, about the homeless, death penalty, etc., then they are, as you say. Ultimately, I think the Democrat platform aligns with Christianity on more points than the Republican. However, abortion is just such a gargantuan issue that I can't justify voting for a candidate who supports it. If there is ever a pro-life Democrat, I will sing and dance in the streets, but until then, I feel that I must do what I can to end abortion, even if that means voting for a Republican candidate.

[D.Sullivan]

Humans shouldn't be the ones who make up the law, either. They should base it on what God told them is true, and on what God told them to do. Human judgment is so weak and fallible that to base our legal systems on it, rather than rooting law in the commands of God, is to my mind folly.

If humans are are so fallible, then how can we trust ourselves in our faith in religious doctrines? how can we be sure we aren't trusting in the wrong religion? or the wrong God? How can we be sure we're interpreting God correctly? that someone didn't screw around with the Bible when it was time to print the next edition?

You seem to make your main argument, Lief, for the abolishment of religious freedom around the fact that we can't make important decisions for ourselves, and need a religion or God to do it for us, particularly the Christian one. But I think it's very clear that either way we have to make a choice using our own reason and intuition, so I don't see what the point is deciding to let someone else decide for me, considering that decision itself could have been wrong. How do I know I haven't given my trust to Satan? In my reasoning, if actually seems safer not to let the words of God as heard by a bunch of long dead dudes decide what I do, but the Word of God as heard by me now help me live a virtuous life. Or not, if the person involved is of a agnostic or atheistic persuasion.

"Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face, we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?"

Taken from the Intro to Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I'm curious as to why, Lief, you've said that liberalism has been a positive force up until the last forty or so years, but has since become a negative force. You've made this point clear, but why you think it's the case isn't clear to me. I hope you don't mind my asking what makes you think you're not like those conservatives who have, as you said, wrongly apposed liberal growth in the past? Just curious.

[Curufin]

The Episcopal Church is lookin' right now to be just about the most liberal branch of the Anglican Communion. The Church of England is considerably more conservative; they are left-leaning, but not near so much as the Episcopal Church. Case in point: same year as Gene Robinson was elected Bishop, Canon Jeffrey John was nominated for a bishopric in England. Due to the controversy, the ABC asked him to withdraw his nomination; he was appointed as dean of a cathedral as a consolation prize. +Gene Robinson, on the other hand, was nominated, elected, installed, and is happily serving as the Bishop of Newark.

Yes - but it's also led to a huge schism in the church...

That said, I admit I don't know a whole lot about the Anglican church, but I've never seen it as being particularly fundamentalist?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Oh, are you? I hadn't heard of that. Never mind then, and congratulations! Welcome home. Do you know yet when you will be received?

Pentecost. Which is actually rather neat for me, symbolically, as my experience of God up to now has tended to focus on Pentecost.

I'm sorry I forgot to tell Entmooters about this earlier. I've not been very active here, lately.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

The first form of Religious Freedom I know of in the Western World was Constantine legalizing Christianity.

He allowed Religious Freedom for a while, and he ended it pretty much as soon as he was in control of the entirety of the Roman Empire. In 324 AD, Constantine declared Christianity to be the official state religion, though, and he imposed fines on many pagan temples. In 325, he exiled the Arians for their religious deviation.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

The second was when Julian the Apostate re-instituted Paganism as the state religion of Rome, but did not start persecuting Christians again, because he had experienced religious persecution, and knew what it was like. Neither came from exhaustion or secularism.

The Religious Freedom under Constantine only lasted about ten years, before he discarded it, and he discarded shortly after he established complete power over the Roman Empire.

I know less about Julian the Apostate.

These earlier episodes of Religious Freedom were brief moments, however, from a historical perspective. And Constantine rescinded his. Julian was an apostate, so his being a proponent of Religious Freedom doesn't do much for it, in my eyes.

Exhaustion and secularism are the key reasons for modern Religious Freedom, though.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
The Early Church Fathers, and the writers of the Epistles, had very bad things to say about heretics. They had no political power, but the first Christian emperor, Constantine, took the first action against heretics on religious grounds. He banished Arius from his kingdom. Other Christian emperors or rulers followed the same kinds of practice. From the beginning of Christian involvement in politics, this was practiced, and the Church felt that it was a good thing, so that orthodoxy might be complete.


It's interesting that the same thing was not done to pagans.

There were a bit many of them in that time period, I think, for this to be a very viable option. Though that's only my guessing as to his reasons, I expect. Constantine did impose fines on their temples, though.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
St. Augustine said the heretics should be banished. St. Thomas Aquinas agreed that force should be used against heretics.


I remember St. John Chrysostom had a sermon stating that those who opposed the use of wine as evil ought to have force used to disabuse them of this heresy. Three cheers for Chrysostom!

Lol.


I'll respond to the rest of your post a little later. At the moment I have to go.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
Like me, you still accept that some of the Old Testament Law is valid to establish in society. "Thou shalt not murder," and "thou shalt not steal," are pretty broadly accepted in today's society.


I would say that the moral teachings of the Old Testament are true, but I'm dubious about importing the punishments. As you point out, the Old Covenant is more concerned with justice, while the new is the establishment of mercy and grace; as Christians, we are not under the Old Law:

"Rev 21:1, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea."

"Romans 7:6, But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held;"

Romans 6:14, For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."

etc.; you of all people know I could keep going on at great length!

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Since you mention that you are becoming a Catholic, I'll note that the Catholic Church opposes the use of the death penalty, except where it is necessary.

I would also point out that many, many people who call themselves "witches" these days are nothing of the sort. They are usually just a rather bland sort of neo-pagan, whose "spells" are nothing more than prayers to Gardnerian gods. These are not the sort of people with whom Kramer and Sprenger concerned themselves.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Yes - but it's also led to a huge schism in the church...

That said, I admit I don't know a whole lot about the Anglican church, but I've never seen it as being particularly fundamentalist?

Not exactly a schism...the situation is much, much more complicated than that. One of my best friends is an Anglican, and the son of a priest, who keeps up on all this stuff. We talk about what's going on quite a lot, but I must confess even with all those talks, I still don't understand it altogether.

But you are right, the Anglican Church is not particularly fundamentalist; if it were, Canon Johns would never have been nominated for the episcopacy!

Originally Posted by Lief

Pentecost. Which is actually rather neat for me, symbolically, as my experience of God up to now has tended to focus on Pentecost.

That's great to hear! I'll remember you in my prayers in the time leading up to your conversion.

Originally Posted by Lief

In 324 AD, Constantine declared Christianity to be the official state religion, though, and he imposed fines on many pagan temples.

But doesn't the fact that there were functioning pagan temples for him to fine show that, though Christianity was the state religion, paganism was still allowed?

Originally Posted by Lief

There were a bit many of them in that time period, I think, for this to be a very viable option.

But even in the time of Augustine, pagans were still very much present and a part of Roman world, which would seems strange, if they had been repressed legally for about 100 years.