Well, I am not a liberal
Well, given all the debate about inerrancy, doctrine and belief going on in the comments of this post, I think it is great that I can just answer an internet quiz and find out straight away if I am a liberal:
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You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
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What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com
It is probably a reflection of this typing that I found it extremely difficult to answer some of the questions because I wanted to deconstruct some of the terminology.
June 22nd, 2005 at 4:42 pm
“I told Lance that a person convicted would go home. It seems even that simple sentence cab’t be understood.”
But Homer, lots of people who are fined, go home, who are given a community-order, go home, who have no conviction recorded, go home, who are sent to mediation, go home, who are given home-detention, go home, so which is the penalty or lack thereof associated with ‘going home’ from court for an adulterer, fornicator or homosexual?
“The laws would be primarily educative and examples of what society believes is best.”
Instead of overloading the courts….why not just advertise?
Remember the grim reaper and the bowling ball? Gay people shat themselves.
Maybe we could have ads on bus shelters encouraging ‘vaginal border security’.
Everything is so simple and one dimensional in your conservative mindset Homer. Well, some of us live in the real world. Jesus Christ did too thankfully. You might want to get to know sometime about how he interacted with people.
WWJD? He’d make fornication, adultery and homosexuality illegal. Yeah…… right.
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:35 pm
The laws would be primarily educative and examples of what society believes is best.
This is not the purpose of the law, and putting in place a law which you either don’t want to prosecute or won’t be able to prosecute is not only a monumental waste of time and money but has the danger of undermining respect for the rule of law in any event.
The law is a blunt instrument, designed to keep people off the grass. If the government wants to educate and provide examples of what society believes is best, it could be done through political advertising and through school curriculum if necessary.
There are plenty of things in society which the government would want to educate people about which are not best practice - smoking is an example. And the government can discourage the behaviour because it is not a good idea - but it is a different thing altogether to outlaw it.
June 22nd, 2005 at 6:43 pm
Ah…but Cardinal George Pell says homosexuality is more dangerous than smoking…and because a Cardinal said it…it must be right…..
June 22nd, 2005 at 7:44 pm
Eureka Homer! I’ve found the solution to the penalty that homosexuals, fornicators and adulterers should pay after being convicted in your Bonking Court.
http://homepage.mac.com/howthedevil/.Music/themarriageunion.mp3
Good, Godly Christian sex education.
(no, it is not a faked-up recording)
Well, can’t dilly-dally,the boys next door have got their Cab Calloway tunes blaring again and the Astor television is playing up.
June 22nd, 2005 at 7:44 pm
Eureka Homer! I’ve found the solution to the penalty that homosexuals, fornicators and adulterers should pay after being convicted in your Bonking Court.
http://homepage.mac.com/howthedevil/.Music/themarriageunion.mp3
Good, Godly Christian sex education.
(no, it is not a faked-up recording)
Well, can’t dilly-dally,the boys next door have got their Cab Calloway tunes blaring again and the Astor television is playing up.
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:11 am
I have been following this blog since the advent of “what is a liberal”, and i recently came across this passage in a book by Bertrand Russell. In reading this passage some of what has been written on these blogs came to mind.
‘The Church’s conception of righteousness is socially undesirable in various ways - first and foremost in its depreciation of intelligence and science. This defect is inherited from the Gospels. Christ tells us to become as little children, but little children cannot understand the differential calculus, or the principles of currency, or the modern methods of combating disease. To aquire such knowledge is no part of our duty, according to the Church.The Church no longer contendsthat knowledge is initself sinful, though it did in its palmy days; but the aquisition of knowledge, even though not sinful, is dangerous, since it may lead to pride of intellect, and hence to the questioning of the Christian dogma. Take, for example, two men, one of whom has stomped out yellow fever throughout some region in the tropics, but has in the course of his labours had occasional relations with women to whom he was not married; while the other has been lazy and shiftless, begetting a child a year until his wife died of exhaution, taking little or no care of his children that half of them died of preventable causes, but never indulging in illicit sexual intercourse. Every good Christian must maintainthat the second of these men is more virtuous than the first. Such an attitude is, of course, superstitious and totally contrary to reason. Yet something of this absurdity is inevitable so long as avoidence of sin is thought more important than positive merit, and so long as the importance of knowledge as a help to a useful life is not recognised.’
It may not be all that relevent, but i admire all of you and respect your opinions. I would like to hear your thoughts on this passage.
Oh, I also tried out this test and scored as Emergent/Postmodern. I am not going to pretend that i know what the results mean….but its me.
You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
Emergent/Postmodern 86%
Modern Liberal 79%
Classical Liberal 71%
Roman Catholic 46%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 46%
Charismatic/Pentecostal 36%
Neo orthodox 29%
Reformed Evangelical 25%
Fundamentalist 0%
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:26 am
The Law is not necessarily a blunt instrument it is a fence to protect others from dangerous behavior. It may feel like a blunt instrument to those breaking the law–The bible tries to prevent people from doing stupid things and hurting them selves but the bible states that the laws are there to protect you until Jesus came and then he would write the law on your heart and his holy spirit would help you live Godly lives. Many to most law today are damage-control laws for a chaotic people who need protection from each other when relationships (Spiritual, physical, and emotional) go sour.
June 23rd, 2005 at 9:14 am
So Christians never break the law, ABJ?
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:22 am
Not if they can help it.
This does not mean they can’t sin it means they don’t want to sin for the most part.
I can avoid killing people,I can avoid premartial sex, I can avoid smoking and drinking to the excess, I can avoid swearing (unless I am in lot of pain and then I repent) I can avoid making mean-spirited comments to others and instead build them up with my words.
Granted it is harder if you hang out with some people who always pressure you to sin and some of these people are christian but you can pray and God will help you regardless.
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:43 am
Dan,
ABJ has stolen my thunder
Luke,
I said what I would do. I have never said that Asutralian society would support this when it is quite obvious a large majority indulge in such ‘pleasures’.
If I could put such laws then I would have community support however I won’t and therefore haven’t.
Lexia, Bertran russel was wrong in his analysis because he did not understand what virtous meant.
Lance,
I have never taken any notice of george Pell given he does not understand how one obtains salvation.
If you look at the gospels for the words sexual immorality and JC you might be surprised.
such a law and what JC is very simialr as it would give the people the chance to repent which is what JC did.
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:30 am
you guys might appreciate this article…its kinda relevant to the whole debate.
Seems that the Southern Baptists have ended their boycott of disney (due to violating traditional family values…maybe mickey is a bit queer..) and have passed a new motion for parents to investigate their kids schools to make sure they aren’t too gay friendly. check the article - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160382,00.html
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:33 am
Lexia,
I think that Russell has taken the actions of the Chirtians with whom he is acquainted, and the Gospel of Jesus, and made them into one and the same thing. The actions he describes (of the second man) are not Christlike, virtuous, or anything of the sort. And his comment leaves no room for grace, which is what the message of Christ is built upon, first and foremost.
I won’t criticise Russell though - mainly because he was a hell of a lot cleverer than me, but also because he could only be expected to judge the Gospel on the actions of the Christians he saw. As Nietszche said, “show me you are redeemed, and then I will believe in your redeemer”. Not an unfair question. The church has often been guilty of preaching exactly what Russell has described - but I don;t believe it to be Christlike, or true to what God calls us to be as human beings and as followers of him.
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:39 am
I think that Russell’s comments are a fair critique of the way that religion has been interpreted and preached in some circles. As Luke said, the second man is not virtuous in the true sense of the word.
However the dichotomy which Russell sets up between the two men relies on the idea that some types of sin are worse than other types of sin, and that salvation is a play by play event rather than a holistic embrace by the grace and love of God. Both of these assumptions are fair in one sense - in the sense that observation of some christian preaching and teaching could lead one to draw these conclusions. But they are unfair in the sense that they do not represent the gospel preached by Jesus Christ.
In his first statement regarding becoming like a child, I think again that this shows a blurring (perhaps deliberate?) between the statements of jesus and the understanding of men and women.
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
“If you look at the gospels for the words sexual immorality and JC you might be surprised.
such a law and what JC is very simialr as it would give the people the chance to repent which is what JC did.”
Homer, your attempts to make over Jesus Christ in your own image won’t work.
Not only was Christ’s approach dissimilar to the nonsense you’re advocating in making fornication, adultery and homosexuality illegal …it was the total opposite.
He granted forgiveness and restoration to sexual sinners; prostitutes and adulterers, not dragging them off to court.
I have no idea what bible you’re reading Homer, but it’s different to the one everyone else reads.
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:01 pm
Dan, you are correct.
Bertran Russell never really understood christianity as Kirsten Beckett has shown ( neither did Neitschke either).
Lance,
What about the people who do not accept forgiveness bevcause there is nothing to forgive.
look again.
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Homer, what about people who are not offered forgiveness in the first place, as conservatives refuse to do?
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:42 pm
how have i stole your thumder homer?
I would need put out your light, even the litttlist starlight
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:10 pm
ABJ,
no.69 said it all.
Lance don’t talk rubbish.
Provide some evidence that conservatives won’t forgive!
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:34 pm
So …Homer, you’ve forgiven gay people….adulterers and fornicators for all that they have done, are doing and will do?
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:43 pm
Lance,
I only have to forgive people who have done something against me.
That I have done.
It matters not sort of people they are.
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:49 pm
Have you forgiven me Homer, for treating you with the contempt you deserve?
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:53 pm
Luke,
I was born, raised and am an Athiest. I have had little to do with religion and know even less about it. What experience i have had of religion has not been very positive. I am not an especially intelligent person, and i have trouble articulating my opinions so, hence, i rarely give them. But the little understanding that i do have of Christianity tells me that, in the example Russell gave, the second man, having not committed a sin in the eyes of the church, would not be punished with eternal damnation and all that….where as the first man would. Regardless of the teachings of Christ, The Church (I get this impression anyway) still regards it as an issue. Please correst me if i am wrong, it is the reason i posted that piece. i am not one to take things on face value and like to see both sides of the fence before i choose one.
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:56 pm
I dont know why i directed my last post at you Luke, I would like to hear all of ur opinions on this please
June 23rd, 2005 at 5:04 pm
I always forgive you Lance.
Lexia,
the second man had committed a sin. you will find sloth and laziness is condemned.
June 23rd, 2005 at 5:16 pm
Lexia,
Thanks for your comments. The church does definitely still regard sin as an issue. And we who comment here would have different understandings of the consequences of sin (ie whether we are talking eternal damnation). Where we distinguish Russell’s statement is that the second man in that argument is actually committing sins in the eyes of the church - just not the most publicised ones.
Sexual sins may be what springs to mind as things that the church considers bad, but other sins including sins against people (such as jealousy, malice), and sins such as sloth, gossip, drunkenness, impurity of thought and a whole range of things. We understand that sin means “missing the mark” and (while many of us would differ as to whether particular behaviours are sins or not) we would probably all agree that the second man is not sin-free in the eyes of Jesus or the church simply because he has been sexually faithful.
One of the principles of christianity is that every sin is equal - there are not big sins and little sins. Humanly, we might think that murder is worse than lying and therefore more deserving of punishment but according to christian beliefs all sins, no matter how “minor” they would seem, are equal.
June 23rd, 2005 at 5:33 pm
Homer, you’ve gone all quiet on me.
You rubbished my suggestion that Conservatives are unforgiving…and asked me to provide evidence.
I asked you Homer if you’ve forgiven me for treating you with the contempt that you deserve….and now…for some reason……you’re not saying much.
I wonder if it could be because I’m right about conservatives being unforgiving of ’sinners’.. (dragging them off to Bonking Court ..etc).
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:04 pm
That’s spooky….post 84 was not there at 5:20 when I started writing post 86.
Anyways Homer, why would you want to take your brother to court if you’ve forgiven them?
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:07 pm
“Bonking Court”……(immature snigger)
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:08 pm
And let’s give this some bible context since you conservatives swear by your bibles.
If Homer you’ve been forgiven a great debt by your master, why are you shaking the shit out of adulterers, homosexuals and fornicators to pay the debt they owe?
Won’t the master get angry with you Homer, and describe you as a wicked servant?
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:12 pm
“Bonking Court(immature snigger)”
Well…what else do we call it…..?
‘The Unmarried Fellatio and Intercourse Tribunal”
I suppose we could call it ‘DFAT’ but that’s already taken.