You're so involved with your emotional response to homosexuality, that you can't comprehend what Christian belief requires of you.
You were the one who bought up homosexuality. There is no emotionalism on my part regarding it, rather there is an analysis of law and the sorts of claims you are making regarding the power of law and what it effects. You are comparing homosexuality to other sins, as if it were on the level of lying, whereas the bible and the Christian tradition compares it to a degradation of nature itself. An unnatural act abomindable in the eyes of God.
If you want to argue that from this tradition we ought to therefore tolerate it within Christianity, what else then ought we tolerate? Must we tolerate everything sexual? Give up the Christian sexual ethic and submit our standards to the sexual revolution? Such actions have consequences, namely the undermining of authentic sexuality, undermining the family and the breakdown of the previous social order. Consequences I’m not prepared to accept to appease the ego of the LGBT crowd.
Certainty the sexual revolution has lead to nothing good, we can at least agree on that right?
Rather, the above-documented decline of the religious right began when they began to seek political power. It probably seemed at the time that a campaign against homosexuals was a good path. The fruits of that move turned out to be a decline in numbers of evangelical Christians and increasing public acceptance of homosexuality, as well as a frequently-documented culture of corruption among evangelical leaders.
Nothing the left has done has reverse that decline either. You want to blame it all on the religious right and you would be right to say that the religious right has responded poorly to modernity but you’re misdiagnosing the actual cause of it.
Corruption has been around for centuries in the Church and in the secular governments of Christendom. It didn’t lead people away from the faith. It might have lead to new expressions, new heresies like Lutheranism or Protestantism in general but not the complete abandonment of faith.
The religious right has always held political power, since about Constantine and Christianity only continued to grow since Constantine. It began to be stifled at about the time of the enlightenment when the philosophy you advocate became a major influencing force for both Conservatives and Liberals.
So pinning the decline all on the modern religious right is hardly convincing and your analysis of history in general seems shoddy. It’s viciously partisan. What has the left done to make religion more of an option? Why do most atheists and non-believers prefer the left? You at least acknowledge that religious life is declining for the left right?
Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy. Propose a restoration of this primitive State in which its Teachers depended on the voluntary rewards of their flocks, many of them predict its downfall. On which Side ought their testimony to have greatest weight, when for or when against their interest?
James Madison Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments
I would rather talk to you than your Father in the secular Cathedral but alright. He asks what the fruits of the established Church were. It was the conversion of Europe, the establishment of a culture which lead to the sort of person James Madison was. He accuses the Church of superstition and ignorance, bigotry and the like. These are human characteristics in any age and can be attributed to people in general.
James Madison is the perfect example of C.S Lewis’ critique of those that exhibit a modern snobbishness to the old ways of thinking, to our ancestors in the past. He’s at heart a revolutionary, despising the old ways and seeking to expunge them with violent force. Which is unsurprising since America was founded on violent force against the Crown.
Given the decline of Christianity in America since it’s inception, the breakdown of distinctions of Christians within it into one borg blob, what are the consequences of America and the liberalism James Madison proposed? Protestants are no longer Protestant. Catholics are no longer Catholic. They are both American and in giving up their distinctives and insisting they are citizens of the state first rather than subjects of Jesus Christ the King, they are the perfect example of modern Liberalism in action. It’s parasitic and acidic effects on local communities, the breakdown of tradition and unencumbered imperialism.
If this is what you stand for, it won’t benefit Christianity.
For us, we are in the world, but not of it. You have become of it, seeking what is Caesar's. And thereby you may well have lost what is God's.
I am in fairly good company. With the whole host of the Church before the enlightenment. In the effort to defend the modern order of things you have to rebuke and repudiate all who came before you.
I am unable to break with that tradition, I am unable to subjugate my will to a current order that only serves to undermine Christianity in the hearts of men and render them good consumers and materialists.
No. Madison, for example, believed that only a religious people could form a just and free nation. He merely recognized that government involvement in religion was destructive to religion. Government must not become involved in religion.
Then you must either conclude that Madison was wrong and Americans are not a just people. As far as I can tell historically within Christianity Government has been extremely helpful to it’s cause. It’s only an enlightenment narrative and assumption that leads you to that belief.
One could for instance look at a modern insulated Christian community like the Amish or a Monastic community. The Amish and the Monks have many rules for how they govern themselves. Very strict rules and standards. One could consider these laws in of themselves. Should these communities adopt liberal standards? Would such standards result in more faithfulness or less faithfulness?
The Amish are about the only Christian community in the world today that is growing and they are decidedly anti-modern. Forgoing conveniences and our average lives they are actually living a decent and Christian life. Yet if religion must not have any impact on our lives and how we conduct our communities (I suppose you oppose religious law in the local community) these communities must be necessarily abolished. They are at odds with the state and must be forced to comply with modernity.
No. As The Church points out, homosexuality is a sin, one that cannot be accepted. At the same time, it is unacceptable to unjustly discriminate against homosexuals.
Your tolerance will lead to the Catholic Church eventually accepting Homosexuality and as a result there will be a schism. You will go the modernist route. The traditionalists and conservatives will go the route of the ancient Church.
Toleration within civil society is one thing, but to tolerate homosexuality within your local community is only going to lead to acceptance and eventually gay marriage. I think this is something you want and James Martin wants.
If we are to have a Church in the future, we must be willing to be intolerant of certain behaviors. Certain people must not be allowed to join a Church until they have proven themselves somewhat capable. This is not ideal and the Church should welcome all, but in the future with the decline of faith an inward strategy of focusing on community building and strict standards of who and who is not part of the Church is the only way the Church will be able to resist modernity.
Christianity grew during the Roman persecutions. Not because they won over the government, but because others noticed them. "See how they love each other."
Yes and what did the early Christians do to dissidents within their own communities? They expelled them, cast them out to Satan and wanted no part with them. The early Church was persecuted and not tolerated but it wasn’t by being liberal that they achieved the position in Rome that they did, but by being insular, governing themselves according to strict moral standards and enforcing them in the community. Thus they did not get assimilated into Roman Paganism and were strictly loyal to Christ first before the state.
If a bunch of consecrated virgins were found to be sleeping in the same quarters as young men they were punished for their impropriety. The Catholic Church today can’t even call out Joe Biden for supporting tax payer funded abortion without someone in its ranks defending him. You of course are silent on this topic because you have no open criticism for Joe Biden while he's in office. The problem with Christianity today is that the Churches are unwilling to enforce standards, unwilling to foster the sort of close nit communities that actually flourish.
You can compare the Churches to foreigners who come to Western countries and manage to retain their own heritage religion and traditions. They form micro societies within the larger society and are thus more resilient to westernization. In my own Auckland there are Islamic and Sikh communities completely distinct and unintegrated into the wider New Zealand culture. This might change within some generations as they send their kids to public schools and their kids progressively abandon the faith as they grow older. I hope for the sake of this local communities they realize that New Zealand public schools do not serve their interests. I knew this one Sikh guy. Thoroughly New Zealand in terms of accent and attitude. Incredibly different from the rest of his family. That’s a microcosm of the sort of break down that actually happens as a result of public education and being part of the wider society.
Constantine, for all his good intentions, started the Church down a path of corruption from which it has escaped only in recent times. Maybe a huge congregation isn't a sign of a godly congregation.
Meaningless and vague corruption charges mean nothing. People in positions of authority are always tempted to use power for their own ends. This has been true in ancient times and it is true today. If however you are Frodo and refuse to pick up the ring of power, you only allow someone else, like Sauron or Saruman to get it.
In arguing that Christians give up all civic power, all political control to those who do not have our interests at heart, you are in effect arguing for the abolition of Christianity. You prefer America be preserved or Maxentius get power than Christianity flourish and have a positive impact on the lives of people.
Nothing that you’ve advocated for here will result in the flourishing of Christianity. You know this and yet you refuse to admit it. As America has become more and more secular it continues to become less and less Christian. You then suggest that if we give up all of our influence, every last single ounce of it and submit our lives to the authority of the secular Republic that we’ll magically become Christian? That a society that governs itself according to certain principles will just turn around and become more Christian?
You’re either deluded or you’re an enemy from within.
