Xenophobialand
20-04-2004, 04:39
Before I begin, I must confess two things. Firstly, I was brought up in a fairly strict. . .well, if not Christian atmosphere, at least an atmosphere where conservative Christian thought was heavily infuential in my upbringing. Additionally, I went to elementary school built and run by Christian fundamentalists.
That being said, the second point I must confess is that despite this heavy conservative Christian influence on my upbringing, as well as a fairly good knowledge of the Bible, Gospels especially, I'm pretty sure that my training and induction into this world predates the evangelical and other newer fundamentalist trends. For example, despite the fact that I went to elementary education at a school run by Missouri-Synod Lutherans (a group that would probably refer to Southern Baptists as "damned liberals"), we were still given thorough sex-ed, even to the point of explicit videos (few remember that the churches of America once produced and showed these kinds of videos) designed for the express purpose of showing firstly what the bodily functions were, and second that it should be done in the context of a loving relationship. We were also taught evolution, natural sciences, physics, and all other kinds of things that contradict parts of the Bible. This practice would probably be considered an abomination by today's church.
But this is of course, almost completely off-topic. I was only trying to explain why it is that I as a Christian have little or no understanding of several topics that were never mentioned when I was in church, but now seem to be common topics among conservative Christians. I would like to know, legitemately, why these topics are of interest to you later breed of evangelicals, and how you make sense of them. I'm seriously not trying to offend or insult you, and I hope that no one else does either. I'd simply like to know.
1) Free-Will and political ideology. When I was in school, we were taught that man had free will, probably the same as you. The difference is that we worked this into the teaching of John Locke: as free will is an integral part of all humans as created by God, and God is by nature Good, then it stands to reason that that government is best which best preserves the ability of the people to choose for themselves. To inhibit this process is to inhibit God's plan for creating an even better world than one in which evil never existed, and therefore no triumph over corruption was needed. This is of course skeletal, but I'm sure you get the idea.
The problem is that most religious conservatives nowadays do not accept this conclusion, in fact in many ways, they actively oppose it. From pornography to abortion to sexual politics, it seems that in many cases, the objective of the religious right is not to expand choice, but to limit it. Now mind you this is not about sin per se, or saying that either one of those things are or are not sinful, but a question about the nature of government: how do you reconcile the fact that your religion is adamantly in favor of a free-will conception of human nature, while at the same time your politics is in many ways determined to limit free-will as much as possible by government coercion?
2) The Rapture. When I was in elementary school, the Rapture was never mentioned. We never once heard a sermon about how God would carry away the Chosen before Armaggeddon, in fact, we heard scarce little about Armaggeddon at all. What we did hear about was a great deal about Jesus: his teachings, his sacrifice, his moral exemplarism, his faith.
This leads me to a question about conservative Christians now: why is the Rapture so important, and more importantly, is it even moral? You see, when I hear Jesus say that those without power are blessed and the meek shall inherit the earth, and that they are the righteous who defend both the innocent and the guilty, I have trouble reconciling this notion with a Jesus who would take away the most righteous of all people at a time when the world needs them most. If you were truly Christian, wouldn't you want to stay behind to help those, as opposed to being carried off where you cannot fight evil? Wouldn't you have a moral responsibility to bear the brunt of the suffering, so that others would not have too? This is the legacy I was brought up with, but is strikingly different from evangelical sermons of today. So my question is, how do you reconcile these seemingly contradictory aspects of Christian teaching?
That being said, the second point I must confess is that despite this heavy conservative Christian influence on my upbringing, as well as a fairly good knowledge of the Bible, Gospels especially, I'm pretty sure that my training and induction into this world predates the evangelical and other newer fundamentalist trends. For example, despite the fact that I went to elementary education at a school run by Missouri-Synod Lutherans (a group that would probably refer to Southern Baptists as "damned liberals"), we were still given thorough sex-ed, even to the point of explicit videos (few remember that the churches of America once produced and showed these kinds of videos) designed for the express purpose of showing firstly what the bodily functions were, and second that it should be done in the context of a loving relationship. We were also taught evolution, natural sciences, physics, and all other kinds of things that contradict parts of the Bible. This practice would probably be considered an abomination by today's church.
But this is of course, almost completely off-topic. I was only trying to explain why it is that I as a Christian have little or no understanding of several topics that were never mentioned when I was in church, but now seem to be common topics among conservative Christians. I would like to know, legitemately, why these topics are of interest to you later breed of evangelicals, and how you make sense of them. I'm seriously not trying to offend or insult you, and I hope that no one else does either. I'd simply like to know.
1) Free-Will and political ideology. When I was in school, we were taught that man had free will, probably the same as you. The difference is that we worked this into the teaching of John Locke: as free will is an integral part of all humans as created by God, and God is by nature Good, then it stands to reason that that government is best which best preserves the ability of the people to choose for themselves. To inhibit this process is to inhibit God's plan for creating an even better world than one in which evil never existed, and therefore no triumph over corruption was needed. This is of course skeletal, but I'm sure you get the idea.
The problem is that most religious conservatives nowadays do not accept this conclusion, in fact in many ways, they actively oppose it. From pornography to abortion to sexual politics, it seems that in many cases, the objective of the religious right is not to expand choice, but to limit it. Now mind you this is not about sin per se, or saying that either one of those things are or are not sinful, but a question about the nature of government: how do you reconcile the fact that your religion is adamantly in favor of a free-will conception of human nature, while at the same time your politics is in many ways determined to limit free-will as much as possible by government coercion?
2) The Rapture. When I was in elementary school, the Rapture was never mentioned. We never once heard a sermon about how God would carry away the Chosen before Armaggeddon, in fact, we heard scarce little about Armaggeddon at all. What we did hear about was a great deal about Jesus: his teachings, his sacrifice, his moral exemplarism, his faith.
This leads me to a question about conservative Christians now: why is the Rapture so important, and more importantly, is it even moral? You see, when I hear Jesus say that those without power are blessed and the meek shall inherit the earth, and that they are the righteous who defend both the innocent and the guilty, I have trouble reconciling this notion with a Jesus who would take away the most righteous of all people at a time when the world needs them most. If you were truly Christian, wouldn't you want to stay behind to help those, as opposed to being carried off where you cannot fight evil? Wouldn't you have a moral responsibility to bear the brunt of the suffering, so that others would not have too? This is the legacy I was brought up with, but is strikingly different from evangelical sermons of today. So my question is, how do you reconcile these seemingly contradictory aspects of Christian teaching?