JillMatrix reports on the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in St. Louis. Always good for a laugh, except when they make you cry. Some of the current highlights (aside from the…
JillMatrix reports on the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in St. Louis. Always good for a laugh, except when they make you cry.
Some of the current highlights (aside from the entertaining internecine struggle over whether the Texas general convention is planning on seceding):
Sympathy for Catholics, and an acknowledgment that the abuse scandals in a church setting are not solely a Catholic occurance. The more decentralized structure of the SBC is a mixed blessing here — it’s less likely that one person at the top (since there really is no “top”) can hush things up, but it also means lack of oversight as to what folks out at the fringes are doing.Lack of sympathy for Moslems.“Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, and his last one was a 9-year-old girl,” Vines said to applause.
“Allah is not Jehovah, either,” Vines said. “Jehovah is not going to turn anyone into a terrorist that will try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people.”
I’m sure Timothy McVeigh would be surprised to hear that. The Crusaders might have an objection as well.
Lack of sympathy toward gays protesting the convention, a number of whom were arrested and charged with trespassing and “ethnic intimidation” (?).46 view(s)
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These certanly are trying times for folks of any organized religion? Unless you’re Buddist, there seem to be scandals involving every major religion. You’re fairly open in your beliefs, so I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how do you keep your faith?
“Allah is not Jehovah, either,” Vines said. “Jehovah is not going to turn anyone into a terrorist that will try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people.”
Erf… and the whole old testament – ‘let me lead you to a land where we will knock down the locals together’… do modern christians really think all of *that* was bloodless and merciful?
eek.
Well, that’s different, Jenn! That’s not terrorism, that’s the Word of the LORD! Besides, all those Philistines were, well, Philistines, and deserved a good lopping off of heads and raping of women …
In answer to your question, Adam, in theory Christians should have a relatively easy time of this, since Christianity starts off with the premise that humans are imperfect, even sinful; thus, scandal and failings on the part of religious leaders should be accepted, even expected.
In reality, of course, the messenger gets tangled up in the message, at least in the minds and hearts of the messaged. That’s unfair, but it’s (again) human nature.
I try not to let my faith be dependent on the moral fiber of religious leaders. It is, perhaps, strengthened by it (and we have some very wonderful, if still human, spiritual leaders at our parish), but they are not the object of my worship and contemplation — the Deity is.
Sounds good on paper, at least.
Great point…the message shouldn’t be tied up with the messenger. That statement would then lead me to ask, if He is the object of your worship, why do you need to attend mass? Shouldn’t you be able to humble yourself with Him at home?
I know this is a bit of a bait. And please don’t take it as an attack. I’m a fallen Catholic. I still believe in Him, but I honestly don’t go to mass but I do pray at home.
LOL – thanks for clearing that up for me, Dave.
Lots of Love, too.
This is all my opinion, and YMMV and all that …
While God is the object of worship, and the relationship with the Deity is the key one we are called to have, Jesus made it clear that our lives are social ones. We’re not called to sit cloistered in monasteries, but to live amongst one another, the Second Greatest Commandment being “to love your neighbor as yourself” and the Great Commission being to spread the Good News.
(Hrm. That’s about as Christian a paragraph as I’ve written in many a long year.)
So to my mind, there is great value, even need, in worship as a social event. Getting out of the house once a week to go to church not only serves as a regular reminder of the relationship I’m trying to have with the divine (just in case it’s slipped one’s mind, as it is wont to do), but there is the mental, emotional, and, yes, spiritual reinforcement of doing it amongst others.
(To my mind, that’s one of the great strengths of a faith with a strong liturgical tradition, like the Catholic or Episcopal churches — because it draws on the traditional as well, joining you with all the others who have said those words.)
Being a part of a church is a challenge, too. You are reminded of spiritual dimensions and aspects of God’s love and how God interacts with others’ lives in ways that may not be obvious if you just do it on your own.
So, yes, you can be able to pray at home. And you should. But I think if that’s the only place you pray — by yourself, when you remember to, in silence and loneliness, then you’re also missing a valuable aspect of your worship life.
I understand your perspective. My issue lies with the interpretation of His word. I’m not prone to listen to what other people “think” the bible means. Each person get’s something different out of reading the Bible.
That’s true. Though in many (most?) cases the message received has more in common than there is different.
Even where there are differences, that’s one of the values of a society of worship — the opportunity to hear new ideas (about what, for example, the Bible means). Sure, there are some who take that as license for trying to impose their vision, not share it … but that’s not inevitable or intrinsic to a social worship setting.
The longer I live the more I see two distinct types of religious believers: those from the “you’re with me or agin’ me” school, and the “my beliefs don’t necessarilly negate your beliefs” school. It may be an almost organic destinction as few people switch from one side to the other (except possibly in later life, when more stuff tends to slide off one’s back). I’ve never inderstood the need to be forceful about one’s relegious beliefs.
If I were to be a Christian, I would sight Jesus’ call to action, not the “pompous talk” of the Pharisies and Sadducies(sp – theology I know – spelling is a problem) when interacting with the world. He continually denies his divinity and stresses him actions, actions that everyone could emulate (maybe not the walking on water thing). We can feed the hungry, if we choose; we can comfort the sick; we can praise god for our blessings, the choice is ours. So often religious leaders preach his words without living his example.
We are lead to faith by who we are and how we perceive this world, therefore we are doomed to never have one vision of god. We must learn to accept other people’s vision or we will continue to kill one another in the name of a (supposed) god of love.
Acceptance and tolerance cannot be absolute. I’ve no inclination to tolerate my neighbors being practicing members of the First Church of Human Sacrificers for Cthulhu. I would argue that not all religions are equal — except from the perspective of all being mere baby steps from the start line toward the ultimate truth (some of those steps are retrograde, others are wandering off in other directions, others are in circles, and others are just plopping down on the track).
But we all have so far to go in our own personal spiritual journey that to spend a lot of time critiquing others along the way — except when those others are actively trying to roast you on a spit — seems to quickly reach the point of diminishing returns and instead shifting over into distraction.