God doesn’t change but Southern Baptist do. They’ll catch up on gay marriage just like slavery, racism and women’s rights.
Thanks to wikimedia commons for the clipart I used to construct this image. Feel free to take this image and use it as you see fit.
Regardless of all of the protesting too much otherwise, the church evolves with the times and is only conservative relative to those times. This will continue and what seems outrageously wrong and liberal today will be par in the Southern Baptist church in some of our lifetimes. This already happened to our grandparents. ”Conservative” Southern Baptists of 2012 would be considered liberal by people who were attending some of the same churches 50-100 years ago. Don’t believe me? Find a copy of your churches bylaws from before World War II and stand in front of the church and tell everyone they need to live by those standards. Right.
Unfortunately churches don’t acknowledge this change, so they learn nothing from it and repeat the same mistakes over and over. Like yelling “God doesn’t change” even though the church has regularly shifted position on dozens of subjects to keep up with society’s norms (if God isn’t moving, was the church closer to him before they shifted or after?). They fear that if they acknowledge that the church changes it’s mind over the years—then maybe you’ll decide you should just make up your own mind about controversial topics. Can’t have that… :)
1) Only 400 years ago (1500 years after the New Testament was written, 1600 years after Christ and at about the same time the revered 1611 English translation of the Bible was completed) the church said Galileo was “vehemently suspected of heresy” for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun rather than vice versa. The church, based on its best understanding of scripture, had always taught that the earth was the center of everything. The rule was to believe first and then interpret math and science to suit (sound familiar?) Galileo was forced to recant and held under house arrest for the remainder of his life.
2) Just before our Revolutionary War, George Whitefield, famous preacher of the Great Awakening, used the New Testament of the bible to argue for slavery in Georgia—when it was still illegal there. He helped get it legalized and then bought and owned slaves. We’re not talking about someone who bought into the cultural context of his time—he advocated for slavery when it was illegal in his state. His stance, based on the same New Testament scripture we have today, was entirely biblical and we all agree today, wrong. Even those who in their tiny little hearts still want to think slavery was OK, won’t feel comfortable saying that out loud in front of very many people these day. But the bible was written in a time when it was OK. Some early Christians, who happened to be slaves, questioned whether they were still beholden to their master. The bible responds by exhorting slaves to obey their masters LIKE THEY OBEYED GOD.
3) I personally received more support for being racist from those in the Baptist churches I attended in my youth than in any other setting. This made me comfortable, as a teenager, making a fool out of myself using the vocabulary of hate and bigotry. It also had the later side effect of teaching me not to believe any one who tells me to make sure I know what I believe first and then to check the facts second. While I know people who will feel uncomfortable about me stating this historical racist slant of the Baptist churches in the South (and it only gets worse the further back you go in history)—I only know a couple who would, even today, openly and unequivocally oppose racism out loud in front of a large Baptist congregation. But the church has changed and (I surely hope) is at least no longer a breeding ground for racism.
4)If you have any grey hair at all, and attended church’s years ago you are familiar with Southern Baptist churches (I’m not talking off-the-wall Independent Baptists who held the conservative line after Southern Baptists abandoned all of this) that didn’t allow music with drums, didn’t allow women to wear pants in church, didn’t allow canned music, didn’t believe white people should worship with African Americans, etc. I don’t know many with the audacity to “try to find a proper place of worship” for an African American who shows up at a white church these days and of course the President of the SBC is no longer a white guy. And I personally witnessed, years ago, women being counciled about the pants they wore to church. Not likely to happen in your church today, eh? Then there’s “praise music” that used to be rejected by most churches but is now everywhere (I still don’t much like the not-so-new-anymore music but then that’s just a matter of taste…like it was when most churches agreed with me).
5)Churches used to straight up preach that women obey their husbands (you know they did). That message no longer plays in the modern world and a preacher who addresses this subject today sounds nothing like the preacher from only 25 years ago. He says something that hardly sound like the bible: “gracefully submitting herself to her husbands servant leadership….” then continues on hammering away at the next verses aimed at husbands. Sounds like Bill Clinton explaining what the meaning of “is”, is—because he knows that women are less and less willing to swallow this crap. Ministers will continue this trend and inevitably undermine “obey your husbands” even further to make it meaningless and harmless enough for women 20 years from now. And I say hurry up about it.
6)There’s very little controversy these days about women speaking from the pulpit to a mixed congregation or being the minister of music. Used to be…and I wonder what the churches stance on women’s suffrage used to be…
7)Jesus, if you’ll pay attention at all (you’ll have to read it for yourself, most churches won’t point it out), was all about a new way that diverged from what everyone had learned from the Old Testament teachings. He expected the high standards from the believers within the fold and repeatedly stated that “he came not to condemn”. What’s fun is that someone will respond that “Jesus also said” and directly contradict this non-judgmental part of Jesus’ ministry—then claim there can be no contradictions in the bible. To them I say “Jesus also said that he came not to condemn” :) No wonder Jesus was so harsh on religious folk.
8)And now I hear young people in church arguing that something as clearly forbidden in the bible as a Tatoo, is OK for Christians. Do you really think there was room for this argument in Church 50 years ago? I remember arguments against women having their ears pierced. The church, it is a changin’…
Finally, biblically speaking, we are ALL descended from a gay man who was chosen by God (“who found grace in the eyes of the Lord”) to save humanity. In the bible his gay behavior is attributed to being drunk. I remember that when I was young people used to get a pass for how they behaved when druk. But MADD has helped us all realize that you do what you do and whether drunk or not—it’s you. Noah was gay.
Surely no one is still reading, but if you are, people alive today will see most churches begin to support and embrace gay people over the years. I wish, as a 16 year old, I had taken a stance on racism more like the church teaches now. So make up your own mind about gay people and gay marriage—you’ll be in sync with the church, I promise. It’s just that it might take a few years for the church to catch up with you.
PS: Oh, and by the way, Westboro Baptist Church is a straw man and distracts us from the real problem—1,000,000 silent bigots. Better to leave Westboro alone.
The Authority Of Instinct In Moral Decision-making
Imagine, for a moment, that Abraham has killed Isaac. On returning home to his wife Sarah, Abraham decides to tell her everything – that he killed their beloved son and burnt his body, leaving his ashes to the wind. Naturally, Sarah is very upset and demands to know why Abraham would so such a thing. Looking uncomfortable, he answers that God came to him and said:
“Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering…”
God commanded Abraham to obey. Yet, He is also supposed to have given him free will – there is no reason Abraham could not have disobeyed God and saved his son’s life. In a later Holocaust, the perpetrators were said to excuse themselves with: “I was only following orders.” They were forced to murder; had they not, their families would have been punished, even killed. Assuming a vengeful God, is Abraham then justified in saying: had I been godfearing and done as He said, then I would watch my wife, my servants and all my people die. Or, as the original story is intended to be read, should we applaud Abraham for putting his trust in a moral authority who knows what’s best.
We begin by distinguishing between the role of authority through coercion and authority through wisdom in our moral decision-making. My aim in this essay is to infiltrate the minds of our hypothetical Abraham and try to understand the role of reason and sentiment in moral decision-making, relating them to both forms of authority.
Maybe you’ve never been drunk. In that case it might make sense that you believe drunks are not accountable for their actions. I have been and I know some people who get drunk on very hard liquor from time to time. They are always in danger of making poor decisions (they would agree that drinking a another glass of wine, once drunk, is a poor decision). They are in no danger of incest with either their male or female children.
I’ve heard “he was drunk” used to explain a lot of bad behavior. As though you might be accountable for being drunk but you weren’t accountable for the fruit of the drunken tree. Let a drunk harm your child or family and let’s see how you defend that position.
So our father Noah, the only worthy man on earth at the time, committed incest and was a homosexual. You have to decide if that doesn’t count because he was drunk.
Southern Baptists avoid the biblical difficulties. They extract .01% of the biblical text and expand on it—hundreds or even thousands of pages written about the most obvious and famous scripture—the small subset that Baptists can already quote. They carefully avoid getting into the majority of the bible. The real meat that can make it sound so cultishly crazy. Not Independent Baptist. They dive right into the crazy. They trust the bible and fear none of it—so you get it in all of its (gory) glory and have to decide if you can buy all of this, or not.
Some time ago I read a nice blog by Bruce Gerencser where he talked about the Achilles heel of Evangelicals—the Bible. It offers much to undermine their cause. Most of it is very uncomfortable for Evangelicals and Southern Baptists—if and when they ever encounter it.
However, and of course he knows this, the Evangelical:
If fact, if you followed an Evangelical Christian around—including Sunday while he was at church, you would see him read many carefully framed excerpts from the Bible but only actually open his bible once per week. This would be when the minister starts his sermon by asking the congregation to turn to a chapter and verse (rarely more than 10 verses—so still just an excerpt). After that the preacher occasionally quotes or reads scripture—even suggests you follow along, but no one opens the book to do so.
So you could live your whole life attending an Evangelical, Southern Baptist Church and never have to face over 90% of the bible. In fact, that’s why you keep attending and participating. If you were attending an Independent Baptist Church, measured against the totality of the Holy Book every weekend you probably wouldn’t make it that long. You would rationalize that the Bible can’t possibly be as crazy as that preacher, and leave that church forever.
Bible (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)
#SBTS (or BIOLA) challenge. My 6 passages, half from OT and half from NT, your biblical version/translation.
Up for it? Are your comfortable with the Bible meaning what it says? Or do you stay safely within the well-worn path of the comfortable 5% of the bible?
James Dobson, founder of of Focus on the Family affirms his continuing support for Akins. He accepts Akins apology for saying: ”If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
My concern about Akins isn’t just for his callousness—it’s classic that someone with his causes and beliefs would be operating under these sorts of ignorant assumptions. What other blind spots does Akins have and if he learned the truth in those areas, would a more knowledgeable Akins stand for the same things? Or does he believe what he wants to believe, regardless of the facts? Ignorance or an unwillingness to accept reality are not indicators of great statesmanship and leadership capabilities.
And supporting someone like Akins doesn’t do much for the credibility of men like James Dobson.
