Jesus Hates Religion

[anitram]

The early Christians also did not join the Jewish revolt against the pagan Roman state, as they firmly believed that Jesus was going to return like a thief in the night (ie. at any time, not thousands of years later). They were preparing their hearts for the arrival of the kingdom and they most certainly did not believe, in the early days, that they had to overtake the state or that it was necessary or desirable for the state to be a Christian one. Instead, they were focused inwardly.

Again, how far we haven't come.

 

[yolland]

It doesn't seem to me this young man's discontents are much analogous to the deeply fraught conflicts over fundamental doctrine (eschatology, soteriology etc.) that characterized early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism. He's talking about something far more mundane and insidious--the steady drip-drip-drip of petty corruptions, hypocrisies and 'sins of omission' and the corrosive effect they can have on a community's morale and especially on its young people. It's not that he's disagreeing with the people he's criticizing on core doctrinal issues (as Sean pointed out), rather he's charging them with failing to live up to their own professed beliefs. I realize it's common rhetorical practice in Christianity to analogize these things, but from the outside at least that can sometimes read rather strange--it seems to trivialize the enormity of Paul et al.'s achievement in articulating a distinct new theology in a time of great cultural and intellectual ferment and turmoil, while at the same time distorting and overstating the nature of the differences between would-be whistleblowers and their communities.

 

[deep]

i did not want to start a new thread so I will just put this here

Black wedding banned by Baptist church

because with religion, it is okay and legal to discriminate (hate)

 

[Pearl]

i did not want to start a new thread so I will just put this here

Black wedding banned by Baptist church

because with religion, it is okay and legal to discriminate (hate)

Wow.

But based on what I read in the article, it doesn't sound like a church/religion problem but local racism. Meaning, in some areas in the South, racism is still alive and well.

 

[Irvine511]

Guys, it's just their belief, ok? Why do we all have to think in exactly the same way? Some tolerance for diversity and the marketplace of ideas would be appreciated by people who demand the same.

 

[corianderstem]

Pretty much.

 

[yolland]

The current head of the denomination is black; wonder what he'll have to say about this.

What an appalling lack of leadership from that pastor, to disagree in the press with this "small minority" of congregants, yet give in and move the ceremony to another church. So what if they do "vote you out" (though I find that hard to believe if it's a small minority)? Your moral leadership's not worth much if you're not willing to stand up to that, in which case why are you a pastor at all. And if it's not a small minority then maybe that's not a congregation you want to be serving.