Religious Does Not Equal Crazy Right Wing Hypocrite

It's hard to forget this sometimes, and I do have some strong intuitions about how deeply religious people can more often be crazy right wing hypocrites, but it's nice to know that I may very well be wrong in that intuition.

After reading a post by The Green Knight delving into the idea that it is mostly the crazy right-wing religious people that are given any air time (vs giving the not wingnut religious people some air time, that is), I asked for some pointers to religious people who are forming coalitions to support same-sex marriage, and oddjob over there did give me some good pointers, which I'm passing along to y'all:

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA (March 29, 2000) --North America's Reform Rabbis passed a resolution today under which the Reform rabbinate officially supports the decision of individual rabbis to officiate, or not officiate, at Jewish same-gender ceremonies. The vote--with an overwhelming majority voting in the affirmative--occurred here at the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the representative organization of North America's approximately 1,800 Reform rabbis, the largest group of Jewish clergy.

and

One local Episcopal priest, a prominent feminist theologian at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, has notified the bishop of Massachusetts that she plans to disobey him by officiating at the marriages of two lesbian couples this month; one Lutheran minister has similarly informed the bishop of New England of an intention to disobey. In both denominations, performing same-sex weddings despite instructions from bishops not to do so could lead to serious discipline, such as ouster from the ministry.

Filed under: Religion

I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

How could somebody interpret this as 'egalitarian'?:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives and Husbands
22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

I know some of y'all are Xtians out there. Clue me in.

Filed under:Feminism and Religion

Wow.

This video on google is so funny-yet-disturbing that I'm sort of at a loss for words.

Baby Got Book.

I'm not sure what's funnier, the fact that the song is basically comparing 'The Holy Bible' to ASS, or the line "I like them leather and bound..."

(gleaned from little professor)


Filed under:Pop Culture and Religion

Wow.

This video on google is so funny-yet-disturbing that I'm sort of at a loss for words.

Baby Got Book.

I'm not sure what's funnier, the fact that the song is basically comparing 'The Holy Bible' to ASS, or the line "I like them leather and bound..."

(gleaned from little professor)


Filed under:Pop Culture and Religion

Good Christians

I'm not sure what my fascination with Christianity amounts to, at times. Sometimes I think that it's just sort of like morbid curiosity, but then I manage to convince myself that it's more than that--I recognize that so many of those around me at least profess to be Christians that I need to learn to interact with Christians in as healthy a way as possible. So I try to find inroads to knowing/liking 'em where I can.

Here's a new inroad: Go check out The Green Knight's take on the claims by some Christians that they are being oppressed by secularists.

I think part of what I like about The Green Knight is that he or she seems like a moderate sort of Christian who is not afraid to take on the less-than-good elements within Christiandom; in fact, he or she seems to revel in taking them on, seems to think it's both necessary and important. I like that because I think it is somewhat the responsibility of all Christians to do so (and of all Americans to take crazy Americans to task, all Buddhists to take the crazy Buddhists to task, etc.).



Filed under:Religion

Dooce Is Funny

And this is one of the reasons I read her blog every day:

We didn’t prepare her for the event for a few reasons. One, we are lazy. Two, how do you explain the Easter Bunny to a two-year-old? Look, Sweetie, this giant bunny wearing a bow-tie is going to break into the house while you’re sleeping because Jesus died for your sins.

Filed under:Religion

Awesome

Almost makes me wish I were Mormon when I was a teenager...


Filed under:Pop Culture and Religion

Christ Was, After All, A Guy, Right?

Hugo has an interesting post up about gender roles and (to a great degree) how his unique pro-feminist-Christian stance informs his beliefs on them. One particular part sort of stuck in my craw, though, because I think he does what many Christians do in terms of 'cherry picking' from the bible. This happens most often if somebody brings up the old testament--Christians often point out that this was the old testament, and that Jesus makes everything different. But what's the point of keeping the OT around if Jesus makes everything different? As Sam Harris points out (he wrote The End of Faith), Jesus may be the turn-the-other-cheeck-peace-monger sort of guy, but he is also the guy who (many believe from the bible) is coming back to earth with a freakin' fiery sword to kill those who don't love him.

Hugo says:
As Genesis makes clear, rigid gender roles with their strict complementarianism are a holdover from the Fall, but in Christ all things are made new. To me, that has always meant that as a believer, I can never, ever, ever, ever, say "I'm just a man, I can't help being the way I am." Christ destroys our old nature, including our fearful adherence to narrowly defined categories like "manliness" and "womanliness".

Christ destroys our old nature, so we don't have to create ourselves with those old, narrowly defined categories that, according to Hugo, God Himself laid down (in the OT). I try to take Hugo to task to explain to me why we have to adhere to any of the moral laws that God laid down in the OT then...


Filed under:Feminism and
Religion

Copycat Abortion Bans

Thanks a lot, all you South Dakotians! Geez. Now 12 states are considering abortion bans. Ech. NARAL has a bunch of stuff you can do; email your governor easily through NARAL's site here for starters.

Filed under:
Feminism,Politics,Religion and Sex