Why do Bushie-style Christians not accept LGBT Christians?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

When you think about it, this is quite inconsisent. See this:

Indy, as strange as it may sound.  If that dictator was truly a born again Christian then yes God views him as a success.  God doesn't look at actions to judge whether one enters heaven or not, He judges solely by the heart and whether that heart has accepted His Son's sacrifice as atonement.  No sin is worse than any other sin.  If you think that's a horrible God, then look at it this way, nobody deserves heaven.  We all deserve hell.  He extends His grace freely to anyone who would believe regardless of good or bad deeds.  Even the best thing we could do is a filthy rag in the sight of God, so He extends His grace to cover our sin.  When God looks at Christians, He sees Us through the blood of Jesus, not for what we really are (which is total worthlessness).

So by this standard, even if you consider homosexuality a sin, it doesn't matter. So then a gay or lesbian who believes in Jesus is perfectly fine, they are sinning just like a mass murdering dictator, but they are also forgiven. By this standard there is nothing wrong with LGBT Christians, they're sinners just like everyone else and can be saved the same way.

To be fair, I've heard things along the lines of this from people who'd be on the "liberal wing of conservative evangelicalism" in the way that "Right Communism" is possible and most conservative evangelicals don't have the incredibly simplified view here that Bushie does. But I think it's a valid and interesting question.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Yeah, I typed up a whole reply citing this (and alcohol as he is so against and pot as HockeyDude brought up this morning) in Update but by that point everyone had righteously flipped out.

There really seems to be no point in identifying sins if brutal murders are fine so long as you are a Christian at death. A whole bunch of nonsense. It really makes me wonder about the religion's beliefs on the aborted souls. Can they not go to Heaven? If there's an exception there, then how about a 5-year-old child who dies through unfortunate circumstances but was raised in an alternate religion's household? Speaking of which, are all Christians saved or just the narrow group?

Just a whole bunch of nonsense. My view is basically the total opposite. All deserve Heaven. Even if there is no moral deterrent, there is still reason to be a good person. It doesn't need to be rewarded.

The difference is that moral guidelines under my beliefs still serve an earthly purpose. In his, the immoral are saved over the moral, and it doesn't matter what efforts are given. Just comppletely unjust.

[DC Al Fine]

First off, if we are going to judge an ideology, we shouldn't take some random dude's spouting off as Gospel. Just as Snowstalker isn't representative of Marxism, Bushie isn't representative of Evangelical orthodoxy. If anything, Bushie is a good example of the piss-poor job evangelicals are doing of catechizing.

What Bushie and his critics are missing is sanctification. A change heart will result in changed works.

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So yes, the dictator could be a "Christian", but that begs the question; why is there no change in his behaviour?

[Famous Mortimer]

When you think about it, this is quite inconsisent. See this:

Indy, as strange as it may sound.  If that dictator was truly a born again Christian then yes God views him as a success.  God doesn't look at actions to judge whether one enters heaven or not, He judges solely by the heart and whether that heart has accepted His Son's sacrifice as atonement.  No sin is worse than any other sin.  If you think that's a horrible God, then look at it this way, nobody deserves heaven.  We all deserve hell.  He extends His grace freely to anyone who would believe regardless of good or bad deeds.  Even the best thing we could do is a filthy rag in the sight of God, so He extends His grace to cover our sin.  When God looks at Christians, He sees Us through the blood of Jesus, not for what we really are (which is total worthlessness).

So by this standard, even if you consider homosexuality a sin, it doesn't matter. So then a gay or lesbian who believes in Jesus is perfectly fine, they are sinning just like a mass murdering dictator, but they are also forgiven. By this standard there is nothing wrong with LGBT Christians, they're sinners just like everyone else and can be saved the same way.

To be fair, I've heard things along the lines of this from people who'd be on the "liberal wing of conservative evangelicalism" in the way that "Right Communism" is possible and most conservative evangelicals don't have the incredibly simplified view here that Bushie does. But I think it's a valid and interesting question.

The religious right already "accepts" gays in this way. They think gays can go to heaven but being gay is bad, just like the dictator can go to heaven but killing people is bad. "Hate the sin, not the sinner" it's a very common view.

[TJ in Oregon]

There really seems to be no point in identifying sins if brutal murders are fine so long as you are a Christian at death. A whole bunch of nonsense. It really makes me wonder about the religion's beliefs on the aborted souls. Can they not go to Heaven? If there's an exception there, then how about a 5-year-old child who dies through unfortunate circumstances but was raised in an alternate religion's household? Speaking of which, are all Christians saved or just the narrow group?

I would imagine most Evangelicals would say that accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior includes repentance of one's sins or you hadn't accepted Him (of course trying to say Evangelicals believe [X] is like trying to nail jello to a tree since every Prot is his own Pope but I digress). Thus the brutal murderer is ok if he repents and accepts Jesus. If he doesn't, then they would say he doesn't truly have faith anyway.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

It could go both ways.  You could say that their style of Christianity commands them to be anti-gay.  I could just as easily say that this style of Christianity is appealling to those who tend to distrust or hate the different.  The most conservative (in the traditional sense of the word) Christian sects in America were racist before they were homophobic.  They were extremely misogynist before that.  Why does Bushie's ilk hate the gays?  They've always hated the gays.  They'd probably hate the gays if they weren't Christian.  And it's not just his religious views.  Bushie can't stand anything that's different from how he was raised.  Listen to his language.  "Big city idiots", "Oklahoma is paradise!", "idiotic Big Bang theory".  Everything about his upbringing is good and wholesome and all us urbanites on the coasts are a bunch of retards who don't get it.  Do you know how many Catholic olds I know that are that are the same way?  I have a friend who would always visit from Massachusetts and stay at her Grandma's house.  That woman was a Catholic raised in Jersey and surrounded by moderates.  Still, she would always tell us to vote our skin color and screw the gays and [Inks] the Democrats, and not because of her religion, but because she felt her way of doing thinngs is the best and only way and piss off to anyone who would think differently.

Long story short... Bushie-style Christians don't accept gay Christians because their vision of a good Christian is someone who does everything just like them.  

EDIT: Not to mention that style of religion absolutely BREEDS nosy, judgmental gasbags.  I'm straight... the idea of being with a dude grosses me out.  I also understand that everyone else is not and should not be like me, especially when it comes to something inherent.  Do you think the Clan Bushie makes that connection?

[All Along The Watchtower]

FWIW, here's what the Southern Baptist Convention's position statement on sexuality says (IIRC, Bushie is Southern Baptist, no?):

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http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/positionstatements.asp

[afleitch]

I think the OP is expecting too much consistency from Christians on these matters.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

FWIW, here's what the Southern Baptist Convention's position statement on sexuality says (IIRC, Bushie is Southern Baptist, no?):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/positionstatements.asp

Yea, that's nice.  Do they have anything to say about the gluttony of their fat ass conregation?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The lack of acceptance of LGBT Christians is one thing. I don't like it, but it's internally consistent with sanctification theology (for Protestants) and natural law theology (for Catholics). The lack of acceptance of LGBT Christians combined with toleration for Bushie-like lifestyles is quite another. It's like HockeyDude said--and I'll try to make this as laconic as possible--'Things We Do aren't sins; Things They Do are'. Me being who I am, I can't help but notice that this sort of fundamentalist Protestant thinking is weirdly similar to Japanese patterns of thought in this respect (pace Nakane Chie), except without the saving grace of Shinto cosmology implying a sort of softcore moral relativism wherein things that would be unacceptable deviations for a Japanese person might just be normal and expected and the way things are for a foreigner.

[RFayette]

The lack of acceptance of LGBT Christians is one thing. I don't like it, but it's internally consistent with sanctification theology (for Protestants) and natural law theology (for Catholics). The lack of acceptance of LGBT Christians combined with toleration for Bushie-like lifestyles is quite another. It's like HockeyDude said--and I'll try to make this as laconic as possible--'Things We Do aren't sins; Things They Do are'. Me being who I am, I can't help but notice that this sort of fundamentalist Protestant thinking is weirdly similar to Japanese patterns of thought in this respect (pace Nakane Chie), except without the saving grace of Shinto cosmology implying a sort of softcore moral relativism wherein things that would be unacceptable deviations for a Japanese person might just be normal and expected and the way things are for a foreigner.

One thing that I feel a lot of Evangelicals are inconsistent on is what constitutes being an "unrepentant sinner" versus just "getting caught up in sin."  The Evangelicals I've talked to says something along the lines of "not perfection, but a new direction" but this seems awfully open to interpretation.

[OldDominion]

Good ol boys sticking to their roots.

[© tweed]

cult of masculinity + a few easily understandable Biblical lines.  there's also an anti-homosexual undercurrent that's found in plenty of cultures, not only Christian cultures.

[afleitch]

cult of masculinity + a few easily understandable Biblical lines.  there's also an anti-homosexual undercurrent that's found in plenty of cultures, not only Christian cultures.

I would consider the two to be strongly linked. Homosexuality is a subversion of accepted male power structures which generally (and often with religious blessing) not only expect man+woman but also man-women ensuring that men can dispense of their wife if need be. Divorce law exists, and was until recently almost entirely for the benefit of men.

[The Mikado]

I don't see what is inconsistent about that statement from Bushie's perspective. If God welcomes those who renounce sinfulness and embrace Jesus as their Savior, someone who tries but occasionally falters on the road of avoiding sinful behavior is victim to human frailty, but someone who refuses to accept that said behavior is sinful and does it anyway is rebelling and thus not saved. It's certainly not a message I accept, but I fail to see any internal inconsistency there. It's not about whether one has gay sex so much as whether one views that as a one-time shortcoming or a long-term part of his/her identity and embraces it.

[RFayette]

I don't see what is inconsistent about that statement from Bushie's perspective. If God welcomes those who renounce sinfulness and embrace Jesus as their Savior, someone who tries but occasionally falters on the road of avoiding sinful behavior is victim to human frailty, but someone who refuses to accept that said behavior is sinful and does it anyway is rebelling and thus not saved. It's certainly not a message I accept, but I fail to see any internal inconsistency there. It's not about whether one has gay sex so much as whether one views that as a one-time shortcoming or a long-term part of his/her identity and embraces it.

The problem is that morbid obesity is a continual sin, not an "occasional falter", unless said obesity is mostly genetic (Thyroid problems) and not caused by over-eating.

[Хahar 🤔]

Me being who I am, I can't help but notice that this sort of fundamentalist Protestant thinking is weirdly similar to Japanese patterns of thought in this respect (pace Nakane Chie), except without the saving grace of Shinto cosmology implying a sort of softcore moral relativism wherein things that would be unacceptable deviations for a Japanese person might just be normal and expected and the way things are for a foreigner.

You can't just throw out words like that without explaining them. In this case, I am interested in elaboration.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Me being who I am, I can't help but notice that this sort of fundamentalist Protestant thinking is weirdly similar to Japanese patterns of thought in this respect (pace Nakane Chie), except without the saving grace of Shinto cosmology implying a sort of softcore moral relativism wherein things that would be unacceptable deviations for a Japanese person might just be normal and expected and the way things are for a foreigner.

You can't just throw out words like that without explaining them. In this case, I am interested in elaboration.

Japanese thinking is interested less in the real or perceived attributes of a person or group of people and more in who's sharing space with whom. For many Japanese people, it's of profound moral relevance whether or not somebody shares one's space; some things are morally okay for people in your space but not people outside it, and some are okay for people outside it but not people in it (the latter being what the second part of that sentence that you're quoting is about). This is not amenable to many Americans', especially many urban and/or coastal Americans', understanding of the world, but most find it more or less unobjectionable for Japanese people because it's attenuated by other concerns and, crucially, a self-awareness about what it means for a society to be set up this way. Bushie's Oklahoma lacks this self-awareness.

This theory was set out about half a century ago by a scholar called Nakane Chie in a book whose title literally translates to Human Relationships in a Vertical Society. Aspects of Nakane's work have since come under heavy criticism, such as her somewhat quixotic assertion that this is diametrically opposed to the way the Indian caste system works, but the general points have been widely accepted and the idea of a dichotomy between 'space' and 'attribute' is central to Japanese social science.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Japanese thinking is interested less in the real or perceived attributes of a person or group of people and more in who's sharing space with whom. For many Japanese people, it's of profound moral relevance whether or not somebody shares one's space; some things are morally okay for people in your space but not people outside it, and some are okay for people outside it but not people in it (the latter being what the second part of that sentence that you're quoting is about). This is not amenable to many Americans', especially many urban and/or coastal Americans', understanding of the world, but most find it more or less unobjectionable for Japanese people because it's attenuated by other concerns and, crucially, a self-awareness about what it means for a society to be set up this way. Bushie's Oklahoma lacks this self-awareness.

Could you provide an example or two for this? I've having trouble comprehending this abstractly

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The class difference between a CEO and his chauffeur might be seen as somewhat secondary, and the CEO might expect different behavior from this chauffeur than from other chauffeurs or cab drivers whose services he might use, and might have a different sense of obligation towards him, because they are part of the same company and hence share the same space. This is present in every society to varying degrees; Nakane's thesis is that it's present in Japanese society to a notably exceptional extent. What attenuates this is that there does remain an awareness of class distinction, even though it's become secondary. ('Awareness' in the sense of 'awareness of its significance', not simply 'awareness that it exists'.) There's also traditionally been an awareness that Japan's social setup is, in this sense, meant to address practical rather than universal concerns. (When this awareness faltered, millions died.)