Why do more liberal churches tend to be the most ritual-driven and traditional?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Someone giving a pro-gay marriage sermon is far more likely to be wearing one of those pastoral robes than jeans...It all strikes me as very ironic. Anyone have any ideas as to why?

because in order to buy into a pro-gay marriage sermon, you have to have your head up your butt and be following the teachings of men instead of the teachings of the bible...therefore, the pro-gay message is more likely to be found in ritual-driven churches.  duh!

anyone serious about not playing games with scripture isn't going to accept homosexuality.  because, as the scriptural debates over the last 10 years on this forum have shown, you have to be a nearly-complete*** scriptural hack to believe homosexuality meshes with the bible.

***unlike a total complete scriptural hack like you

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

***unlike a total complete scriptural hack like you

I'm glad you chimed in. Now I get to use another favorite Mencken quote of mine:

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if you're dissin faith, then you're probably in the wrong thread, if not the wrong board...but, if you're wanting to show that homosexuality meshes with scripture, then please enlighten this thread with your vast scriptural knowledge.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

How is it ironic? Most people's politics (and most priest's theology!) aren't driven by their dress sense.

Addendum: Happy Clappy churches are absolutely and utterly ritual-driven, almost to the extent that really OTT forms of High Church Anglo-Catholic churches can be (and they're more Catholic than the Catholics). It's just that their rituals are new.

what is an example of a happy clappy church?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I don't care about your Scripture.

obviously, I'm not shocked that you have nothing to add to this thread, whose subject is the difference between Christian congregations.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

But I did. I posted evidence that this phenomenon (the 'Catholicization' of mainline groups) has been on-going since, at least, 1926, and was noticeable to someone as far removed from the milieu as Mencken. Which is a far more valuable contribution than your post, might I add.

[jmfcst finally reads Stardust's original post]

my apologies...but, perhaps your answer was a tad too high brow for me... 

in any case, Menchen seems to only be pointing out that departure from the scripture leads to liberalism:

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which is the exact same thing I said:

because in order to buy into a pro-gay marriage sermon, you have to have your head up your butt and be following the teachings of men instead of the teachings of the bible...therefore, the pro-gay message is more likely to be found in ritual-driven churches.  duh!

anyone serious about not playing games with scripture isn't going to accept homosexuality.  because, as the scriptural debates over the last 10 years on this forum have shown, you have to be a nearly-complete scriptural hack to believe homosexuality meshes with the bible.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

in any case, Menchen seems to only be pointing out that departure from the scripture leads to liberalism:

Mencken, my man. Mencken.

whatever, but you have to admit the guy's snobbery is very thick

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

That's part of his charm. Where the jmfcsts believe that false modesty is a virtue, I hold that true arrogance is the hallmark of an authentic man.

doubt many posters here would consider me modest enough to even have a shot at being falsely modest.   

though I have my flaws with arrogance, I do believe my theology and doctrine are modest (not extreme)...I mean, after all, reading the bible and concluding homosexuality is OK is extremely extreme given all the evidence within scripture against it.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

It's not your arrogance you have a problem with. It's the arrogance of everyone else, particularly out-of-touch liberals.

no, rather I have a problem with their lack of logic - if you're going to be a Christian, how in the heck does one think it is logically consistent to pick and choose which statements from the NT you want to ignore and which ones you want to try to follow?

I understand the temptation to do so, but to me, buying into it goes against all logic and common sense

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

You've picked and chose yourself to interpret the Bible literally.

did Jesus and the Apostles interpret scripture literally?

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Sola scriptura is pretty well unjustifiable Biblically.

really, how so?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

dude, you're too quick, I revised my post.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

did Jesus and the Apostles interpret scripture literally?

That's an extremely vague question, considering none of them left behind any hint of an organized epistemology.

so, you're saying, based on their interpretations as recorded in scripture, there is no way to tell whether they interpreted the OT literally or not?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

so, you're saying, based on their interpretations as recorded in scripture, there is no way to tell whether they interpreted the OT literally or not?

They didn't, not in the sense that he's speaking of. They interpreted almost everything Christologically

Granted, but teaching Christ from the OT is mostly all interpretation of the figurative anyway…but if we look at, say, the historical record within the OT or the commandments within the Law of Moses…we can certainly state that all evidence within the NT points to the fact that Jesus and the Apostles interpreted and accepted those as literal (regardless whether they gleaned any figurative Christological meaning from it).

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

[differences of opinion in the role of scripture]… The purpose should be to come to a God-centered theology, considering that the Bible is the word of God as given to, received by, and kept by Man, and hence at least in part (but not in full) a Man-driven document (whereas Jesus is the Word of God that was given to Man but rejected, tortured, punished, and ultimately murdered). Taking the Bible as the word of God, finding the various passages condemning different homosexual practices or favoring heterosexual marriage and family structures, and deciding on the basis of these that this is a necessary part of the divine plan for salvation is a perfectly reasonable way to go about things but there's a greater radicalism to accepting one's own absolute subordination to the will of God that can never be known in its entirety and simply trying one's best that taken into consideration, which can make sexuality in general questionable in ways that don't, at least in my experience, discriminate based on gender.  The Bible contains all things necessary for salvation but it's nevertheless in some ways a quite slippery and tricksy thing to get a foothold on, which is a large part why more people (of whatever personal, political, or cultural stripes) aren't Christian.

1) Jesus wasn’t called the Word of God in order for us to believe obedience to God’s word is optional, and 2) You’re arguing that obedience to God’s word is radical and lacks a foothold, which is the exact opposite of what Jesus said:

Mat 7:24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”

Seriously and with all due respect, I have put up with this for nearly 10 years on this forum, and my patience is wearing thin…and although, Nathan, your post was thoughtful, I found it adrift - lacking direction.

When I was saved in '92 and sent to witness to my friends in a legalistic church, I soon found out they didn't interpret scripture the way I did, even though we both considered the bible the standard for the Christian faith...so I needed a proper standard to determine how I should be interpreting scripture, and for that answer, I went back to the bible to see how the people of the bible (e.g. Jesus and the Apostles) interpreted scripture:

How did they use the scripture…how much weight did they give it…how did they derive doctrine…how did they reconcile supposed contradictions…etc, etc, etc.

And if you can’t study their approach and come to the conclusion that they believed certain sex acts were forbidden within scripture and had to be repented of and overcome lest a person be condemned at judgment…then I don’t know what book you’re reading.

But you’ve already made it clear that you understand the bible preaches against homosexuality…so, as far as I can tell, there is no reason for your position other than you simply refuse to or can not accept what the bible is clearly saying. And that being the case, I’m not going to waste much time in this conversation.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

you and I have radically different views of what precisely the Bible is there for

what does the scripture itself have to say about its own purpose?  that's the answer you need to search for.

To me, finding the answer to that question is an extremely straight forward process: 

1) start at the beginning of the bible and go through it, both OT and NT, and highlight every passage explaining the reason why scripture is written...then assemble that list of passages and see if there is a stated common purpose.

2) take that common stated purpose and go back through the bible, OT and NT, and see if that is how the charachers of the bible used the scripture

3) if 1 & 2 mesh, you've found your answer

it aint rocket science, it's simply a common sense approach to finding an answer…In fact, “What purpose did the author have for writing this?” is a question every grade school child is asked – motive is a fundamental question in understanding the intention of the writer.

That’s why these discussions have tired me over the last 9.5 years - they are so transparently childish and asinine.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Treating the figures in the Bible as an ideologically or spiritually homogeneous group of people? Attempting to use particularly simplistic techniques for sophomoric literary analysis on something that was written by about four dozen or so different people and compiled by scores of rabbinical and ecumenical councils over a span of almost a millennium? Treating the Bible as a monolithic entity that carries the same sort of weight within itself as the Napoleonic Code and remains unchanged over time rather than as the first ring going out in a massive complex of grasping and sojourning signs surrounding the colossal figure of the Son of God? Ascribing it a special significance either more or less than as an artifact of an imperfect bridge between Earth and Heaven that describes and signifies the perfect Bridge, Who came into the world to save sinners?

You forgot to mention that they probably used different pigments for their ink over the span of all those centuries…but did Jesus and the Apostles use such excuses to avoid assigning authority to scripture – even though the historically complex way they received the OT is pretty much on par with the way we’ve received BOTH the OT and NT?

Clearly not.

So, despite the historical complexity involved in the handing down of scripture, the overriding question still remains:  How did Jesus and the Apostles view the authority and use of scripture?

That’s a very simple and to the point question…a question you refuse to address, mainly because you and the church you go to stand in such obvious contradiction to the question’s obvious answer.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

How perfectly IRONIC!  That’s simply contrasting the weight of the ritual commandments (the Sabbath) verses the weightier commandments to show mercy to those in need…but Jesus’ citation of the story about David is from scripture, so Jesus was able to prove his scriptural point by pointing to a scripturally recorded case of how David interpreted scripture…which is EXACTLY what I am proposing with the question, “How did Jesus and the Apostles regard scripture?”

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And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Unnoted miracles by Christ is not the same as unnoted doctrinal teachings of Christ.  BUT, at the very least, even if you think some of Christ’s teachings are not written down, you obviously have to conclude that these unnoted teachings would NOT contradict what was dully noted.


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Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

Paul is saying the Law of Moses of Moses was given to the people for a period of time until it would be superseded by the New Covenant that was put into place by the new Mediator, Jesus Christ.  Paul was NOT arguing against the authority of the whole of scripture, rather he is simply arguing against the continued authority of the Law of Moses, which the Galatians had mixed with Christianity.

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I wasn't addressing it because there were other aspects of what you were saying that I wanted to address first, namely that that's not at all, in itself, the obvious way to read any text.  I've been studying medieval Japanese literature for long enough to know that the author is not always to be trusted as far as he or she can be thrown with regards to his or her own text, which becomes more true, not less, when the text in question deals with the life other than mundane.
 

WOW, WOW, and WOW!!!  So, you’re telling me that my approach to scripture (studying the way Jesus and the Apostles handled scripture in order use it as a role model) is “not at all, in itself, the obvious way to read any text”…when you yourself just quoted Jesus using that very same approach when he referred his detractors to the scriptural evidence of the way David handled scripture?!

What are you trying to convince me of, exactly?  Dude, open your eyes, you yourself just quoted Jesus using the exact approach you’re arguing against.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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Which I'm not disagreeing with at all. All I am disagreeing with is your answer to that question. The question itself is entirely legitimate.

Ok, now that you agree the central question is legit, then let’s answer it.

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You've incidentally mixed Paul's theological arguments with the eternal Word of Christ, which even though they're both canonical and scriptural are there for different things. Do you also hew to Paul's position on his own ABSOLUTE RIGHTNESS AND SUPERIORITY to EVEN A MOTHERFCKING ANGEL?

I am not sure what you’re worked up about here, are you saying I put too much weight in Paul’s writings?….if Paul’s teachings mesh with the rest of scripture, then quoting Paul’s writings shouldn’t be a problem.  But, if you think Paul’s teachings contradict other parts of scripture, then please cite chapter and verse and make your argument.

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It's not actually the approach I'm arguing against. I'm trying to convince you that, as I keep saying, the Bible is only perfect within the context of the knowledge of the people who wrote it. Among things that the people who wrote the Bible didn't know about or foresee are astrophysics, non-Great Man approaches to historiography, psychological and biological discussion of where gender concepts come from…

The bible also does NOT tell me how my car works, for that is NOT the purpose of scripture, rather the scripture deal only with the issues that related to your salvation.

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The discussion of the different iterations of Law and Grace, the blazing love of God, the signification of the colossal figure of the Christ.

All of which is in vain if you’re condoning condemnable actions:

Jude 1:4 “For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality…”

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It's tragic that insisting on a method of interpretation mostly without basis of any kind in the first eighteen centuries of Church history creates a great big honking window of opportunity for the whole thing to get thrown on the rubbish heap as equally mediocre and banal, because in reality nothing in the Bible is at all medicore or banal or mundane.

Dude, stop wasting my time with your dance, I’ve seen it all before, performed by many other  posters, so an additional perrette or two isn't going to impress me.  Does the NT condemn homosexuality., yes or no?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

No, I'm telling you that Jesus is not using some bizarre authorial intent standard, which is the aspect of your approach that I'm questioning. He's referring to the scriptures as a series of self-referential, occasionally self-critical or self-correcting texts, whereas you, again, are, consciously or not, treating it as a homogeneous mass.

I agree with the self-referential part of your statement, but please expound upon the occasionally self-critical or self-correcting texts...

what exactly are you calling self-correcting, and please give an example of it.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Ok, now that you agree the central question is legit, then let’s answer it.

I would say: As a whole semantic thicket, certainly worthy of more respect than other such thickets because of its partially Divine provenance. Can we agree on that much?

Sorry, not your fault, but your vocabulary is about four grade levels too high for me to understand without rereading your sentences four to five times.  Can we just use regular conversation American English as if we were discussing baseball?

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but there's quite a bit in the Bible that's incidental to salvation. Do you think that, for instance, some of the historical material in Chronicles is necessary for salvation?

well, the historical lessons from the bible provide a cloud of witnesses to help us understand the consequence of not obeying God’s word….so, since obedience is foundational, the role of these stories help prevent a “failure to communicate”.

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Agreed with this, though if we have enough of a disagreement over what constitutes immorality in a particular realm this becomes to an extent sophistry (then again, a lot of what we've been talking about has been sophistry, in which I've by no means been guiltless).

[after rereading four to five times and consulting a dictionary]…are you questioning the literalism of the statements regarding homosexuality in the bible?

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There's also the question of how to read the 'for this cause' in Romans 1.26. It can easily mean 'as a punishment [for idolatry]'. It can just as easily mean 'for purposes of [idolatry]'. Obviously that's an important phrase to get right, but it's grammatically ambiguous in the Koine.

There is enough context in Rom 1 to make it very clear he is referring to homosexual sex:

Rom 1:24  Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.  28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. .[/b]
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… it never rises to the level of a major theme in the NT and it's mostly the same sorts of throwaway mentions that Paul gives to, for instance, the issue of women who won't shut up in church.

Yeah, right!  The language of Romans 1 describing and listing the how many lines homosexuality crosses is the strongest language of the NT.

Of how does one “throwaway” and ignore the strongest language of the NT?

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Perhaps self-correcting wasn't the right word to use. More like building upon itself…

In building upon itself, I take it you mean the continued unveiling of God’s plan, as more and more of it is explicitly revealed…then we’re in agreement

But, in the case of homosexuality, the only thing the bible reveals in more and more explicit denunciation of it.


But let’s examine your mindset against the landscape of the bible as a whole by taking other examples of sexual activity and seeing if they mesh with scripture…


Bestiality:  The NT is completely silent on the subject of bestiality (unless you consider it encompassed within “sexual immorality”).  But the NT doesn’t have to explicitly mention bestiality because the NT is set against the backdrop of the landscape of the OT, in which there is absolutely no basis for the allowance of bestiality, since it goes against the God given context for sex given in Genesis (prior to the Law of Moses), and is explicitly condemned within the Law of Moses….therefore, bestiality is contrary to the OT, both before the Law of Moses and within the Law of Moses.

Bottom line:  bestiality does not mesh, regardless of the fact that it is not explicitly mentioned in the NT.

Homosexuality:  Basically the same pattern emerges – there is absolutely no basis for the allowance of homosexuality within the OT, since it goes against the God given context for sex given in Genesis (prior to the Law of Moses), and is explicitly condemned within the Law of Moses….therefore, homosexuality is contrary to the OT, both before the Law of Moses and within the Law of Moses.

So, before we dive into the NT verses condemning homosexuality…let’s pretend for a moment that those verses didn’t exist and let’s pretend the NT was as silent on the subject of homosexuality as the NT is on the subject of bestiality.  How do you make homosexuality fit within the landscape of confines of biblical sexual activity?  Again, even ignoring the NT verses condemning homosexuality, how do you make homosexuality mesh with the rest of scripture?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Bestiality to be perfectly honest isn't something I have occasion to think about all that much, but I would submit that there's a very broad multiplicity of reasons even outside scripture to condemn it, on top of all the stuff inside scripture.

but we're not talking about outside of scripture, rather we're discussing what meshes with scripture.

Why can't you, without all the song and dance, just come out and say, "Bestiality does not mesh with, and is contradictory to, biblical teaching.  Period." and be done with it?

The fact is you can't take that cut and dry approach to sin and hold the beliefs that you do, cause your beliefs are contrary to the bible.

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and if you don't think Rom 1 is the strongest language within the NT, then please cite an equivalent rant with the NT that surpasses the following list of character traits of the homosexual mind mentioned in Rom 1:
1) sinful desires of the heart
2) sexually impure
3) degrading of their bodies with one another.
4) exchanged the truth for a lie
5) worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator
6) shameful lusts
7) exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones
8 ) abandoned natural relations
9) inflamed with lust
10) committed shameful acts
11) received the due penalty for their perversion
12) refused to retain knowledge
13) did what ought not to be done
14) became filled with every kind of wickedness
15) became filled with every kind of evil
16) became filled with every kind of greed
17) became filled with every kind of depravity.
18) full of envy
19) full of murder
20) full of strife
21) full of deceit
22) full of malice
23) gossips
24) slanderers
25) God-haters
26) insolent
27) arrogant
28) boastful
29) they invent ways of doing evil
30) they disobey their parents
30) they have no understanding
31) they have no fidelity
32) they have no love
33) they have no mercy
34) they ignore God’s righteous decrees even though they carry a death penalty
35) they continue in their homosexual error
36) they approve of those who practice homosexuality

Furthermore, these people described in Roma 1 are NOT acting on their own, rather God himself is active in Rom 1:

1)   God gave them over to the sinful desires of the heart (v 24)
2)   God gave them over to shameful lusts (v 26)
3)   God gave them over to a depraved mind (v 28)
God is basically saying, “Hey, if you’re going to ignore me and run after those things, then ‘Go For It!’  In fact, I’ll make it easy for - I’m releasing your conscience so that you can be fully deceived.”

The truth is, Romans 1 is NOT describing the actions of people involved in the rituals of pagan temples, rather it is describing Christians within the church who ignore biblical warnings and worship their own natural desires:

Rom 1:32 “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”
What righteous decree against homosexual sex involving a death penalty is Paul referring to if not those found in the OT?

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So, show me in the NT where there are 36 negative traits listed to describe as single sinful activity.  And this is a passage which you stated was “mostly the same sorts of throwaway mentions that Paul gives to, for instance, the issue of women who won't shut up in church.”?!  Really?!  Why shouldn’t I consider your attitude exactly the same as the one Paul described which ignores God’s righteous decrees involving condemnable actions?  See, it doesn’t matter if Paul listed 36 negative traits or 3600 negative traits, you’re still going to choose to ignore it.  Which is why this conversation is a total waste of time, because you have already made the choice to reject what the scripture says in this area and you’ve have attempted to cover your tracts by clouding the waters with a song and a dance and a dictionary full of words to make your conclusions sound high-minded.  But your act is nothing new, Paul confronted the every same line of argument, and he was sick of the folly of Christians, just as I am sick of it, who dance around the entire landscape of scripture in order to justify their actions…which led Paul to pen the most condemning rant of the entire NT.  See, it’s not homosexuality in itself which led to Paul’s rant, it’s the stupid intellectually insulting song and dance that accompanies Christians having scriptural knowledge who attempt to justify it.  Oh, and to wax political for a moment, our POTUS Obama, who claims to be both intelligent and a Christian, called Paul’s rant in Rom ch 1, “vague”.  So, sorry Paul, you’re list of 36 adjective was just too vauge for us to catch your drife. Next time, don’t beat around the bush, Paul, tell us what you really think, then maybe we’ll lend an ear.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I don't need to hear from somebody who can't tell the difference between actual gay relationships and sexually promiscuous idolatry

oh, sorry, I must have missed the biblical exclusions for "actual gay relationships".  If you would kindly direct me to the chapter and verse I'm sure you and I will quickly put the issue to bed (pun intended)


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I use 'song and dance' because the world is song and dance. It's an exuberant and whirling dance-play made for the glory of the Lord...

if you haven't noticed from scripture, God doesn't like song and dance excuses for not following his word.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Zenbu Sekai.

Larry and Sergey have no idea what you're talking about.

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There are examples but you'd find a way to explain them away or categorize them as something else.

such as...

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How many times must I tell you that my interest isn't in sex acts? There are gay relationships that don't involve sex acts of any kind. What if any opinion do you have on those?

homosexuals – sexual = homos

…they're still gay