The Liberal Media Strikes Again

March 29, 2006 1:34 PM

Who speaks for Jesus? Why are liberal churches ignored by the American media? Why is the religious right given so much play? Media Matters gives credence to the claim that the religious right is overrepresented in the American media, and liberal religious leaders are excluded. I can't remember the last time I saw a liberal religious leader on American TV who wasn't Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
posted by [expletive deleted] (83 comments total)

Christians are completely insane. Jesus was pretty liberal, but he's been dead for 2000 years.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:40 PM on March 29, 2006

This struck a nerve for me because the United Church of Canada is very active in my community. The Church does a tremendous amount of good, and in my opinion demonstrates the very best of Christian values. I wish they were a stronger voice of moderation in the increasingly shrill culture wars.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:42 PM on March 29, 2006

I wish Jesus would make another appearance, but probably noone would notice.
posted by haikuku at 1:49 PM on March 29, 2006

Can you explain the differences between a conservative and liberal church, outside of same-sex tolerance?
posted by NationalKato at 1:50 PM on March 29, 2006

Jesse:
Actually he's been dead for just two days, then ressurected, depending on your beliefs...
posted by qvantamon at 1:50 PM on March 29, 2006

if jesus came back, he would be gay.
posted by Miles Long at 1:52 PM on March 29, 2006

Wed, Nov 24, 2004 11:04am EST

I'm sure it's true, but...nothing newer?
posted by dash_slot- at 1:52 PM on March 29, 2006

1. Liberal Christians are a minority next to conservative ones.

2. Liberal Christians aren't organized the way conservatives ones are; "the squeaky wheel gets the grease," and so on.

And in closing, Jesus was the most extremist radical one could ask for; see "Jesus & Alinsky." But, as Gandhi said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
posted by jefgodesky at 1:53 PM on March 29, 2006

NationalKato:

In a liberal church people will likely be more worried about being "good" themselves, not about forcing other people to be "good". A liberal church is a place for people with roughly the same definition of "good" to congregate. A conservative church is a comitee for the imposition of their definiton of "good" in the whole world.
posted by qvantamon at 1:53 PM on March 29, 2006

Jesus was pretty liberal

No, he wasn't. It's fine that some church leaders use their prominent positions to put forward "liberal" agendas, but Christ as a figure was a less-than-desireable philosopher. Think about it. "Oh, the poor will always be poor. Don't think about the future. Love your enemies. By the way, when I come back, fathers and sons -- they're totally gonna be at each other's throats. And I'm happy about it."

Let's get over this "Jesus's message was good, it was the church that ruined it." No, friends, Jesus was just another mystic maniac spouting inane dogma to a crowd of the uneducated. He's no hero. Hell, there's a chance he didn't exist.

"Liberal" church leaders aren't heard because, frankly, they're not representative of what their religion really is: a sick melange of reconstituted pagan mythologies and arcane economic agreements, wrapped in a dangerous (and absurd) mystic/mythic tortilla, served up on a sizzling hot plate of pre-scientific superstition. Falwell, Roberts, are in the religious right here, which from any rational perspective is desperately wrong.
posted by ford and the prefects at 1:55 PM on March 29, 2006

I could have sworn that Jesse Jackson doesn't like Teh Gay.
posted by thefreek at 1:56 PM on March 29, 2006

Can you explain the differences between a conservative and liberal church, outside of same-sex tolerance?

There's a big, long list, but most of it comes down to whether or not the Bible is inerrant and literally true. Liberal Christians think that "Love thy neighbor" is a really good idea, and though they believe that Jesus was the physical son of G-d, they tend to place Christology behind morality. They prefer to cite passages like, "Who is my mother and my brothers? I tell you, whoever does my will is my mother and my brother," claiming that belief in Jesus is not as important as doing as Jesus taught. From thence comes tolerance for same-sex marriage, a healthy respect for the seperation of church and state, and just a general concern for social problems and the general welfare taking the place that legislating morality holds for the Christian Conservative.
posted by jefgodesky at 1:56 PM on March 29, 2006

Christians are completely insane.

I wasn't aware that insane and liberal were antonyms. Let's face it, where Jesus was liberal (giving all your money to the poor, meek people inheriting the earth, etc.), he was crazy liberal, and where he was conservative (no divorce, looking lustfully at women is a sin, etc.), he was crazy conservative. If anything, insanity is the central theme not liberalism.

if jesus came back, he would be gay.

Dude, twelve guys as disciples. Just sayin'.
posted by boaz at 1:56 PM on March 29, 2006

remember kids: people who hold beliefs dissimilar to yours are insane! now you know, and knowing's half the battle!
posted by keswick at 1:58 PM on March 29, 2006

Think about it. "Oh, the poor will always be poor. Don't think about the future. Love your enemies. By the way, when I come back, fathers and sons -- they're totally gonna be at each other's throats. And I'm happy about it."

Nice straw man, but about as divorced from Jesus' actual teachings as Gandhi was from Marx. I wrote a long article on Jesus' teachings in their historical context a while back, titled, "Betraying the Son of Man," and I already linked to the "Jesus & Alinsky" article. When divorced from their historical context, your kind of statement is a little more understandable--but not in its proper context. Then you see how completely off such an assessment really is.
posted by jefgodesky at 2:00 PM on March 29, 2006

Thanks for that link, jefgodesky, I'd not read it before.
posted by NationalKato at 2:00 PM on March 29, 2006

posted by The Jesse Helms at 2:01 PM on March 29, 2006

If 'liberal' churches had anyone on the level of Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson to utter outrageous statements on a regular basis, they would certainly not be ignored by the media. Sharpton and Jackson are pretty reliable for crazy sound bites, but their comments are usually presented in a racial context rather than a religious one.

Plus the idea of religious Republicans versus godless Democrats is easier to write about than the idea that a lot of people align themselves politically by using some pretty strange metrics.
posted by wabashbdw at 2:03 PM on March 29, 2006

I wish Jesus would make another appearance, but probably noone would notice.

Actually, I think they'd cruficy him.
posted by Firas at 2:05 PM on March 29, 2006

I wish Jesus would make another appearance, but probably noone would notice.

Actually, I think they'd cruficy him.

No, the Christians would all throw rocks.
posted by kgasmart at 2:10 PM on March 29, 2006

If a dude showed up saying he was Jesus, we'd just commit him to an asylum or (more likely) ignore him/give him some change on the street corner.

I know I would.
posted by CRM114 at 2:10 PM on March 29, 2006

Who is my neighbor?
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:10 PM on March 29, 2006

Wow, Jesus is buff.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 2:11 PM on March 29, 2006

Sonofsamiam, that was brilliant.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 2:13 PM on March 29, 2006

Andrew Greeley Noted Author, Lecturer, and Liberal. no one looks it seems. I see him on CNN more than a few times, and Charlie Rose and NPR.
posted by Elim at 2:15 PM on March 29, 2006

Well, jeez. I was thinking about making my very first FPP later tonight. It was going to go a little something like this:

Remember the church that became so well-known when they couldn't get their new campaign's ad depicting other churches' bouncers (.mov) shown on some big networks? Their new ad is ready -- and it depicts a church with ejector seats (.mov). Will that go over any better?
posted by booksandlibretti at 2:17 PM on March 29, 2006

Who is my neighbor?

The original had an extra zinger, in that the two clergymen in question were bound by purity laws not to help the dying man. So modern ears usually miss the main point of the story. It's not about finding kindness in unlikely places; it's about the conflict between the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law, and that the spirit always has to come first.

But I do love the premise of that site, regardless.
posted by jefgodesky at 2:28 PM on March 29, 2006

kookie religious leaders are more entertaining than the mild sane ones.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 2:30 PM on March 29, 2006

I think that liberal Christians are underrepresented in the media because there's nothing controversial about them.

Nobody gets fired up when somebody says "I really think we should do our best to help those who are in need, even the ones who violently disagree with our religion."

I know lots of liberal Christians. They're good people who don't have to tell you what their religion is... all you know is that they're kind and generous.
posted by I Love Tacos at 2:33 PM on March 29, 2006

The original had an extra zinger, in that the two clergymen in question were bound by purity laws not to help the dying man. So modern ears usually miss the main point of the story. It's not about finding kindness in unlikely places; it's about the conflict between the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law, and that the spirit always has to come first.

It's that kind of stuff that makes it frustrating to talk with literalist Christians who think that stuff like 'context' is lib'rul code for 'tossing out the Bible.' If you're going to read your scripture, understand what the hell it's getting at, eh?
posted by verb at 2:35 PM on March 29, 2006

old thread: A Tale of Two Christianities
posted by matteo at 2:40 PM on March 29, 2006

"The UCC's complaint that the networks are silencing mainstream religious voices does not stop there. They are also having trouble with the advertising departments of the networks. The church is currently engaged in a multiyear outreach campaign that includes television advertising. But unless you have cable you won't get to see their new ad -- because the networks won't run them. The ads are part of a $1.5 ad buy that begins on April 3 on a dozen cable networks including CNN, A&E and the Discovery Channel, and in Spanish on the Teledmundo and Univision networks. But ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, reports Religion News Service, deemed them "too controversial."....

.....When the UCC first sought to buy TV ad time at CBS in 2004 in the run up to Christmas, the network claimed that they could not run the ad because it conflicted with the White House view on same sex marriage. As Pastordan recounts at Street Prophets, the official CBS statement on the rejection read in part:

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact that the executive branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast..."

I suppose this kind of calculus may go on all the time behind the scenes -- but I had never before heard of a broadcast television network publicly stating that they make their advertising decisions in deference to what the current occupants of the White House might think.

Meanwhile ABC, citing a policy of not accepting religious ads in response to the UCC's first ad buy, then turned around and accepted ads from James Dobson's Focus on the Family.

........"Focus on the Family is clearly a religious organization," Chase told United Church News at the time. 'Here's yet another illustration of how a particular narrow agenda makes up the rules as they go along, while another religious viewpoint cannot even purchase time on the people's airwaves to proclaim an all-inclusive message."

ABC spokeswoman Susan Sewall told Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service:

"The network doesn't take advertising from religious groups. It's a long-standing policy."

Apparently Ms. Sewall and the rigorous enforcers of ABC's ad policy didn't read -- or simply ignored -- the Focus on the Family "Mission Statement" -- conveniently located at the top of their web site:

"To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family." "





- Veteran Christian-Right observer Frederick Clarkson covers the scandal
posted by troutfishing at 2:42 PM on March 29, 2006

TJH: "Christians are completely insane."
That's always a good way to make your point. It probably goes over just as well when you say,
"Muslims are completely insane."
Come to think of it, they actually have a website for you, too.

jg: "1. Liberal Christians are a minority next to conservative ones."
Do you mean worldwide, or just in the U.S.? If you mean in the U.S. I'd very much like to see you back that assertion up with some data.

I'm gearing up to attend CTS in the fall to start my path toward ordination in the UCC (Congregationalist). It's too bad the msm won't play our ads - but I don't think there's too much to worry about - it won't stop most church-goers I know from pitching in on Saturday down at the Gospel Mission.

Come to think of it - I didn't see too many atheists down there last week...
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:03 PM on March 29, 2006

Lack of atheists at the 'Gospel' 'Mission' makes Baby Jesus go hmmm.
posted by boaz at 3:20 PM on March 29, 2006

Baby_Balrog, don't start trashing atheists just yet.

Firstly, I am an atheist and I have both collected donations and volunteered for the Union Gospel Mission on Vancouver's downtown eastside. It was something I did with my father and brother not because we are Christians, but because we believe in the value of their work.

Secondly, most atheists I know, myself included, are perfectly ok with people of religious faith, provided it is tempered by reason. Unless people temper their faith with sound moral reasoning, they become tools of religious demagogues like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Mullah Omar and Muqtada al Sadr. These are the people I have problems with, and it is these wackjobs that are increasingly becoming the only voice for Christianity in America capable of reaching the public ear.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:22 PM on March 29, 2006

"Unless people temper their faith with sound moral reasoning, they become tools of religious demagogues like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Mullah Omar and Muqtada al Sadr."

I don't temper my faith with anything. My faith comes from direct contact with the numinous. Don't tell me I'm going to become a tool of anything other than God.

Most atheists you know are perfectly ok with people of religious faith? Did I just read that correctly? Because, from some of the things you've said, it sure doesn't seem that way.

I know metafilter really brings out the evangelical atheists but this thread got off on the wrong foot right from the start.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:34 PM on March 29, 2006

"don't start trashing atheists just yet."

Just to note - I usually just nod and go along with the inane, self-righteous Christian-bashing that goes on around here. After all - I'm a liberal! I'm a fucking lefty! I've sucked teargas and gotten arrested and blah blah blah.

But it's starting to sound exclusionist - and it's starting to really get under my skin! Whenever someone does something retarded and it turns out they're part of the 60% of American Christians or whatever a whole slew of mefites rise up out of the ground with torches and pitchforks and start yelling,
"You see? YOU SEE? This is what comes of reading the bible!! Christians are all insane! All of them! Madmen and sadists and raving republican demogogues!"
And I'm fucking sick of it. It makes me angrier then PP in a prisoner-abuse thread.

And from now on I'm going to start calling you out on it.

And if you want to argue about how "ew spirituality isn't logical it isn't scientific prove yourself" I'll just start telling you about the power of direct, mystical contact with the divine and the importance and value of prayer or something. I've had enough. There's absolutely no reason for you to be bashing on my grandma just because she likes to go to church on sunday, wants to feed poor people and is looking forward to meeting Jesus when she dies.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:41 PM on March 29, 2006

I think this thread pretty much answers its own question. The Republicans and the fundies have something of a symbiotic relationship. The Republicans get support from the fundies. The fundies are able to do this because the Republicans help them get on channels like Fox to spread their opinions. The Dems, by comparison, don't ally with their Christians. The GOP wants their fundies to yell out their opinions. The Dems want their Christians to sit down and shut up. Liberal Christians in the Democratic party are a bit like Log Cabin Republicans. They're in the party, but the party's not that enthusiastic about them being there, so they don't like to give them any publicity.
posted by unreason at 3:50 PM on March 29, 2006

evangelical atheists

*thinks*

Well that settles it then. I hate Evangelists, not Christians.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 4:20 PM on March 29, 2006

I think the media marginalizes them because they choose to.

When the Catholic Church speaks out against abortion, the media gives it plenty of play. When catholics by the millions marched against the War in Iraq, the media barely mentioned their religion and the media pretended they were all gay pot smoking hippies.
posted by surplus at 4:28 PM on March 29, 2006

I'll just start telling you about the power of direct, mystical contact with the divine and the importance and value of prayer or something.

Go on then. Run it up the flagpole and we'll see who gets nailed to it.
posted by Sparx at 4:43 PM on March 29, 2006

I was wearing my "Jesus is a Liberal" shirt at the mall today, and I got some strange looks, especially when I mentioned something about homeschooling to a woman at the checkout. I was shifting too many paradigms.

As for the difference between a conservative church and a liberal one, I like to compare the Roman Catholic Church vs the Episcopal Church to Microsoft vs open source. The RC says "This is OneTrueFaith. No, you can't see how it works. Just install it and follow the directions." The ECUSA says "This is "faith"...it's in beta, and here's the source code in case you want hack around with it, make a plugin or something. Tell us what you want it to do and we'll see if it's possible."

Oh and Baby_Balrog, I am toying with Seminary myself. I would love to talk to you about your discernment process. There's an email in my profile
posted by Biblio at 5:06 PM on March 29, 2006

Come to think of it - I didn't see too many atheists down there last week...

I know it's hard, but please don't respond to prejudice with prejudice. I know that I have a lot of anger and frustration with the conservative pseudo-Christian power grab right now and I lash out a lot all over the place. I feel helpless because their world is completely foreign to me and impossible to penetrate physically and mentally. If the UCC stands a chance of modeling, inspiring true Christian values for the corrupt churches, then I say, rock, rock on.
posted by Skwirl at 5:26 PM on March 29, 2006

Thanks, jefgodesky. Betraying is great reading.
posted by effwerd at 5:26 PM on March 29, 2006

It's clear to me that you can't boil down Jesus' message to liberal or conservative. Even within the four gospels themselves, there are plenty of contradictory positions--turn the other cheek to violence, unless Romans are about to arrest you in the garden of Gethsemane. Then, have one of your men hit them in the head with a sword. Then, heal the wound. Just one example, but a telling one.

Politically, Jesus says render unto Caesar, i.e., pay your taxes, do your worldly duty to the state, and keep that separate from your spiritual life. Then there's that interesting Roman soldier named Legion, who has his demons cast into pigs. If that isn't a smear against the Roman authorities of the time, I don't know what is.

Personally, I'm torn between wanting to see more liberal/progressive Christians take back their tradition, and just having them give up the meme altogether--I can't imagine they'll ever save it form the damage done by the hatred, bile, and ignorance of the extreme Christian right. I guess that makes me Hegelian, i.e., we're living with the final gnashing and wailing of a mythology dying out. Which is kind of a shame but not entirely.
posted by bardic at 5:46 PM on March 29, 2006

have one of your men hit them in the head with a sword

Are you kidding? Jesus was not like, "Hey, dude, it's okay to hit them because I don't want them to take me." In fact, I recall something like "Put thy sword again into its place."
posted by booksandlibretti at 5:54 PM on March 29, 2006

bardic, none of your examples are correct. Jesus didn't tell his disciple to use his sword, he told him to not fight. There was no Roman soldier named Legion, Legion was the name of a group of demons he cast out. They were called Legion because there were lots of them, and a Legion is a large military unit (not necessarily Roman) working towards a common goal, in this case the possession of a man. The actual quote is

Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"

"My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many."

There was no Roman involved in the incident, nor was there any commentary of any kind about the Romans being comparable to demons, then or ever. Before you start complaining about the Bible, you might try a more thorough reading of it.
posted by unreason at 6:08 PM on March 29, 2006

bardic, the story of Legion is one of the most subtle and deeply interesting stories in the NT, IMO. One of the best explanations of it that I've found was actually in the unlikliest place, a waiter's blog. Link.
posted by Space Coyote at 6:10 PM on March 29, 2006

Interesting link, Coyote. That's an angle I've never read about before.
posted by unreason at 6:19 PM on March 29, 2006

expletive: Secondly, most atheists I know, myself included, are perfectly ok with people of religious faith, provided it is tempered by reason.

I'm perfectly fine with people of faith who don't temper their beliefs with reason, as long as they live and let live. I know enough about human psychology to recognize that "reason" on both sides tends to be a self-serving illusion.

Baby_Balrog: Most atheists you know are perfectly ok with people of religious faith? Did I just read that correctly? Because, from some of the things you've said, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Well, yes, and yes. Do you have a problem with either of those answers?

I can certainly sympathize, but on the other hand, the way you feel on metafilter is the way most people who are not Christian feel in the larger society outside of metafilter.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:20 PM on March 29, 2006

Well, yes, and yes. Do you have a problem with either of those answers?

No, but those answers pretty much explain the topic of the thread. The question of the thread is why there aren't more vocal Christians involved in the Democratic party. If we determine that there are a large number of Democrat atheists that play active role in shaping the direction of the party, and that a large portion of these atheists hate Christians and Christianity, that would seem to be a relevent fact. It's difficult to integrate a group into your party when a portion of your party hates said group.
posted by unreason at 6:38 PM on March 29, 2006

unreason, I'm not criticizing the Bible--not by a long shot. And we can agree to disagree that the story of Legion isn't a shot being taken at the Roman military presence.

As for the garden of Gethsemane, why were the apostles carrying swords? Probably had something to do with the baptize with fire thing. I'm just trying to point out that there's a high level of ambiguity in the Christian Testament, on purpose I think. Jesus was a complicated character to say the least, so spare me your outrage. Was he political in the direct action sense of wanting to make life better for the poor and powerless? I think so, and I have a lot of sympathy for Liberation Theology. Would he have been a politician if he came back today? Absolutely not--he'd despise those who compromise on his (granted, sometimes hard to discern) ideals, and that's pretty much what politics is about.
posted by bardic at 6:51 PM on March 29, 2006

unreason, which high ranking members of the democratic national committee or ddemocratic members of the house or senate are atheists, again?
posted by Space Coyote at 6:57 PM on March 29, 2006

And we can agree to disagree that the story of Legion isn't a shot being taken at the Roman military presence.

No we can't. There's absoletely nothing other than the fact that a legion was also a Roman military unit to indicate that the incident had anything to do with the Romans, and Jesus did not criticize the occupation, either before or after the incident. There is nothing to support your claims.

As for the garden of Gethsemane, why were the apostles carrying swords?

Because it was night in an occupied country and they were scared. Because they frequently disobeyed Jesus.

Probably had something to do with the baptize with fire thing.

It was John the Baptist who said that, not Jesus. And there's nothing to indicate that he was talking about conversion by violence, and neither Jesus nor his disciples ever converted by violence, or told anyone to.

Jesus was a complicated character to say the least, so spare me your outrage.

My "outrage" has nothing to do with your opinions, and everything to do with your ignorance. Any book seems confusing if you don't know what is in it. Of all the Biblical examples you listed in the thread, you haven't retold any of them correctly. You simply don't know the stories in the Bible. That's why they are confusing to you. It's tough to elaborate on the major themes of Moby Dick, for example, if you only skimmed the book or saw the movie.
posted by unreason at 7:02 PM on March 29, 2006

unreason, which high ranking members of the democratic national committee or ddemocratic members of the house or senate are atheists, again?
posted by Space Coyote at 9:57 PM EST on March 29 [!]

If you read my comment, I never said that the atheists in question are in the national committee. I merely meant that they were vocal enough to scare away the party leaders from a closer alliance with liberal churches.
posted by unreason at 7:04 PM on March 29, 2006

Who speaks for Jesus?

Apparently Tom Delay is speaking and acting for Jesus now
posted by amberglow at 7:05 PM on March 29, 2006

unreason: The question of the thread is why there aren't more vocal Christians involved in the Democratic party.

About the only people in the Democratic party that I can see getting away without wearing their faith on their sleeve is at the local level. Kerry identified as Catholic. Kerry and W. Clinton identify themselves as Baptist. H. Clinton is under fire for invoking Jesus during Senate debate. Obama wound up to the climax of his 2004 Democratic convention speech with "But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states." And meanwhile, you have Jimmy Carter as one of the most visible symbols of liberal Christian activism.

I don't think this idea that the Democratic party wants for people of faith in their party to sit down and shut up really stands up to the evidence.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:19 PM on March 29, 2006

I don't think the democratic party listens at all to the concerns of atheists, frankly I wish they would. When I saw every democratic member of the senate get in on that ridiculous display to prove that "under god" should be in the pledge of allegience, despite it being a McCarthy-era addition, I was deeply disappointed at their easy pandering.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:20 PM on March 29, 2006

unreason writes: There's absoletely nothing other than the fact that a legion was also a Roman military unit

Please read that again. And remember the Murder of the Innocents? No, the Romans slaughtering a bunch of babies had no effect on the people's views of the Romans. No sir.

Further, from Luke 8.30: "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back to the abyss.

From the New Oxford's annotation of the passage: "Legion, the technical term for a division of the Roman army, usually consisting of about five thousand troops; thus the name suggests a horde of demons."

Smoking gun? Perhaps not. But it's an interesting choice of a name, isn't it? A technical Latin military term not in any way native to the region. Where do I get this interpretation? From a religious studies professor I studied under specializing in Christian Testament studies, who's published more books and articles than you have.

Matthew 3:11: "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Luke 3.15, more of the same.

Who do you think John is talking about? Need a hint?

But I'm trying to treat you like an adult, and that was my first mistake. It won't happen again.
posted by bardic at 7:32 PM on March 29, 2006

"remember kids: people who hold beliefs dissimilar to yours are insane!"

Not necessarily, but people who choose to operate using their own imaginary rules (whether self-imagined or derived from some external source) as opposed to working within actual demonstrable reality are usually considered mentally ill.

Some religious people (of all faiths) are as loony as a person who imagines himself to be a hippopotamus, and who talks to invisible people they claim are sitting next to them.

Just my opinion, folks, just my opinion.

on preview: amberglow, that there Tom Delay? He's definitely one of the loonies, as is the Scarborough person.
posted by zoogleplex at 7:32 PM on March 29, 2006

On a more local level, Tim Kaine's success was interesting to see (won a gubernatorial race as a Dem in the red state of Virginia).

More on Legion, from wiki: John Dominic Crossan believes the story may be considered a parable of anti-Roman resistance. This would explain why the Gospels variously situate the story in Gadara, Gerasa and Gergesa: All three are disguises for Caesarea, the location of the actual events behind the story. Even if the story is taken to be historically factual, some of the details may be exaggerated. For example, pigs are excellent swimmers, and the ones who jumped into the lake may well have survived.
posted by bardic at 7:37 PM on March 29, 2006

"John Dominic Crossan. . .may well have survived." Sorry that wasn't clear.
posted by bardic at 7:39 PM on March 29, 2006

Who speaks for Jesus?

A clerk in the Arts&Crafts section of a Wal*Mart in Kansas City.
posted by swell at 8:00 PM on March 29, 2006

This is an interesting thread (started as a simple question). I really wonder why religion strikes so much emotion? I'm sure someone has answered that. I havn't. Maybe it's the weight of the subject (eternity, judgement, etc.)
posted by sameasthem at 8:41 PM on March 29, 2006

I never said that the atheists in question are in the national committee. I merely meant that they were vocal enough to scare away the party leaders from a closer alliance with liberal churches.

Name one of these vocal atheists.
posted by aaronetc at 8:46 PM on March 29, 2006

"God always does his best work right after a crucifixion."
posted by homunculus at 8:50 PM on March 29, 2006

An Open Fan Letter to Embattled Christians
posted by amberglow at 11:30 PM on March 29, 2006

...the network [CBS] claimed that they could not run the ad because it conflicted with the White House view on same sex marriage...

Oh FFS. I hope all hell came down on the heads of the dipshits that made that decision.

If not, you guys are so screwed.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:43 PM on March 29, 2006

Why does UCC insist on claiming that its "mainstream" or "in the majority"? They are not, moderate churches are hemorrhaging believers. For a long time, American Christians have either been abandoning their faith all, or turnning wingnut.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:10 AM on March 30, 2006

Bardic, the fact remains you mangled the stories horribly. That then has mangled your credibility in the discussion. You've now moved from a Roman soldier named legion who had demons cast out of him, to a "parable of anti roman resistance."

An "A" for effort to come back behind yourself and still try and make your case.

Glad this thread has gotten you to look more deeply into the bible.
posted by prodigalsun at 6:22 AM on March 30, 2006

prodigalsun, I've got a suggestion as to where you can place your condescension. I've read and taught the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. My orginal point was simply that the texts are ambiguous, both in terms of who wrote them, and what Jesus "means," given he's a self-contradictory figure at the best of times. This obviously threatens Bibical literalists--they have their version of Jesus, and they're sticking to it. Ultimately, this is why religious texts are generally bad sources from which to draw definite political, i.e., wordly lessons. I don't think religious people should stay out of politics, but they need to be careful. Interpretations of scripture are just that--interpretations.

Furhter, I've sited two biblical historians. Please feel free to do the same.
posted by bardic at 6:57 AM on March 30, 2006

*further*
posted by bardic at 6:59 AM on March 30, 2006

The pigs are what give the story of Legion away as a parable of Roman revolt. Pigs are unclean, remember, so they represent Gentiles. Jesus meets a good Jew, who's possessed by a Legion. He sends the Legion into the pigs, which stampede and drown in the ocean. Get it? Jew, Judea, Judea's "possessed" by Roman legions,* Legion is driven into the sea, Judea's right on the Mediterranean coast....?

The pigs can't swim because in Middle Easten belief, demons can't cross water. From thence you see the theme of demons stopped by water pop up in the wierdest places--like Tolkien's Nazgul in the "Flight to the Ford."

As for the apostles and swords, Jesus specifically condemned Peter for cutting the soldier's ear. They carried swords because Judea was bandit country. It was dangerous. Kind of like Iraq is now. But that doesn't have much to do with "turning the other cheek," which has been routinely and deliberately misread by authorities to (surprise, surprise) get us to obey authority. From the "Jesus & Alinsky" link I posted earlier:

Jesus clarifies his meaning by three brief examples. "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Why the right cheek? How does one strike another on the right cheek anyway? Try it. A blow by the right fist in that right-handed world would land on the left cheek of the opponent. To strike the right cheek with the fist would require using the left hand, but in that society the left hand was used only for unclean tasks. As the Dead Sea Scrolls specify, even to gesture with the left hand at Qumran carried the penalty of ten days penance. The only way one could strike the right cheek with the right hand would be with the back of the hand.

What we are dealing with here is unmistakably an insult, not a fistfight. The intention is not to injure but to humiliate, to put someone in his or her place. One normally did not strike a peer in this way, and if one did the fine was exorbitant (four zuz was the fine for a blow to a peer with a fist, 400 zuz for backhanding him; but to an underling, no penalty whatever). A backhand slap was the normal way of admonishing inferiors. Masters backhanded slaves; husbands, wives; parents, children; men, women; Romans, Jews.

We have here a set of unequal relations, in each of which retaliation would be suicidal. The only normal response would be cowering submission. It is important to ask who Jesus' audience is. In every case, Jesus' listeners are not those who strike, initiate lawsuits, or impose forced labor. Rather, Jesus is speaking to their victims, people who have been subjected to these very indignities. They have been forced to stifle their inner outrage at the dehumanizing treatment meted out to them by the hierarchical system of caste and class, race and gender, age and status, and by the guardians of imperial occupation.

Why then does Jesus counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of power to humiliate them. The person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect, "Try again. Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status (gender, race, age, wealth) does not alter that. You cannot demean me." Such a response would create enormous difficulties for the striker. Purely logistically, how can he now hit the other cheek? He cannot backhand it with his right hand. If he hits with a fist, he makes himself an equal, acknowledging the other as a peer. But the whole point of the back of the hand is to reinforce the caste system and its institutionalized inequality.

As for "render unto Caesar," another favorite of the very class Jesus spent his life preaching against, as I wrote in my own article, also linked above, "Betraying the Son of Man":

Very often, Matthew 22:21 is cited as Jesus' acceptance of government. It reads, in reference to paying taxes to Rome: "Then he said to them, 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.'" The Jesus Seminar highlights this phrase as one of the most undeniably historically accurate things Jesus ever said, but this statement can hardly be divorced from Jesus' numerous earlier pronouncements about the illusory nature of material wealth. Jesus talks about wealth fading, being eaten by moths (Matthew 6:19), being stolen (Matthew 6:20), and generally drives home the point that material wealth is transient (Luke 12:15-21), illusory (Mark 4:19), and unimportant (Luke 16:11). Taken in that context, "render unto Caesar" is a statement Diogenes himself might have made: the State pretends to have authority and power. Let it pretend. The real reality has nothing to do with gold, coins, taxes, or anything else of the State. The State has exactly as much authority over you as you allow it to have; so don't allow it to have any, and it won't. Don't fight against it, simply abandon it. Just "walk away."

This is the theme that arises again and again from Jesus' teaching, if we see them in their historical context. They are all incredibly subversive means to turn the tables of authority. They're a direct and uncompromising assault on the very notion of hierarchy. Following Jesus' teaching requires the most radical, subversive, and effective brand of anarchy. It's interesting to note Ghandi's quote, that I cited above, because Ghandi and Jesus were quite similar. Both spoke to a population abused and dominated by a foreign power. Both lived in a time when most resistance was as violent as it was hopeless. Both taught their followers to confront authority unflinchingly, to force the situation, to turn the tables and stare them down--to always remember that it's their subjects who have the power, and ultimately, they have only what we permit them to have.

* The use of the term "legion" to indicate any large military group comes from the Latin legio, indicating a specific type of military unit, ultimately from legere, "to gather." In other words, the generic sense did not exist at that time.
posted by jefgodesky at 7:17 AM on March 30, 2006

Which, IMO, makes the story so clearly a parable about the Roman occupation--pigs are actually pretty good swimmers, normally.
posted by bardic at 7:24 AM on March 30, 2006

zoogleplex: "but people who choose to operate using their own imaginary rules (whether self-imagined or derived from some external source) as opposed to working within actual demonstrable reality..."

That's exactly what you're sort of failing to grasp. They aren't imaginary rules! They're very real, they have a very demonstrable effect on reality - if I could have a week of your time I could probably show you how.
But I can't, and apparently no one has. That's probably the worst part - trying to explain something so amazing and powerful and demonstrably repeatable to someone when they content themselves to waiving thier arms and shouting, "It isn't real! It isn't real!"

Much like defending the origins of the species to an ID proponent.

jeffburdges: "moderate churches are hemorrhaging believers. For a long time, American Christians have either been abandoning their faith all, or turning wingnut."

Please cite your source. That is also just not true - and is entirely a product of the Christian Right's stranglehold on the media. People aren't abandoning their faith right now in the U.S. Yes, in Europe, there is a major movement away from the church - I also read some research the other day that showed that when aspiritual individuals or people with a church-life described as having "little to no involvement" relocate geographically, they are more likely to attend a mega-church or the church with the largest member base - but I think the researcher showed that this was a product of statistics and not Americans lack of faith or the magnetism of the right.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:06 AM on March 30, 2006

The new post about the mainline churches et was deleted, so I am going to drop my unposted comment in here, for posterity. The question was "why should I care?"
******************************************
The IRD does more than agitate liberal churches. They get involved in foreign policy as well:

Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) From the folks who brought you "Schism in the United Methodist Church" and "Episcopal Extremists" comes "Liberty Initiative for North Korea!" Funded by monies from the Scaife, Coors, Olin and Bradley fortunes, the IRD board is chaired by Roberta Ahmanson, wife of another prominent right-wing philathropist: Presbyterian Reconstructionist-turned-Orthodox Anglican and CNP member Howard Ahmanson. Other notables on the board are Mary Ellen Bork, daughter of Justice Bork and Deputy Director of PNAC, George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and PNAC, Richard John Neuhaus, also of the EPPC and a Bush advisor, Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, and President Diane Knippers, who also sits on the board of Concerned Women of America.

The IRD was founded by Novak, Neuhaus and PNAC's Penn Kemble to counter the liberal politics of the Mainline Protestant denominations. Right-Web describes the group thusly:

For more than two decades IRD has advocated U.S. military interventionism. During the 1980s IRD attempted to rally U.S. Christians around a program of higher military budgets and military campaigns against the Soviet Union and allied countries such as Nicaragua, Angola, and Cuba. IRD was a leading advocate of U.S. military aid and intervention in Central America and the Caribbean during the Reagan administrations, and it routinely challenged the patriotism and the belief systems of Christians who didn’t share its militarism and interventionist spirit.

That's from my old blog, from a post I wrote in July 2004 about the groups determined to bring us to war with North Korea.
posted by Biblio at 9:00 AM on March 30, 2006

Baby_Balrog: I imagine you will understand what I mean when I say that that is not so much discovered as remembered. The presence has always been there, ignored.

We collude in our ignorance. The world is bursting to tell us about it, but for some mysterious reason we don't want to hear. It has to take matters into its own hands to wake us up.

Which is to say, to a certain extent, if one really wanted to know, one already would. I certainly could not have been convinced of my error prior to a direct and personally undeniable evidencing.
posted by sonofsamiam at 9:04 AM on March 30, 2006

Since the other post was just deleted. . .

The IRD is a well-organized, wealthy group that has cultivated and funded Fifth Column elements within the Mainline Churches.

Anything progressive about the churches --labor? women? human rights?-- is to be gutted and replaced with what I can only label a Reagan-ite Christian "Orthodoxy". No more troublesome religious folks questioning our nation's "noble" wars or advocating for the poor or failing to advocate Zionism.

If they win they will essentially control the the entire Protestant Christian apparatus in the United States as most Baptists, Charismatics, and Pentecostals already practice theologies that integrate and confuse a conservative nationalism within their Christianity.

"Strength through Unity; Unity through Faith"
posted by MasonDixon at 9:04 AM on March 30, 2006

Sonofsamiam - I was thinking about Acts 16:14 when you posted that comment - and sort of regretting some of the stuff I said up there.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 9:16 AM on March 30, 2006

Baby_Balrog, are you serious when you tell me that only faith, and never reason is important for moral decisions? My comments are not an attack on faith, but on those who would assert that faith is irreconcilible with reason and abandon the latter. If you identify as someone who believes this, then there is no point in me continuing.

As for my previous comment which you quoted: I posted that because I am sick to death of people who boldly assert that without faith, morality is impossible. I'm not asserting the absolute opposite; I just wanted to stand that annoying misused Dostoyevsky "quote" on its head. Just as atheists who cannot or will not reason morally tend to nihilism, people of faith who also deny reason tend towards cruel moral absolutism. Surely you admit that when people place faith beyond reason they can be compelled to do evil. How else would you explain those who with zealous devotion commit evil acts? Can we at least agree that faith alone is not enough to be good, nor is it necessary to be good?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:14 AM on March 30, 2006

All ethics must begin with an unprovable axiom. The axiom itself can never be proven, or disproven. Faith provides a handy axiom, but really, any axiom will do. Ethicists have tried for centuries to divorce ethics from the questions of theism, but they keep running up against the need for an axiom. Why should the categorical imperative be the measure of ethics? Why should utility? These are axioms, asserted without the possibility of proof. In religious contexts, the axioms are asserted as divine mandate, giving them force, but that isn't necessary. All that's needed is an axiom.

Then again, the axiom itself can never be proven--one must choose to believe it, or not believe it, on ... well .. faith. What one has faith in is largely irrelevant; what matters is the starting axiom itself.
posted by jefgodesky at 11:25 AM on March 30, 2006

"Baby_Balrog, are you serious when you tell me that only faith, and never reason is important for moral decisions?"

Please show me where I say this.

Reason is vital for a great many moral decisions. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the vast majority of ethical choices I make in my day to day life have very little to do with my faith.
However, there are certain decisions I make that have little to do with reason. My decision to leave my successful job in radio sales and pursue an M.Div. is a fairly good example - I believe that this is what God wants for me, even though I'm losing hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing this.
Were I a reasonable man, I would be wearing a suit and selling advertisements rather than sitting at home in jeans and a t-shirt, filling out student aid forms.
I will render the work of my life to God, by giving my life in service to God's creation - the world we live in. Rather than serving myself. Rather unreasonable, I'd say, given my options.

I have a minor in Applied Ethics. I didn't get it out of convenience - it sure hasn't done much for me outside of college. I completely agree with you - morality is completely possible absent of faith. I call it, "personal discipline."

"Surely you admit that when people place faith beyond reason they can be compelled to do evil."

Most certainly - we're working against them every day. Though I also believe that there is a cognizant, evil force at work in the world which seeks to destroy good people and prevent them from helping one another. Glibly, I call this force Satan though I'm sure you understand that this is just a label for something far more pragmatic. There are many, many people who put their faith in this force and commit evil in its name.

This is the uncomfortable part of the discussion where I say, "But my God is right, and compels me to do good works in the world," and you begin to realize that I really believe that my personal faith is superior to various other personal faiths, and you weird out and we stop talking.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:51 AM on March 30, 2006

"That's exactly what you're sort of failing to grasp. They aren't imaginary rules! They're very real, they have a very demonstrable effect on reality - if I could have a week of your time I could probably show you how. But I can't, and apparently no one has."

That would be a very interesting week, Balrog, but I think you'd find we're not so far apart as you might think, since clearly you do not divorce yourself from reason and observable reality as it exists, in pursuit of your faith. Actually I am 100% certain that God exists and interacts with us from personal experience - and my personal faith is just that: personal, between me and God (as I observe and deduce God to be).

Certainly the application of principles of faith can have an effect (for good or evil) on our subjective realities as humans - I've applied such faith with great success into my own personal life and sometimes into friends's lives - but it doesn't affect things like carbon dating, the fossil record, the laws of physics, etc. Material reality, as far as we can tell (and Biblical miracles aside, as no one has been able to confirm one to scientific standards of satisfaction), is invariant with respect to faith.

I simply cannot and will not let the information in a single book - any book - dictate "reality" to me, nor will I let someone else's interpretation of that book do so. I find it interesting that if I decided that the Bible was the repository of all Truth in the entire universe and behaved as such, few would find that remarkable, but if I chose that, say, Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land was the One Truth from God about everything, and behaved accordingly, I would likely be considered quite insane.

I have free will and intelligence and the ability to reason, and I use them. It's a big universe, but I refuse to be afraid of it.

Other people are consumed with fear of the big universe, and prefer to block it out of their minds by various means, one of which is dogmatic fundamentalist religion in its various forms. These people do in fact abandon reason and reality for their version of faith, which in my opinion is a form of highly narcissistic insanity - especially when such people attempt to force the rest of us to behave to their specifications, because they are RIGHT and we are fools who could never understand their RIGHTNESS. That's Lucifer's pride, right there - he was the ultimate narcissist.

"This is the uncomfortable part of the discussion where I say, "But my God is right, and compels me to do good works in the world," and you begin to realize that I really believe that my personal faith is superior to various other personal faiths, and you weird out and we stop talking."

Not necessarily. You are welcome and rightfully entitled to your beliefs, and to talk about them as well. The line gets drawn where you attempt to force me to believe what you do, by any means from attempting a beat-down on me to attempting to institute a Christian theocratic government which will impose your views on those who don't agree using the force of law and/or arms.

Also, I would caution you against feeling "superior" in your faith. That's a dangerous path on which to step. You might want to express that feeling as your faith being the right one for you to follow, and one that others should take a good look at for its virtue. "Superiority" implies exclusivity and contempt, and perhaps a "you're either with me or against me" mentality, which is counterproductive at best when relating to other humans.

Remember the parable about sowing the seeds. Not all will find good soil to take root, and that's the way it is.

Believing your God is right, that's fine. Doing good works in the world, great! Forcing other people from their own beliefs in service of what you think God tells you is right, that's bad... because you are interfering in their free will, which even God won't do.

If you're not into making me believe as you do *or else,* than we'd probably get along fine. :)
posted by zoogleplex at 1:00 PM on March 30, 2006