The LA Times is reporting that a growing number of evangelical Christians are shifting focus from the typical pro-choice and gay marriage issues to other more vital interests. Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action said,
"The typical image of evangelicals is that they’re concerned with the sanctity of life, the traditional family and that’s it — they buy the whole Republican agenda when they vote."
Sider is out to change that image by focusing the Christian army on issues like healthcare, poverty, the environment, and education (no, not Intelligent Design). Rev Jim Wallis, head of the advocacy group Sojourners, is another leader in this new movement. When it comes to gay marriage, Rev Wallis, says absolutely no, but welcomes civil unions. When asked about a woman’s right to choose, he finds it unacceptable, but not criminal. He just wants to move on to the real problems that plague humanity.
I must admit that I was shocked when I read this article, but very pleased. For once Christians may finally realize that topics such as homosexuality and a woman’s right to choose pale in comparison to poverty, healthcare, the environment, and education. Countless thousands if not millions die every year from starvation. Even more don’t have adequate healthcare. And vast numbers of poor people can’t afford a decent eduacation. And to top it all off, the environment is going down the tubes. Ask any of the people affected by these issues if they really care about two men or women getting married. Ask some impovrished mother in Africa who lost half her family to disease if she cares about a woman’s right to choose.
I’d like to hear what my Christian readers feel about this. Are we you wasting to much time and effort on gay marriage and pro-choice issues? What do you feel are the most important problems that we face today?
No related posts.
One thing that surprised me when I moved to the States for college was this obsession that religious people had against abortion and homosexuality.
My home country (Greece) while relatively conservative, does not have such an organized and passionate group of people who’s only goal is to fight abortion rights and homosexuals. Sure, they will say that both are unacceptable but that’s as far as it goes. I generally had much respect for religious people in Greece because they focused on the issues that matter and simply because they were nice people.
However, as the years passed in the US, I started *disliking* religious people. At the time I didn’t think too much about and I didn’t compare the religious folk from home, to the ones in USA. The side effect of this was that I would also automatically dislike the religious people I’d meet in Greece whenever I came back for winter/summer breaks.
Now that I moved back home, I’ve noticed these differences and, once again, I’m mostly positive towards religious people, even though I’m not very religious. I think religion can be beneficial to society if it’s “done” right. Clearly the way it’s done in America only polarizes the nation, distances the “slightly-religious” from religion, and does not have any beneficial effects on society. I applaud this minority Evangelical group for trying to make their religion a positive force in the world.
Hey Steven, nice of you to join us from Greece! I’ve been there a few times and loved it. Beautiful country and can’t wait to go back.
Background: 28, male, Iowa, USA, Christian but not of a particular sect.
One of the biggest wastes of time that Christians make with issues is their insistence upon using religious-based arguments when speaking in a non-religious-based forum. By this I mean that using the Bible, for instance, to justify your belief in the evils of homosexuality might work very well while you’re in your own church. However, once you start speaking in a public forum, you must drop the Bible as a primary source of knowledge. This does not automatically make the Bible evil; it just acknowledges that the truths within are really beliefs, not universal truths, and to many, won’t count in an argument — in fact, all it will do is make you look like a fool because you can’t argue the issues on commonly-accepted truths (science and logic, in particular). My mother and I stopped talking about issues several years ago simply for the fact that I wanted to argue in terms of globally-accepted axioms and she continually wanted to intersect these with Biblically-based faith statements. We were simply not on the same page, so the argument was null and void. THIS, I feel, is the biggest waste of time that Christians make when arguing divisive issues.
My comment turned into a much longer posting than I like to leave for a comment, so if you care to read the rest of it, head on over to my blog about it.
Hey Steven, everyone,
I was also born and raised in Greece, and have been in the US for a decade now.
Steven, you almost echo my sentiments about religious people, but dude, you’re giving a certain neo-orthodox branch of Christianity a free ride. Christodoulos – Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Greece, the constitutionally defined “official religion of the state – isn’t that far behind Jerry Falwell in terms of insidious badness.
We’re talking about the guy (and his considerable following in the population) who fought to keep the “Religious affiliation” field in the state-issued ID cards. Too bad he failed, ’cause I was ready to ask for mine to be that of my favorite soccer team and prepared to sue if I was denied.
Distortion of the core of Christ’s message is by no means a US monopoly.
Hey Dimitri, xairetismata ap’ th patrida :-)
I agree with your comments on Christodoulos and Co. However, there are some significant differences between them and their US counterparts. Most people who support Christodoulos, like my mom for example, believe that Christianity is part of our ethnic identity and it should be protected from the huge, integrated and secular EU. While I don’t agree with this view, I can understand why they believe in it since it’s more of a patriotic view than a religious/moral one. Christodoulos feeds on this belief and uses it to show that the majority of Greeks are on his side. However, his popularity rises and falls depending on which Church scandal is currently in the headlines.
Anyway, my comment was based on my everyday experience with regular people who happen to be religious. They’re not as in-your-face self-righteous, hateful or backward as the US right-wing Christians. There are no national anti-abortion, anti-gay or anti-evolution groups in Greece, like the ones found in America (Family Research Council, for example)
Just my 2 cents.
P.S. gasmonso, thanks for your comment. I’m very excited to back here permanently. Let us know when you’re coming again, I might be somewhere close :-)
>>I’d like to hear what my Christian readers
>>feel about this. Are we you wasting to much
>> time and effort on gay marriage and
>>pro-choice issues? What do you feel are the
>> most important problems that we face today?
Who is wasting time on gay marriage and abortion? What exactly does it mean to “waste time” thinking about something? That means you’re saying that we shouldn’t think about the issue, i.e., uncritically accept whatever it is other people tell us.
Personally, I probably spent about 5-6 hours researching the issue, tops. I live in San Francisco, so the issue is usually raised by others, not me.
Here’s a major issue in a nutshell: there’s a difference between gays and the gay movement. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you don’t really understand anything.
Another issue is the question of adoption. Kids growing up in heterosexual families without a mother have issues. Sometimes they can be resolved, but the statistical tendancy does push them towards the “fked up in the head” side of the curve. Along the same logic, I wouldn’t let single fathers or mothers to adopt, unless there really was no hetero couples wanting to take them — so the issue really isn’t about gays per se.
Finally, as for what the Bible says about homosexuality (not what Christian leaders say, which sometimes is the same, often not). The Old Testament says homosexuality is a sin worthy of death. The New Testament, which more or less “repealed” the laws of the Old Testament (if you want to think of it that way), still goes on to say that homosexuality is bad, alongside of prostitution, adultery, pedastry, and beastiality. One of the major reasons is that people were spending so much time at the civic temple in Corinth (the city very nicely ran a brothel with 1000 cult prostitutes) that they were neglecting their families and their spiritual life.
Which sounds outlandish, until you consider one of the things the homosexual movement tries to keep under wraps: the rampant and profligate lifestyle of gay culture. At the time the AIDS crisis started, they did a survey on the sexual habits of gay men here in San Francisco. Something like half of them had had over 500(!) partners. My lord.
“For example, among gay men high numbers of sexual partners, active engagement in anal sex, and sexual exploration are perceived as norms that legitimize an individual’s gay identity.” (http://www.sfaf.org/prevention/execsumm2.html)
What Paul was saying was almost more pragmatic than moral in nature. Empirical evidence shows he was right. Other examples:
“– More than three-fourths of the 350 men in the street-based survey reported use of noninjection drugs. Half said they had tried methamphetamine in the previous three months.
– Three-quarters of the men said they had had unprotected anal intercourse in the same time period.”(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/04/MN281636.DTL)
Under the traditional model of romance in America, men are the accelerator, women are the brakes in a relationship.
Sounds to me as though you like the change because they appear to be turning into “liberals.” Your insistence on using the term “a woman’s right to choose” pegs you clearly as someone who does not believe the unborn are humans. You are either deliberately classifying anti-abortionists as “anti-women’s rights†which is unnecessary and unfair, or you are simply parroting a vocabulary you learned without examining its meaning, which is just sad.
It also saddens me that Evangelicals are now on the “education” bandwagon. Whenever someone hops up on the “improve education!” political platform you can rest assured they have no idea what they are talking about. They have no plan. They just know that “education” is “good” and by golly we should do something to make it better. They have been deceived by the educationists. These are the “teachers†who fail year after year to teach our children to read or write or think and then use the failure to increase the ridiculous spending on their useless schools and parasitic careers. We don’t need “more†or “better†education. We need education. Teach the kids phonics and get them reading and writing as soon as possible. No new projectors, video libraries, computers or air conditioners are necessary. The power to write and manipulate language is the power to think, and if they just have that by the time they get to college, they are better off than 99% of today’s college graduates.
I wish someone would tell my parents about this!
Incidentally, when Christ was asked about sexual sins he said that if anyone looks at someone else in lust it’s the same sin as actually f’ing them. Kinda cryptic, but it seems to mean something along the lines of “He who is without sin throw the first stone.”
As someone raised in the church, I have found it impossible to reconcile christian politics and morality.
Christian morality:
Don’t judge others
Take care of the poor
Take care of the earth
turn the other cheek
reject materialism
respect people’s rights (out of love)
etc…
Christian politics:
judge others
reject welfare
reject environmentalism
Support war
embrace materialism
disrespect peoples rights (out of piety)
etc…
This was a problem for me, until I realized that morality had nothing to do with Christianity; Althought the common believers are supposed to abide by the morals, governments and institutions (including the church) do not. In fact, they can take advantage of their believers piety.
Anything that is not self consistent cannot be correct, which is why you won’t find me at a church these days. Kinda sad, because if everyone behaved like Christ said then this world would be a much better place.
Calvin Lawson Says:
February 16th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I wish someone would tell my parents about this!
Incidentally, when Christ was asked about sexual sins he said that if anyone looks at someone else in lust it’s the same sin as actually f’ing them. Kinda cryptic, but it seems to mean something along the lines of “He who is without sin throw the first stone.â€
As someone raised in the church, I have found it impossible to reconcile christian politics and morality.
Christian morality:
Don’t judge others
Take care of the poor
Take care of the earth
turn the other cheek
reject materialism
respect people’s rights (out of love)
etc…
Christian politics:
judge others
reject welfare
reject environmentalism
Support war
embrace materialism
disrespect peoples rights (out of piety)
etc…
This was a problem for me, until I realized that morality had nothing to do with Christianity; Althought the common believers are supposed to abide by the morals, governments and institutions (including the church) do not. In fact, they can take advantage of their believers piety.
Anything that is not self consistent cannot be correct, which is why you won’t find me at a church these days. Kinda sad, because if everyone behaved like Christ said then this world would be a much better place.
Give peace a chance pls its hard but its easier than killing or dying in a war.so pls all give peace a chance and in the christian world in the far east or in the middle east dont let the bad people controlling you.pls dont give tolerance to radicalism and racism never let them effect your life.if they just hate others and people and Peace this means they will try to rule on you.Never forget nazis and the racists work for them.So pls give peace a chance guys.
Steven Says:
February 1st, 2006 at 9:27 am
One thing that surprised me when I moved to the States for college was this obsession that religious people had against abortion and homosexuality.
My home country (Greece) while relatively conservative, does not have such an organized and passionate group of people who’s only goal is to fight abortion rights and homosexuals. Sure, they will say that both are unacceptable but that’s as far as it goes. I generally had much respect for religious people in Greece because they focused on the issues that matter and simply because they were nice people.
However, as the years passed in the US, I started *disliking* religious people. At the time I didn’t think too much about and I didn’t compare the religious folk from home, to the ones in USA. The side effect of this was that I would also automatically dislike the religious people I’d meet in Greece whenever I came back for winter/summer breaks.
Now that I moved back home, I’ve noticed these differences and, once again, I’m mostly positive towards religious people, even though I’m not very religious. I think religion can be beneficial to society if it’s “done†right. Clearly the way it’s done in America only polarizes the nation, distances the “slightly-religious†from religion, and does not have any beneficial effects on society. I applaud this minority Evangelical group for trying to make their religion a positive force in the world.
Kalihmera steven Your opinion is very clear indeed.I understand you very well.Lets have some uzo and some greek music and have fun.Good people like you makes people good and bad people makes people think negatively as you told in your message.being religious doesnt make people good or angel also being agnostic or atheist doesnt make people bad ones.Ancient greek was totally different so as Spartans Homosexuality was a normal way of love but killing was a bad thing.You are Greek so you know alot more than me about the history.Some organisations tell people to be conservative and want to rule the others freedom and this is unaccepteable.This war drums for the clash of civilasations is just foolish.I have raki for you and you have uzo for me.Maybe some politicinas and organisations want a war I just want those evils to find another planet to immigrate so that they can fight kill destroy eachother without Women children and normal people.I dont have a gun factory but I have people that I love and there are also people like you that I ve never meet but very happy to learn from you you have a nice decission over all.
For me freedom is the only rule I am a heterosexual and think that those organisations must check their opinions on the facts such as homosexuals and freedom.they told that they are doin it because its right and they are conservative I say Being ghay is dangerous where as being a gay is not for other people.Tolerated minds are always welcome.I dont know anywars started by the gays but We all know those conservative people fight alot and still talkin about to send their children to eachother.
Love and Peace a Turkish friend of you.
***I dont know anywars started by the gays but We all know those conservative people fight alot and still talkin about to send their children to KILL eachother.
(sorry forget that bad word called ‘to Kill’ in the last sentence)
Sorry in advance — I got like 15 minutes to burn, so I’ll be writing here and it might be a bit long =p
The phrase “a woman’s right to choose” is flung around way too much — I totally agree with BJT. IMO the fact of the matter is that we just plan don’t have the tools to know for certain when life begins. What abortion-activists take this to mean is that its ok to terminate the fetus as long as we don’t know if its actually a human being.
I mean think about it… What makes us human? What makes us alive? How can we possibly tell with certainty that life begins at the end of the 2nd trimester, when the umbilical cord is cut, when the sperm enters the egg, when the hearts starts beating, when a toddler says his/her first word, when we hit 18 (in the states) and can be legally independent, or any other time?
My argument against abortion is this… Consider what you’d do if you owned a building and wanted to tear it down because it was in the way of something else you wanted to build there. However, you are way less than 100% sure about whether or not anyone is currently in the building. Would you tear the building down? If there was someone in the building at the time, are you liable for that person’s death? In this situation, US law (among many other countries) would prolly charge you with criminal negligence or something… In any case, I think you’d be held accountable for that person’s death.
> Now that I moved back home, I’ve noticed these differences and, once
> again, I’m mostly positive towards religious people, even though I’m
> not very religious. I think religion can be beneficial to society if
> it’s “done†right. Clearly the way it’s done in America only
> polarizes the nation, distances the “slightly-religious†from
> religion, and does not have any beneficial effects on society. I
> applaud this minority Evangelical group for trying to make their
> religion a positive force in the world.
Most of this is due to the negative image of Christians the media has been running nonstop since the 60s.
You’re watching a movie or sitcom. Which of these two guys will be the bad guy? The priest or the black lawyer who defends homeless rights? The minister or the gay guy? When was the last time you saw a remake of a bible story on TV? If you did, was it Old Testament or New? When you play Final Fantasy Tactics, are you shocked when you discover the church has a dark secret, and is actually a corrupt conspiracy? What about when you play Final Fantasy X? What about Final Fantasy XI? Corrupt churches and churchmen has become a trope far beyond the reality of the situation, which is honest, good people trying to do God’s business as best as they can.
The church has been a giant punching bag for the last 40-50 years. It’s a testament to the goodness of the church that opinion moves away from it so slowly. But nowadays, many Christians are hesitant to even label themselves Christians, because doing so identifies you with the giant straw man that has been erected over the last 40 years. Hence most of the people you’ll meet in the USA that identify themselves as Christians are the ones that have kind of “snapped” and are aggressive about it. Two days ago at the mall there was a guy walking around with a t-shirt with several paragraphs on his back talking about how gays are going to hell (I live in San Francisco, mind you). At my college, a radical fundamentalist would come to the campus once or twice a year, stand in the middle of the commons, and call all the women there whores, and challenge people to debates. I found it distasteful, but interesting nonetheless. Most people don’t know why they believe the things they know, or the reasons for the things they do — they do them simply because they are popular or trendy. I’d debate with him whenever he’d come, and would sometimes back him down. He didn’t get upset though; he was happy whenever someone could put forth a rational argument.
I consider sites like this one to be indicative of all of the above. It’s a direct offspring, or concentration, of the hostility towards Christianity that has been coming from the media in the last 40-50 years. I’d guess that the preponderance of atheists, for all they profess rationalism, were (either consciously or unconsciously) more influenced by the fashionability or popularity of atheism, or by negative personal experiences towards God or the church, than by reasoned, rational thought to adopt their philosophy.
Which is one of the reasons why I have a low opinion of atheists and atheism in general. If you’re going to profess a rational philosophy, have a rational philosophy, FFS.
Toleration is the sign of a reasoned mind. (Not uncritical acceptance of all beliefs, as “tolerance” has come to mean these days.) Sites which exist simply to make fun of others’ beliefs (www.religiousfreaks.com) is testament to the lack of wisdom and reasoning of the operator thereof.
In general, a Christian is a good, decent person. Did you go to a church when you were in the states, or did you simply observe those who professed Christianity in public? As I said, there is a difference in the two populations. This is in contrast, of course, to the atheist, who is in general an embittered, and often cruel or mean, person.
If one had to choose a philosophy solely by the outcome that it has on its adherents, it’s self-evident which is superior.
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