LGBT inclusion can tear congregations apart

[Chap]

Well yes. The preceding two posts.

Ceeboo did say:

Does a Bible believing Christian get to pick and choose what Scripture teaches based on what they like/prefer and reject what they don't? No, this is a common problem in modern Christianity. Christians need to accept all of it or none of it, in my opinion. Some of it can be very uncomfortable and unpopular.

But I doubt very much whether he meant us to interpret what he said in the literal and grammatical sense, i.e. when Yahweh is recorded as telling us that we should burn and stone people, he expects us to assume ... what exactly? That Yahweh was not expecting us to take Him literally? That the Hebrew words rendered as "burn" or "stone" in English have been mistranslated?

Or maybe the let-out is that the instructions given to the ancient Israelites were meant to be observed in their place, time and circumstances, not ours? But such a contextual ethics might be rather difficult to manage. (I mean, are coveting and false witness OK nowadays? Will they ever be? How can we tell?)

Or maybe he doesn't want a let-out, and really does think all those ancient instructions should be acted on?

By the way, I've never understood why, if Yahweh wanted his Israelites to be fruitful and multiply, beat their enemies and spread his worship as widely as possible, he did not say to them "Oh, by the way, only drink water that has been boiled. Trust me on this, you'll be a lot healthier, more of your kids will survive, and you will be able to do a really good job of smiting those dratted Amalekites." But despite all that stuff about ritual purity, he never bothered.

[ceeboo]

If you are dug as deep as you appear to be in your positions, why are you asking me for my views (or are you not really asking?)

The things you choose to bring up strike me as being parroted by folks like Harris, Hitchens, Ehrman, Singer, Shermer, Dawkins, etc. So, I am guessing you are pretty firm in your current worldview. If that's the case, why would you be asking me (a Bible believing Christian) questions? Is your desire to "get me" or to "win a debate"? I don't debate - I share my views when I am asked to share, and I usually don't share if/when I believe that the person asking is not really interested to hear my personal views, rather, they are intending to smash them with their assumed superior views.

I'm just not interested in that.

Last exchange, IHAQ.

You've stated that you believe the Bible to be the Word Of God. All of it.

I did and I do,

But rather than assuming you are accepting of a God that promoted the killing of children and the raping of women, I thought I’d give you the chance to say that you don’t actually believe God facilitated those things.

I believe God has the right to do whatever he wants to do. God is not beholden to us at all - He doesn't owe us anything. It's his creation and he has the right, as Creator, to do whatever he wants.

If you don't see God, as I do, as the Creator of everything - as this Spiritual Being that has always existed - before time/space was even created - than surely you can question Him - Judge him - and find him to be a monster unworthy of your worship (I think that is precisely what Dawkins has said in one of his books, if I am not mistaken.)

You don’t have to respond to my question, obviously. But where does that leave everyone in terms of understanding what you actually believe about the Bible?

If/when people ask me about my personal beliefs concerning the Bible (It has happened more than a few times in real life) - A few things must be present for it to be a valuable endeavor. A few of them being: Discussions flavored in kindness rather than debates flavored in cherry picking with intended gotcha moments - An enormous amount of time invested (example: A question asked takes about 3 seconds - The answer might take 30 minutes - Once answer is given, another question is asked taking about 3 seconds, and that answer may take 40 minutes - and on and on and on)

What does it say about your commitment to discipleship on behalf of that God?

Discipleship is about living a life (with all of our flaws and failures) that tries to mirror Jesus. It means to resist myself and follow something that is much greater than myself - It's a daily battle between the flesh and the spirit, and it can be very hard - It is to try to bring light into darkness.

By our light (The light of Jesus) shall we be seen/known. From my limited experience, this is the very thing that has created the space when a few people asked me about my faith, and it is also the very thing that has resulted in those that asked becoming followers of Jesus themselves. Please don't misunderstand what I am suggesting: I am NOT suggesting that I had anything to do with these things, I am suggesting that I was used (like millions of Christians before me have been used) by God to radically change someone else, for God's glory.

Personally I see it this way - if the Bible is the word of God, and God is the type of divine being that feels justified in killing children and raping women, then I want absolutely nothing to do that divine being. They are not worthy of my worship. If God isn’t the type of divine being that feels justified in killing children and raping women, then the Bible cannot possibly reflect the word of that divine being. I don’t see a third option.

As I have already mentioned, I have heard this many times before, and I understand the position, I just don't think it's a rational one. I think, if you recognize the reality that we all die at some point, there is also great hope, love, and eternal salvation available to any/all by the very same God. Biblically speaking, death is what we all deserve - protesting such a fate does nothing to change that stark reality.

[Res Ipsa]

One more time. The 25% loss wasn’t based on people leaving congregations: it was entire congregations leaving the umbrella organization.

It was entirely rational for you to notice the size and composition of the congregation and to be curious about how it got that way. It is not rational to attribute that condition to an event five months before that based solely on disaffiliation of entire congregations over prior years as opposed to changes within a congregation.

What was the town. Maybe we can find some facts.

For each congregation that left the faith, they would contain a varying percentage of people who agreed or disagreed with the policy. It wouldn’t be a clean split. Not all the members would stay in that physical church, and not all the members would be able to easily find another United church.

Imagine the chaos if 25 percent of the Mormon church just split off essentially overnight. I’m kind of baffled that I hadn’t even heard about this before I went and looked it up.

That’s I think the more important idea I wanted to raise in the thread, rather than focus on a single congregation. Because as you say I have a super small sample size that may be an outlier.

If you were to google "aging congregations," you'd find that aging and dying congregations are a well recognized phenomenon in mainline Protestant churches. For some, it's a problem to be addressed. For others, it's part of the life cycle of congregations. If you were to read up on Methodist denominations, you'd see a history of splintering and recombining. According to the Lewis report, the split is generally along the lines of the groups that came together to form the UMC in the first place. In other words, congregations have generally reverted to the division that existed before creation of the UMC.

I think the situation would be much more chaotic for a top-down hierarchical organization like the COJCOLDS. For the UMC, it looked like the main problems revolved around money: unfunded pension obligations and ownership of real property. One thing I learned is that part of the problem within the UMC was the growth of affiliated congregation outside of the US, including Africa. Governance of the UMC is bottom up, with representatives of congregations forming a legislature that votes on contents of the equivalent of the CHI. With membership in Africa poised to exceed membership in the USA, and with the heavily conservative nature makeup of African congregations, what was originally a US controlled denomination was no longer controlled by US congregations. That helped precipitate the split.

The COJCOLDS faces a similar demographic issue. At the top, the LDS hierarchy is dominated by Americans. But the best prospects for converts are in Africa. Given the demographics, it's not hard to imagine membership in Africa surpassing membership in the U.S. If there were some kind of major schism in the COJCOLDS, perhaps it would be along a US/International Division. It will be interesting to see whether an international church can continue to be governed by old, white Americans.

[drumdude]

It will be interesting to see whether an international church can continue to be governed by old, white Americans.

I can see them eventually adding an apostle from the African countries. It would be overtly racist to ignore them as their percentage of the church grows.

[I Have Questions]

Last exchange, IHAQ.

Okay. But note that whenever you put a position forward about the Bible, I will ask you a question about it.

I believe God has the right to do whatever he wants to do. God is not beholden to us at all - He doesn't owe us anything. It's his creation and he has the right, as Creator, to do whatever he wants.

You support his right to have children killed and women raped, without accountability. Got it. I think that speaks volumes about the type of being you’re happy to believe in. Which in turn, is a reflection on you.

If you don't see God, as I do, as the Creator of everything - as this Spiritual Being that has always existed - before time/space was even created - than surely you can question Him - Judge him - and find him to be a monster unworthy of your worship (I think that is precisely what Dawkins has said in one of his books, if I am not mistaken.)

I see no reason to waste my time believing in someone who thinks it’s okay to have children killed and women raped. But that’s just me…<shrug> YMMV.

You don’t have to respond to my question, obviously. But where does that leave everyone in terms of understanding what you actually believe about the Bible?

Discipleship is about living a life (with all of our flaws and failures) that tries to mirror Jesus. It means to resist myself and follow something that is much greater than myself - It's a daily battle between the flesh and the spirit, and it can be very hard - It is to try to bring light into darkness.

I think there’s a significant difference between trying to live up the character called Jesus in the New Testament, than there is trying to live up to the child-killing, woman-raping God from the Old Testament that you worship. It’s as if they are two entirely different people with two entirely different sets of moral values. I’d say ‘surely you can see that’ but I’m not convinced you can.

By our light (The light of Jesus) shall we be seen/known. From my limited experience, this is the very thing that has created the space when a few people asked me about my faith, and it is also the very thing that has resulted in those that asked becoming followers of Jesus themselves. Please don't misunderstand what I am suggesting: I am NOT suggesting that I had anything to do with these things, I am suggesting that I was used (like millions of Christians before me have been used) by God to radically change someone else, for God's glory.

If God required you to kill children or rape women or murder your own son, would you do it? I don’t expect an answer, as I think you lack the courage of your convictions. Or perhaps you would do those things if you felt God wanted you to.

Personally I see it this way - if the Bible is the word of God, and God is the type of divine being that feels justified in killing children and raping women, then I want absolutely nothing to do that divine being. They are not worthy of my worship. If God isn’t the type of divine being that feels justified in killing children and raping women, then the Bible cannot possibly reflect the word of that divine being. I don’t see a third option.

As I have already mentioned, I have heard this many times before, and I understand the position, I just don't think it's a rational one.

It’s entirely rational based on the information at hand. You’d be hard pressed to demonstrate that it’s an irrational viewpoint.

I think, if you recognize the reality that we all die at some point, there is also great hope, love, and eternal salvation available to any/all by the very same God.

Everybody dies. I get that some people take a level of comfort in facing death by believing there is something “after”. But I can see no reason to objectively and rationally think that there is.

Biblically speaking, death is what we all deserve - protesting such a fate does nothing to change that stark reality.

Who’s protesting death? I certainly haven’t.

[Res Ipsa]

It will be interesting to see whether an international church can continue to be governed by old, white Americans.

I can see them eventually adding an apostle from the African countries. It would be overtly racist to ignore them as their percentage of the church grows.

I can see that, too. in my opinion, the interesting question is whether a US centric denomination can remain under control of Americans when international members far outnumber US members.

[ceeboo]

But I doubt very much whether he meant us to interpret what he said in the literal and grammatical sense, i.e. when Yahweh is recorded as telling us that we should burn and stone people, he expects us to assume ... what exactly?

That God provided laws (through Moses during a time in history) to the Israelites (a specific people) on how to live - These laws included how to handle matters of justice in the community.

So, while you "doubt very much" that I would interpret such verses as meaning what they mean, you would be wrong.

That Yahweh was not expecting us to take Him literally?

No, Yahweh expects us to take him quite literally.

That the Hebrew words rendered as "burn" or "stone" in English have been mistranslated?

No - The Hebrew word for "burn" and "stone" are translated to burn and stone.

Or maybe the let-out is that the instructions given to the ancient Israelites were meant to be observed in their place, time and circumstances, not ours?

There is no "maybe" about it. The mosaic laws (old covenant) were the laws given to a specific group of people (Israelites) by God, through Moses, at a specific time in history.

Followers of Christ are under the new and everlasting covenant. The old law has passed away and is now obsolete.

Or maybe he doesn't want a let-out, and really does think all those ancient instructions should be acted on?

Yeah, but don't tell anyone how embarrassed I am - Let's keep it a secret between the two of us. Deal?

By the way, I've never understood why, if Yahweh wanted his Israelites to be fruitful and multiply, beat their enemies and spread his worship as widely as possible, he did not say to them "Oh, by the way, only drink water that has been boiled. Trust me on this, you'll be a lot healthier, more of your kids will survive, and you will be able to do a really good job of smiting those dratted Amalekites." But despite all that stuff about ritual purity, he never bothered.

You never understood, because you're attempting to play the role of Almighty God, assuming the knowledge of God, and arrogantly placing yourself on equal grounds as God - All, while being a mere piece of His creation.

[Res Ipsa]

Ceebs, I'd like to continue this portion of the discussion either privately or in Celestial if you are so inclined. There are several approaches to Christianity I think I grasp. But I've tried to understand the claim by some Christians that other Christians are picking and choosing from the Bible with no success. From where I sit, I see picking and choosing everywhere. And, for me, the explanations offered don't hang together. So, I'd be interested in hearing more about how you approach what I see as picking and choosing. If you ever decide to have such a conversation, please let me know.

[ceeboo]

I see no reason to waste my time believing in someone who thinks it’s okay to have children killed and women raped. But that’s just me…<shrug> YMMV.

Then you certainly wouldn't see any reason to believe in someone who killed everyone on the planet (less 8) then. If you're looking for the most troubling things possible, you ought to use the most troubling possible.

I think there’s a significant difference between trying to live up the character called Jesus in the New Testament, than there is trying to live up to the child-killing, woman-raping God from the Old Testament that you worship.

'
And if I told you that Jesus is all over the Old Testament? If I told you that Jesus was there when Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, then what?

As much as people may try to separate God of the Old Testament and Jesus (as if they are not the same God) it simply cannot be done. The Trinity - Three persons of God - Father, Son, Spirit - Cannot be separated - They are one.

It’s as if they are two entirely different people with two entirely different sets of moral values. I’d say ‘surely you can see that’ but I’m not convinced you can.

See above.

Personally I see it this way - if the Bible is the word of God, and God is the type of divine being that feels justified in killing children and raping women, then I want absolutely nothing to do that divine being. They are not worthy of my worship. If God isn’t the type of divine being that feels justified in killing children and raping women, then the Bible cannot possibly reflect the word of that divine being.

If that's the way you see it, then that's the way you see it.

[I Have Questions]

And if I told you that Jesus is all over the Old Testament? If I told you that Jesus was there when Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, then what?

Then I’d ask you to demonstrate how you’ve arrived at that conclusion.