It sounds like you have some specific objectionable behaviors in mind here.

No. Not really. But time and again if someone in our community says something that is in any way critical of a group, the Peters latch onto it and spin it.

I can’t imagine … when I say that (unfortunately).

I think your analysis in this paragraph is astute.

Maybe within Christian community media. But anywhere else?

It was covered a lot. All the big papers and many of the smaller ones had stories about the ECA.

And when the ELCA had it’s “schism” last year, and about 200 churches left rather than condone with Teh Ghey, it resulted in about 200 local paper articles, each giving “both sides” (one side of which is “we hate to see our brother leave us” and the other of which is “they are consorting with evil and no longer believe the Bible”).

Obviously, it didn’t reach most people. But when you’ve been called a “compromiser with evil” 200 times, you tend to think that its ubiquitous.

I can understand many LGBT people being pissed that the progress hasn’t been faster, or that ordination of lesbian or gay people is still a matter of controversy in some “liberal” churches, let alone same sex marriage.

Yes. I agree. And also, when you’ve been badly hurt, you may want your torturer to stop hurting others… but it still can annoy to see him get praised for stopping what he never should have done in the first place.

As for the Fundies… yep it’s coming. I have struggled for at least 3 months with how to analyze, much less tell, of an SBC conflict.

Much of the problem is that Christians have the same problem that gays have or any group that has opponents has. They dont want to attack a brother. Just like our community walks a bit softly while publicly chastising our own -when we do – the Christian community also tries to keep it “in the family”.

We know that any criticism of our own will not gain any points with those who dislike us and will only give fuel to the LaBarbaras to say “even militant homosexuals admit…”

It sounds like you have some specific objectionable behaviors in mind here.

So too are Christians aware that interdenominational criticism wins no one and helps anti-Christian voices.

I can’t imagine denominations going to war against one other. But I can see Fundie denominations going off against non-Fundie denominations and Religious Right tendencies within denominations squaring off against their non-RR tendencies. I don’t think Fundie interdenominational harassment has gotten past a few nasty remarks here and there (most often it seems against the Unitarians, or beyond Protestantism, against the Catholics), but for all I know it might just be a matter of time before that gets bigger and worse. As to intradenominational conflict, that’s already happening, as with the Religious Right breakoff from the worldwide Anglican body. But the anti-Fundie, anti-Religious Right response I’m thinking of is large Protestant bodies coming out strongly for LGB and maybe also T equality in all things within themselves. Given their grotesquely huge sense of entitlement, that would be considered an attack by the Fundies, and they would counter-attack in some way. I don’t think I’m being unfair to Protestant Fundamentalism when I say that (unfortunately).

Additionally, most mainline churches probably think that they HAVE told the world what they believe. After all, they’ve been the subject of articles quoting every dissident who broke away due to their ‘appeasing the godless homosexuals and deserting the bible’.

Maybe within Christian community media. But anywhere else? You may know differently, but I don’t think the mainstream media ever report unhappy religious conservatives denouncing those things and leaving unless it’s a whole dissident tendency like the Anglican church splitoff. Which is hardly a common thing. I don’t think every denomination has had something like that (or if they have, no one in secular media has cared about it, because no church other than Anglican ones are the “Power Church” in the English-speaking world).

To them it must seem like common knowledge.

Of course it is not. Read comments here and you soon see that even BTB readers are not aware of the increasingly vocal pro-gay positions of mainline churches. And we cover this stuff more that any gay website I can think of.

I think you’re right, BTB has covered this kind of thing more than any other prominent LGBT blog.

But in the case of those BTB readers who remain unaware of the increasingly vocal pro-gay positions of mainline churches, in the case of some, it’s because they don’t WANT to know, because they want to be able to be angry at all Christians without the care that qualifications about types of Christians would entail.

It is changing. And I think it will continue to change at a rapid pace.

Mainline Christendom is beginning to see this less as a matter a doctrinal disagreement (about which it would be unchristian of them to dispute publicly) and more as a matter of justice. In matters of justice, they are faith-bound to act.

I really am optimistic about the role and voice off mainline Christianity in the next few years. I don’t think unduly so.

I can understand many LGBT people being pissed that the progress hasn’t been faster, or that ordination of lesbian or gay people is still a matter of controversy in some “liberal” churches, let alone same sex marriage. But I think you’re right to be optimistic about this based on the evidence.

The reactiveness of the Fundies in punishing anyone in their religious bodies who show the least slackening of official homophobia (as you’ve reported here) has a decadent feel to it, like that of an authority polity that is on the verge of losing control of its subjects. Due to their success at keeping intra-milieu disagreements hidden, we might in not too long see some surprising things come from the Fundies as well.

Very well said.

Much of the problem is that Christians have the same problem that gays have or any group that has opponents has. They dont want to attack a brother. Just like our community walks a bit softly while publicly chastising our own -when we do – the Christian community also tries to keep it “in the family”.

We know that any criticism of our own will not gain any points with those who dislike us and will only give fuel to the LaBarbaras to say “even militant homosexuals admit…”. So too are Christians aware that interdenominational criticism wins no one and helps anti-Christian voices.

Additionally, most mainline churches probably think that they HAVE told the world what they believe. After all, they’ve been the subject of articles quoting every dissident who broke away due to their ‘appeasing the godless homosexuals and deserting the bible’. To them it must seem like common knowledge.

Of course it is not. Read comments here and you soon see that even BTB readers are not aware of the increasingly vocal pro-gay positions of mainline churches. And we cover this stuff more that any gay website I can think of.

It is changing. And I think it will continue to change at a rapid pace.

Mainline Christendom is beginning to see this less as a matter a doctrinal disagreement (about which it would be unchristian of them to dispute publicly) and more as a matter of justice. In matters of justice, they are faith-bound to act.

I really am optimistic about the role and voice off mainline Christianity in the next few years. I don’t think unduly so.

The Evangelical mainstream’s problems with being identified with the Religious Right aren’t what I was writing about. I have no doubt that many Evangelicals don’t buy into what the Religious Right is selling, but as your link pointed out, all too many do.

I think the objecting Evangelical mainstream’s problem is a more intense version of the mainline Protestants’s problem: neither of them want to take on other Christians in a way that will get out to the world beyond those they consider Christian. I can’t say about the Evangelical mainstream, but mainline Protestants don’t have a viable choice in this. They can continue their refusal to engage in open theological conflict with the Fundies and continued to be tarred with the “all Christians are bigots” brush, or they can step up and explain to the rest of us how they are different from the Fundies. And if that can’t be all mainline Protestants, it could be those denominations who don’t have enough homophobic or otherwise narrowminded clergy or laity to cause them problems with this course of action. Of course they’d also have to not be afraid of whatever retaliation the Fundamentalists might attempt, and would have to be willing to duke it out with the Fundies in the public square, including being ready to debate them on radio and television.

Perhaps you misunderstand. You can debate the merits of whatever you do or don’t believe. But you can toss out hateful slurs or do whole scale attacks on others’ beliefs.

So “Muslims are taught to advance their faith without regard to other so I have a hard time trusting Muslim.” would be ok. It’s an explanation of what you feel and why -even if it is based in stereotype and false and would be immediately challenged. What you cant say is “Muslims are all terrorists”.

So in some contexts saying that atheism is bigotry would not be at all okay. It’s not a logical fallacy, it’s a slur

Fred Clark (slacktivist) points out that the Evangelical mainstream is not so different from the Religious Right.

TRiG.

If you read the book unChristian, the authors establish that the 40% of young people aged 16-29 that were “unchurched” had some very negative things to say about “Christians”. The authors go into distinctions between all Christians and fundamentalists (the authors are both), but came up with findings that the “unchurched” young people had a large number of specific, negative opinions about Christians.

This carries over outside the Fundamentalist milieu. I’ve been hearing ever larger numbers of young people who declare ignorantly that “I don’t like Christians” for things that only the Christian Right believes in or does.

Mainline Protestants can practice the cowardice that they fool themselves into believing is good manners as much as they want to, but if they want to survive as churches and denominations, they can’t have large portions of the youth population thinking they’re a bunch of cynical bigots and prosyletizers. The average population of mainline churches will get older and older, and their denominations will shrink catastrophically, and many churches will have to close. So the only way they can hope to not turn their future congregants against them is being going out BEYOND current Christendom and tell “the World” that “We aren’t like them!, while in some clear way indicating the fundamentalists. They could advertise in a way that straight people would get that they welcome gay people to their churches. (That was the statement the authors of unChristian found “unchurched” young people agree with most often (91%), that “Christians are anti-homosexual”.) Mainline Protestants might find that their position toward gay people will be seen by many young straight people as a proxy for a lot of other things these young people are in favor of, like a generally accepting, non-censorious attitude. But mainline Protestants will never know for sure if they don’t get out into the public arena and in some way or another challenge or contradict the Fundies.

The Universal Life Church Monastery is intrinsically pro-semetic, pro-hindu, pro-buddhist, pro-christian, pro-muslim, pro-wiccan, pro-jain, pro-atheist and pro-antitheist.

(Yes, they are pro-antitheist as they “are looking to change the negative perceptions of religion, faith and spirituality, by encouraging people to take control, stand up and speak truth to power by fearlessly stating their personal religious beliefs.”)

Universal Life Church Monastery wins. And as an extra bonus, you too can become an ordained minister online.

And, if ya think about it, the Universal Live Church Monastery is one of the largest religious organizations in the country. I’m sure all of us know one of their ministers.

“Atheism is intrinsically anti-semitic, anti-hindu, anti-buddhist, anti-wiccan, anti-jain, anti-christian, etc. ”

Judaism is intrinsically anti-hindu, anti-buddhist, anti-wiccan, anti-jain, anti-christian, etc.

Hinduism is intrinsically anti-semitic, anti-hindu, anti-buddhist, anti-wiccan, anti-jain, anti-christian, etc.

Christianity is intrinsically anti-semitic (and that is a demonstrably historical truth), anti-hindu, anti-buddhist, anti-wiccan, anti-jain, anti-christian, etc.

Just because you have a keyboard and can write a complete sentence doesn’t mean that you have the slightest business sharing your thouights.

Or, as i like to say, don’t believe everything that you think.