NRO
Culture to Christians: Do stop believin’
While not all progressive Christians scorn actual faith so openly, the column is a prime example as to why it’s so very difficult to take progressive spiritualists seriously. It’s as if the label “Catholic” or “Christian” or “Evangelical” is adopted by the progressive not as a statement of actual belief but instead as an identity marker granting standing to mock and destroy.
I know a few self-described progressive Christians who believe every word of the Bible was inspired by God, but far more common are the progressives who believe that the church would be a great force for good — if only it shed its actual religious faith. Funny how they rarely make similar arguments to Muslims.
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They never say much to Muslims about women’s rights either, but boy howdy, do we get lectured about it!
CurtZHP on March 15, 2013 at 11:01 AM
This author does not get out much. Try leaving Manhattan. Or wherever you are in the Upper Left Corner of Aerica.
There’s a whole different country out there than your limited knowledge is aware of.
kingsjester on March 15, 2013 at 11:03 AM
Actually, it’s on the right-hand side, but left in ideology.:)
kingsjester on March 15, 2013 at 11:05 AM
Their left, your right. I got it.
CurtZHP on March 15, 2013 at 11:08 AM
Don’t think that’s a fair critique of the author. He did qualify his comments to the subset “progressive” Christians.
Fenris on March 15, 2013 at 11:09 AM
I’d like to see her evidence there.
thebrokenrattle on March 15, 2013 at 11:09 AM
*WOW* No Virgin Birth either….pretty much the Bible out, too, then, doesn’t it?
So what DO Catholics for Choice believe in, besides Abortion and Obama? Or have I pretty much covered their “beliefs?”
JFKY on March 15, 2013 at 11:11 AM
Yeah, God so wants to be liked and thought of as cool by a bunch of sinners. That’s why Jesus was crucifined on the cross… so God could be “liked” by the world.
JellyToast on March 15, 2013 at 11:13 AM
Kissling is proud of his profound ignorance.
tom daschle concerned on March 15, 2013 at 11:14 AM
If you changed a few words around, you would also be able to easily describe the state of the modern Republican party with this paragraph.
Doomberg on March 15, 2013 at 11:15 AM
The Progressive creature values his head remaining on his shoulders, like most other living creatures. But the ‘turn-the-other-cheek’ crowd is so gosh darn entertaining to kick in the arse in order to get that cheap, smug sense of superiority high.
RepubChica on March 15, 2013 at 11:15 AM
I imagine Kissling enjoyed those smug Apple v. PC-type advert’s for a hipster church…
JFKY on March 15, 2013 at 11:20 AM
RepubChica on March 15, 2013 at 11:15 AM
“Progressives” seem to forget about the time Christ threw the money lenders out of the temple. They overlook “righteous indignation”.
kingsjester on March 15, 2013 at 11:22 AM
It’s not exactly a black and white issue. To be clear, there are real theological differences between evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity and mainline/liberal/progressive Christianity.
I’m a mainline Christian (Christian Church – Disciples of Christ) and I probably view the Bible in a different light than, say a Southern Baptist would. I don’t view that as one faith as being less strong legitimate than the other, we just have different views of how the Bible should be interpreted.
Where there’s an issue is that hard left nuts have done the same thing to many churches as they’ve done to the US education system. They take over seminaries and national leadership, gut the traditional teachings of Christianity, take on hard left political positions and reduce the religion itself to new age mysticism with a healthy dose of Mother Gaia worship thrown in. So yeah, there’s a problem, but it’s not with the laity, or even a good chunk of the clergy of the so-called “mainline” or “progressive” churches. It’s with the leftists who have taken control at the top.
LukeinNE on March 15, 2013 at 11:24 AM
Exactly. Every single liberal, from Ozero himself down to the dumbest Democrat-voting welfare queen, knows who really is likely to drag them screaming from their homes and it ain’t the politically powerless white guys.
Christian authors are trying to address the “Pansy Jesus” myth, with limited success. We have confused not returning evil for evil with being so utterly limp-wristed that liberals have absolutely no fear about running roughshod over just about any cultural standard. Our churches and pastors will be right in the crosshairs if gay ‘marriage’ is rammed through.
I can guarantee you that liberals would not mock (at least not for long) if a Muslim cleric came out tomorrow with a public statement that abortion was a horrible Jewish conspiracy and any liberal who pestered any Muslim about his/her robot-like beliefs on this matter would face unimaginable agony.
It’s not at all unlike JFKY when he goes into full-on Godwin mode: he can rail about how I’m supposedly a Hitler-loving N@zi because he knows he is in no danger whatsoever from ACTUAL N@zis. But if he were to wake up tomorrow to, say, a swastika carved into his front door, he would very quickly stop laughing.
MelonCollie on March 15, 2013 at 11:24 AM
No I just happen to know when I’m talking to one…I mean go on explain how Hitler’s bad rap is mostly because he was a WHITE GUY…I’m sure the audience willbe able to tell that you’re not a Nazi.
And if they disagree, be sure to call them “Zionist wannabes”…
I’ll keep laughing at you Melon…but that Swastika shows up, I’ll be laughing at a bullet-ridden corpse…hope it’s no one you know, well at least.
JFKY on March 15, 2013 at 11:29 AM
ROTFLOL. The absolute closest thing you’ve ever seen is perhaps some skinhead gang member standing on a street corner.
Every last one of the organizations associated with them has been reduced to a powerless shell, even the fricking Democrat-founded KKK. The Communists are 10,000x more dangerous to you right now than N@zis ever will be in your entire pathetic lifetime.
MelonCollie on March 15, 2013 at 11:36 AM
LukeinNE on March 15, 2013 at 11:24 AM
heard an interesting theory a few years back. In the late ’60s Congress got rid of the draft deferment for post-graduate studies….unless you major was education or you went into a seminary.
guess what happened?
29Victor on March 15, 2013 at 11:47 AM
+1 for the historical knowledge. And I don’t even need to guess what happened, I can see it with my own two eyeballs.
Kinda makes the point against exemptions pretty well, huh? Make even the most justified exemptions possible (for teachers and preachers!) and things promptly go to you-know-where.
MelonCollie on March 15, 2013 at 11:52 AM
I learned something today, thank you. So basically our own government set the ideological dregs of our nation loose on to two of our most important institutions? Fantastic.
LukeinNE on March 15, 2013 at 11:58 AM
That is an oxymoron. If you reject faith you aren’t a Christian.
chemman on March 15, 2013 at 1:12 PM
Based on your last paragraph you might be surprised by how much you have in common with Southern Baptists.
While 29Victor is correct about the exemption issue the liberal take over of seminaries began in the 20′s and 30′s and was mostly complete by the 60′s. A few of the Evangelical Seminaries hung on until later but they are loosing the battle also.
chemman on March 15, 2013 at 1:21 PM
What I have in common with Southern Baptists is that I believe in a Trinitarian God who created us and everything we know and offered salvation to mankind through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
I view my differences with conservative Christianity as being significant but not really affecting fundamental doctrines. They mostly view the Bible as inerrant and literally true, I view it as inspired by God, but nonetheless written by men in their own culture and time, often using symbolism and metaphors. Many Southern Baptists are creationists, I adhere to theistic evolution, etc, you can kind of see where this is going.
In my church, there’s an old motto: “in the essentials, unity, in the nonessentials, liberty, in all things, charity.” I firmly believe that within Christianity there is room for debate on pretty much anything except for the essentials–which I view as being the Trinitarian nature of God, and the saving power of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the leadership in many churches has crossed that line a long long time ago.
LukeinNE on March 15, 2013 at 2:52 PM