Bigotry for Jesus in Action
by Damozel | What part of "Judge not unless you like being judged yourself" do today's priests and scribes of various organized churches not understand? It seems pretty straightforward to me. But both the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church are all up in other people's business these days---even people who aren't answerable to them.
Start with the Mormons and Prop 8. The Salt Lake City Tribune has an account of the LDS intervention in California now being "probed"---painfully, I hope---by California's Fair Political Practices Commission.
Hey, if they're going to get involved in politics, let 'em render up to Caesar.
At WaPo, Stephen Stromberg says:
Oh, stop, Church of the LDS, you're being too modest. You totally deserve all the "credit" you earned.
Though let us be fair---not all Mormons agree with their church on this.
Mormons, after all, know something about being marginalized.
The church, which can easily mobilize its members with a word from Salt Lake, can now become a prominent player in the culture wars....If the church decides to continue flexing its political muscle, it cannot expect to escape criticism, some of it pretty harsh.
Even if it chooses the other course -- shrinking away from the political scene, as it has after other forays into politics -- the anger over Proposition 8 will probably smolder for some time. If Mitt Romney runs for president again, Americans will address, with renewed passion, the question of whether he would be a puppet of Salt Lake City in the Oval Office. And with all the old narratives about Mormons floating around -- that they are secretive, rich, excessively traditional and theologically odd -- it will be hard for the church to stay comfortably out of the political spotlight.(WaPo)
Anyone who wants to know whether Mormons are "theologically odd"---an interesting expression---can find out anything he or she wants to know right here. I certainly think they are "theologically odd"---though I'm not sure they're any theologically odder than, say, Sarah Palin or, say, me.
I am, as it happens, a Christ-ian if not precisely a Christian. As a Christ-ian I'm baffled at the tendency of organized religion to focus almost exclusively on sexual sin. Jesus made a big point, I'd argue, that God is most offended by pride, self-righteouness, and hypocrisy---oh, yes, and lack of charity. Why aren't the churches up in arms about that?
He had the answer to that as well, actually: getting upset about a little speck of dirt in another person's eye and wailing about how disgusting it looks is a lot easier than dealing with the big ugly splinters in your own.
But anyway: Mormons. Mormons have plenty of problems of their own; you'd think they'd stay out of other people's business. But discipline must be maintained, I guess. Sadly, organized religion---as Jesus often pointed out---makes hypocrites of anyone who gets hung up on the rules and forget that the law was made for man, and not man for the law.
Back in September, a Mormon man got threatened with excommunication for writing against Prop 8.
The outcome could mean excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but Callahan said that will not stop his cause.
For more than 20 years Andrew Callahan has been a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints, but all that could change.
"I believe in standing up for what I believe in and I guess, unfortunately I am not supposed to stand up for what I believe in if I disagree with them and I do," said Callahan.
Callahan started a website and has written letters asking for other church members to support his belief that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints should not be involved in getting an anti–gay marriage amendment for California.
"We do not think it is right for them to get involved in this political matter, we do not believe it is right for them to tell us what position to take, and we do not think it is right for them to use our/their viewpoints to prescribe how other people marry," Callahan said. ... (KHAS-TV).
Too right. But here's the part I like:
"We do not take any political sides on any candidates or anything, but if they are value issues, we encourage our members to stand up and encourage those issues that are preached by Jesus Christ," said Hastings Ward Bishop Bryan Woodbury. (KHAS-TV)
Yeah, I don't know. What issues are they encouraging their members to stand up and fight against? Hypocrisy? Self-righteousness? Judging the sins of others or affecting to know which sins weigh most in the balance from God's point of view? He did plenty of preaching against all of the above.
No. No. Like most churches, all they really seem to get worked up about is sexual sin---doubtless, for the same reason as the guys who were all ready to stone the woman taken in adultery were so worked up. Jesus: "Let he among you who is without this sin throw the first stone."---according to my friend, that's the right translation. When it comes to sex, we're all guilty, all the time. Why do people think he said what he said about lusting in your heart? Do people think he'd have said and done the things he said and did if he wanted sexual sinners thrown out of the community of Christians---or that he'd have had so many followers if he had? A real Christ-ian puts charity before purity, every time, I say.
Mormons throw people out quite a lot, I've noticed. In July, a Mormon man got ex-communicated for a calendar showing shirtless young Mormon missionaries. Hott! The article says:
Whatever, Mormon Church..
But this is one thing I know.
If there was one thing Jesus wasn't, it was an advocate of protecting organized religion or its doctrinally-concerned Sadducees and Pharisees. If there was another thing he wasn't, it was a respecter of what I'll call "church discipline." He had this way of annoying the church powers (the priests and judges) that they were not exactly beyond criticism themselves. How do these people think he got himself killed in the first place?
Amusingly, the religious alliances that supported the proposition in question are now breaking up. That's because people who are obsessed with judging never know when to draw the line.
Other conservative groups that loudly backed Prop. 8 are being targeted as too extreme and off-putting by ProtectMarriage.com, which put the constitutional amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot and hopes to help persuade the state Supreme Court to uphold the measure.
We represent the people who got things done, who got Prop. 8 passed," said Andrew Pugno, general counsel for the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign. "An important part of defending Prop. 8 is eliminating arguments not helpful to our concerns." (SF-Gate)
Ah yes, that's always the first step: eliminating the unhelpful arguments after they've stopped helping.
Pugno, for example, persuaded the Supreme Court last week to bar the Campaign for California Families from intervening in the court case over the validity of Prop. 8 and the same-sex marriage ban.
"That organization represents the extreme fringe and is not representative of the coalition that got it passed," Pugno said. "They didn't even support Prop. 8 until sometime in the summer."
People associated with the group didn't expect the Prop. 8 campaign's efforts to push them to the sidelines(SF-Gate).
They never do expect it, do they? But the Campaign for Families people were all set to take it to the next level even before securing their "victory" at this one.
The group, now known as the Campaign for Children and Families, is run by Randy Thomasson, who for years has been one of California's most visible opponents of gay rights and what he bills as "the homosexual agenda."
The people behind Prop. 8 have been butting heads with Thomasson for years, arguing that his efforts to outlaw same-sex marriage and curb domestic partnership arrangements are a long step further than a majority of California voters is willing to go.
In 2005 and again in January, Thomasson and his allies proposed initiatives that not only would bar same-sex marriage but that also "voids or makes unenforceable" rights conferred by California law on couples, gay or heterosexual, registered as domestic partners, including community property, child custody, hospital visitation and insurance benefits.
"It was like the nuclear option to obliterate the entire domestic partners law," Pugno said. "We were constantly hassled by that organization, who thought we weren't aggressive enough."(SF-Gate).
Jesus promised me an eternity free of the restrictions, prohibitions, and judgments of histories diverse and varied classes of priests and scribes. I hope it's true.
If the people who fought for Prop 8 in California and Amendment 2 here in Florida are right---I do not believe it, but suppose---I guess I am going to have to resign myself to being cast into outer darkness. If I wail and gnash my teeth once I'm there, it will be out of outrage at having tried to live a life informed by the Gospel teachings of charity and forgiveness and thereby missing out on many an absorbing or exciting quarrel with my enemies.
But at least outer darkness promises to be a more interesting place than any Heaven . I worked this out in my teens, when I was reading the works of Mark Twain in his later, and angry, mode:
We may not doubt that society in heaven consists mainly of undesirable persons.
...heaven for climate, and hell for society.
I do not believe that the people who think that it is the duty of Christians to defend marriage (except from Christian adulterers) have it right; I think they are as wrong as they can be. Sadly, the many of us who believe that the principles of love and charity should always, always trump the principles of judgment and "discipline" ---I can quote you the Gospel passages that support this, if you like---are drowned out by the yells of those who think Jesus was kidding about the spiritual danger of self-righteousness.
And stay tuned, the Catholic bishops---speaking of the priests and scribes---are gunning for Obama on the Freedom of Choice Act. Sigh.
Religious orthodoxy using political muscle to impose its own will is what brought about the agony in the garden, and the agony afterward, as I understand the tale. Oy, indeed.
But if we're going to talk politics, I reckon Jazz Shaw has got it right.
It makes me so angry. These people go ballistic if someone takes the Lord's name in vain, yet they do everything they can think of to get him a bad name.
Talk about blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
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