Thanks for stopping by the blog.

I wonder if, amongst the many posts you put on your blog that prescribe an evangelical atheism and tend to give a lot of attention to what you view as malpractices among Abrahamic faiths, you could also highlight the internal dialogue happening amongst Christian churches on this issue - even link to our blog here. I went to your site and did not see a post mentioning this dialogue - perhaps not shock-worthy enough for the “free thinkers” visiting the blog I suppose.

Thoughts?

Too bad that so far as conservative believers tend to go in the realignment campaign among Anglicans-Episcopalians, the Anglican Communion has outlived its intelligently broadened usefulness as a coherent religious community. But Jesus and we remain. Imagine that.

Not only do gay people themselves bristle at this silly behaviour on the parts of the gay-hating Christians and other religionists, but in these days of civil partnerships and far, far more acceptance of the fact that to be gay is natural and not evil, you’ll find that most straights have some gay friends, too, so they are going to bristle likewise.

Fortunately, there are some good Christians out there making the right noises. I may not go along with their beliefs, since I’m a nontheist, but I admire them if they stand up to the childish (frankly unintelligent) homophobic bullies, who are really just today’s equivalent of the religious elements in the KKK early last century and before.

I remember reading on YAR a few months ago Mennonite Christians in the Third World tend to be more conservative on moral issues (e.g. homosexuality) than the common positions put forth on this blog. An MK who grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, told me Satan is a real and tangible figure for Kenyan Christians, while in the U.S. we talk in minimal ways about Satan’s influence on our lives and the lives of others.

How do evangelical spokespeople around the world address glbtq issues? While a Chinese Christian’s view of the U.S. and evangelicalism here may be affected by Pat Robertson and James Dobson, how the Chinese Christian lives his/her life is affected most by the opinion leaders in his/her life like parents, pastors, study groups, etc.

Are Christians worldwide looking to Christians in the U.S. for cues on doctrine and practice?

Hospitality: that’s our problem!

A Christian discussion group that meets at my apartment is actually going to be reading through the book UnChristian, which publishes the results of the Barna Group study along with reflections by (mostly) American and Canadian leaders of faith on how to respond to these observations made by non-Christians today. We are reading it with a few local leaders of faith who are interested in hearing how young adults understand faith and discipleship today.

I immediately turned to the chapter on homosexuality. I read through the results, which appear pretty damning as you show above.

The response of the Christian leaders I found a bit flat. Their responses were supposed to be fresh, new, exciting ways to move forward. Instead, they sounded about 20 years behind. The overarching message was, essentially (and it is actually said by Kinneman) “Love the sinner, hate the sin”. This has been hashed out by other folks on the blog who can better articulate the point then I can, but this response by Christian leaders, while good intentioned, still outright condemns committed homosexual partnerships. This condemnation has thin (or no) scriptural basis.

One Christian leader who worked in “homosexual ministry” said that we should love homosexuals and welcome them, but encourage them to be celibate.

What?!? After spending the chapter talking about how homosexuality is no worse a sin than any other sin, the book doesn’t even follow its own logic. It expects of those who are queer a celibacy that would never be expected of a heterosexual of faith (in fact, churches are in a rush to marry their young to save their souls from lust!)

Also, the overall consensus of the authors and contributors is that “scripture says” being queer is a sin, yet never once is scripture quoted to back that up.

I suppose the authors and contributors want to make a small step: reminding the church that we should love those who are queer rather than marginalizing and oppressing them despite believing they are sinners.

It’s a sad state, though, when we have to remind Christians to love their neighbors……

You’re absolutely right that 6 months is not long enough to grasp the essentials of our faith. But it is long enough for church’s to model the radical hospitality of Jesus. Cynicism doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. My point is that the church is apparently failing to connect with young adults when they are attending for 6 months (or likely more in many cases). This isn’t to say that the young adults don’t bear some responsibility as well. But I don’t think we can get away with simply pointing a figure at contemporary culture.

Finally, after saying all that, I don’t think we can get too wrapped up in the 6 months time period. The wording of the survey was apparently “6 months or more”, but many young people may have spent much longer in the church than that.

Adam, a summary of the posts here at YAR is published in Tmail, the weekly email publication of The Mennonite. It goes out Monday, so we’ll see if we get any response then…

6 months? Attending a church for 6 months is not enough time to get to know people’s names… let alone form a non-cynical opinion of that community. There’s no way to grasp the essentials of the faith in that time. I’m afraid that 6 months is about just the right time to become a casual cynic judging the person in the next row.