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SCOTUS decisions

PhDeac said:
Why?
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Probably should have put the qualifier, “To me, ...”

It just seems weird the idea of needing to switch a fundamental aspect of your religiosity in order to believe what you believe and teach the scripture how you understand it. I’ve always thought denominations of Christianity were fairly nonsensical, so grain of salt and all that.
 
But I don’t think that’s the case at all. Christian belief isn’t under attack and the only ones attacking non-Christian beliefs are Christians. You seem to be conflating not being a Christian with attacking Christians.

Turtle, I think your answer may answer your question.
 
Or conflating calling out Christians for their actions which expose them as hypocrites and Christians in self labeled name only.
 
Junebug said:
Why didn’t you switch denominations?

I also majored in Religion (and Biology). I never wanted to be a minister, though; I wanted to be a professor. I was headed to a PhD program when I decided that the job market in my area of interest was just too competitive and I wanted to have more control over where I lived.
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Why would I do that? I got to where I was being raised in the Baptist tradition. Why would I have the same vocation to an entirely different faith tradition?
 
Junebug said:
It sounds like either the Baptists changed or, more likely, you did. I don’t know the full extent of your issues with the Baptists, but, assuming your issues were not with Christianity more generally, there are likely other denominations that more closely line up with your own views.

This seems so obvious to me. I myself was raised Baptist and switched to Presbyterian after college. I’ve had many friends make similar changes over the course of their lives. It seems that your choice was to reject Christian practice because of your disagreement with one particular brand of it. I don’t really understand that choice. A new denomination isn’t “entirely” different. It’s different at the margins, and if you still consider yourself a Christian but you just aren’t in synch with the denomination of your youth, a change to a new denomination seems like a better choice than no denomination at all.
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I tend to be a fan of personal interpretation of scripture, priesthood of the believer, and the autonomy of the local church. I don’t think contemporary baptist churches get that as much. The Baptist Church changed dramatically throughout my lifetime. Churches split up like crazy in my youth over women serving a ministers.
 
Junebug said:
I don’t think you are fully engaging with the threat that post-modern thought poses to Christianity. It’s easy to COEXIST if deep down you don’t think any of it is true.
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I don't think that any "threat" that post-modern thought poses to Christianity means by necessity that Christianity is therefore under attack. I am atheist and I know quite a few atheists and agnostics and not a single one has ever suggested that we try to get rid of Christianity. I'm curious as to why specifically you believe that Christianity is under attack.

Also, part of the COEXIST idea is that even if you do not believe in any deity or follow any religion, you still respect and support those that do. And I think if anyone on this board would understand how hard it is to respect and support those that disagree with you and think that you are evil because of your beliefs, it would be you.
 
Junebug said:
I don’t think you are fully engaging with the threat that post-modern thought poses to Christianity. It’s easy to COEXIST if deep down you don’t think any of it is true.
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I would argue that Christianity has distanced itself from rigorous academia not necessarily the other way around. Serious scholarship is a threat to the grifters out there using religion for their own gain. Serious study of the gospels makes it hard to keep the prosperity gospel myth alive for example.
 
I think the church also lost a great deal of its voice over the losing battle against LGBT rights. It doesn’t do institutions very well to come down on the wrong side of history.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I would argue that Christianity has distanced itself from rigorous academia not necessarily the other way around. Serious scholarship is a threat to the grifters out there using religion for their own gain. Serious study of the gospels makes it hard to keep the prosperity gospel myth alive for example.
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Doesn't even really have to be that serious of study to get there
 
Junebug said:
Post-modern thought is incompatible with Christianity insofar as Christianity claims that Jesus is “the” way, “the” truth, and “the” light. Post-modern thought, whether known as such or not, is being taught to our children in our public schools, reflected in the TV shows we watch, assumed in the news articles we read, etc. Thus, Christianity, among other religious views, is under attack. I don�t think that post-modern thought targets Christianity, but that doesn�t make the threat any less real.
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Again, I think you are conflating "threat" with "attack". To me, an "attack" has to be a deliberate targeting of Christianity, as an institution, as a way of life, as a belief system to be taught. There is, in my eyes, not anything happening in modern society that could be seen as an attack on Christianity. If keeping religion out of public schools due to Constitutional rights not to have a religion forced upon you is an attack, we will just have to agree to see that differently. And I don't know that I would even necessarily agree that post-modern thinking is taught in schools that much, at least not at any significant level from my own experiences in the system., but that's a different argument really about "what is postmodernism."

Christianity was always going to be threatened once the religious right tied its fate with going against prevailing thought on women's and LGBT rights. But those movements were not concerted efforts against Christianity. If younger generations reject Christianity, it is not because Christianity was "defeated," it's because Christianity does not appeal to them when seen in the light. In an age where instant information is at the fingertips of every person above the age of 8-10 years old, there has to be compelling reasons to continue following Christianity (or adopting it). That Christianity has not done a good job in demonstrating such reasons is not the fault of some movement to remove it from American consciousness.
 
Junebug said:
Post-modern thought is incompatible with Christianity insofar as Christianity claims that Jesus is “the” way, “the” truth, and “the” light. Post-modern thought, whether known as such or not, is being taught to our children in our public schools, reflected in the TV shows we watch, assumed in the news articles we read, etc. Thus, Christianity, among other religious views, is under attack. I don�t think that post-modern thought targets Christianity, but that doesn�t make the threat any less real.
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So you think a world is which schools aren’t teaching that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light is one in which Christianity is under attack.
 
So how should this “attack” be resolved? What needs to change so Christians can be free to practice their religion again?
 
The coopting of religion for a particular brand of politics where Jerry Falell Jr. and Donald Trump are the loud, public face of Chrisianity in America is very damaging to Christianity and religiosity in this country.
 
“Thirty-five years later, Debbie Vasquez's voice trembled as she described her trauma to a group of Southern Baptist leaders.
She was 14, she said, when she was first molested by her pastor in Sanger, a tiny prairie town an hour north of Dallas. It was the first of many assaults that Vasquez said destroyed her teenage years and, at 18, left her pregnant by the Southern Baptist pastor, a married man more than a dozen years older.

In June 2008, she paid her way to Indianapolis, where she and others asked leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and its 47,000 churches to track sexual predators and take action against congregations that harbored or concealed abusers. Vasquez, by then in her 40s, implored them to consider prevention policies like those adopted by faiths that include the Catholic Church.

"Listen to what God has to say," she said, according to audio of the meeting, which she recorded. "... All that evil needs is for good to do nothing. ... Please help me and others that will be hurt."

Days later, Southern Baptist leaders rejected nearly every proposed reform.
The abusers haven't stopped. They've hurt hundreds more.

In the decade since Vasquez's appeal for help, more than 250 people who worked or volunteered in Southern Baptist churches have been charged with sex crimes, an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News reveals.”

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php

But see the problem is post-modern thought is attacking Christianity.
 
PhDeac said:
So how should this “attack” be resolved? What needs to change so Christians can be free to practice their religion again?
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Everyone else accommodating Christians, just as they have been used to.
I wonder if that expectation might lead to some resentment among non-Christians.
 
That leads to an interesting idea I hadn’t really thought of. I think there has been a implicit social contract in the US to support Christianity based on the idea that Christianity is a good value system for society. That social contract is breaking down because it becomes clearer and clearer that the most prominent people who practice Christianity move further and further away from what Jesus actually lived and preached. When non-Christians see Christians willingly send missionaries to South America but support detaining asylum seekers, it calls the whole system into question. White Christians hate good family men like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama in favor of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. After decades of hypocrisy, it’s clear it’s not just a few bad apples.
 
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