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islam

WFcatamount22 said:
When do you think Christianity became bastardized. Christianity has always upheld fucked up views and intolerance in the name of righteous faith. If anything it is getting better, but the average person is becoming aware of how dangerous and backwards it is.
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I can agree with your second sentence. It's not getting better. It's either getting further away from itself, or the same feudal system is just continuing to evolve into a 21st Century context.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I can agree with your second sentence. It's not getting better. It's either getting further away from itself, or the same feudal system is just continuing to evolve into a 21st Century context.
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I can concede that it might not be getting better but I don't think it is getting worse. I think we just weren't around to put Christianity from 100+ years ago into appropriate context, so we see it now and think "well it had to be better back then". I don't think that it was better, different but in no way better.
 
PhDeac said:
But now white evangelicals are publicly espousing messed up views on race and nationality and poverty simply in the name of politics.
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Because they didn't use to do that? Remember the Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden?
 
WFcatamount22 said:
I can concede that it might not be getting better but I don't think it is getting worse. I think we just weren't around to put Christianity from 100+ years ago into appropriate context, so we see it now and think "well it had to be better back then". I don't think that it was better, different but in no way better.
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I can't see 21st Century Christianity leading a modern Civil Rights Movement though. It's too risk adverse with the profits of the status quo. Though the same could probably have been said for mainline Christianity in the mid 20th Century, so fair enough.
 
WFcatamount22 said:
I can concede that it might not be getting better but I don't think it is getting worse. I think we just weren't around to put Christianity from 100+ years ago into appropriate context, so we see it now and think "well it had to be better back then". I don't think that it was better, different but in no way better.
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Not to completely devolve this conversation, but we also view a 2000+ old text through a modern lens, imposing both our cultural standards and cultural questions on it, ignoring the original cultural context and the trajectory of their and where it leads us.

On the other hand, much of American Christianity also imposes the context of the text on our modern setting, making 1st century cultural views prescriptive for today.

Neither of these are helpful in understanding the questions asked and answered within the text.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I can agree with your second sentence. It's not getting better. It's either getting further away from itself, or the same feudal system is just continuing to evolve into a 21st Century context.
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I don't understand what you meant here. You say it's not getting better, but also that it's getting further away from itself. What's the difference? I'm sure that we're both aware of very many liberal churches and splinter denominations who are very accepting. Do they not give you hope? Regarding civil rights activism, inner city churches are still great hubs of activism.
 
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Deacfreak07 said:
I can't see 21st Century Christianity leading a modern Civil Rights Movement though. It's too risk adverse with the profits of the status quo. Though the same could probably have been said for mainline Christianity in the mid 20th Century, so fair enough.
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21st century Christianity is leading a modern civil rights movement. This is what is driving the likes of William barber and Colin Kaepernick. Don't equate Christianity with white evangelicalism.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I don't understand what you meant here. You say it's not getting better, but also that it's getting further away from itself. What's the difference? I'm sure that we're both aware of very many liberal churches and splinter denominations who are very accepting. Do they not give you hope? Regarding civil rights activism, inner city churches are still great hubs of activism.
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They aren't growing. They are definitely getting smaller. Most American Christians are members of evangelical mega churches. Progressive Christianity is dying. That's what I mean by it's getting worse. However, I supposed if I'm being honest, a majority of Christians haven't really been counterculutural at all for hundreds of years.
 
IamThunderbolt said:
21st century Christianity is leading a modern civil rights movement. This is what is driving the likes of William barber and Colin Kaepernick. Don't equate Christianity with white evangelicalism.
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many on here seem to because these posters are mainly interested in the politics of Christian groups and some of the US Evangelical groups have been the most overtly involved in politics

but obviously there is a lot more to Christianity than just a few overly politicized Evangelical groups in the US and concentration on these provides a rather distorted picture
 
wakephan09 said:
This is difficult because it is white evangelicalism that wields significant political and cultural power.
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Definitely. It is definitely the dominant force in the public sphere, mainly because it holds a position of privilege and its belief in dominionism inserts itself into politics.

I am a white evangelical pastor, but I find myself decreasingly associating with the term. I used to think that I would fight from within for its redemption and restoration to what it originally meant, but now, while I would still mostly adhere to Bebbinton's quadrilateral, find myself letting go of the term evangelical - seeing it more as a political term, and a synonym for the white status quo.
 
sailordeac said:
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many on here seem to because these posters are mainly interested in the politics of Christian groups and some of the US Evangelical groups have been the most overtly involved in politics

but obviously there is a lot more to Christianity than just a few overly politicized Evangelical groups in the US and concentration on these provides a rather distorted picture
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25% of US Christians are evangelical protestants, and 75% of those folks are white. That's a pretty significant chunk.

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition/
 
IaT, did you or your community vocally support either the "Boston Declaration" or the "Nashville Statement" ??
 
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