Help with an answer to what my friend says re: environement and gays

[LittleClarkie]

Well, actually, she brought it up jokingly, because she's cold-blooded and wanted the weather to warm up.

Why am I telling you this, you may ask yourself. Well, I asked her after a moment what she thought about the idea of global warming and what we could do about it. She said, paraphrasing badly that "God won't let the world get that bad until we're done using it." Essentially, I took this to be a rapture reference on her part, though I didn't question her.

Does that statement bug anyone else? I tried to get around this answer by asking if she meant that we shouldn't worry about what we might be doing to the atmosphere and such. She did concede that we should be responsible, but she kept coming back to the idea that God wouldn't let anything bad happen to the planet until we didn't need it any more.

Help me. What's wrong with that concept?

Here's another one with the same person: She belongs to the NA Baptists. She was bugged that a minority in the NA Baptist group want to dictate to the other churches in the group whether or not they should accept gays and such in their congregations. She explained that the denomination was such that individual congregations are quite independant of the national organization.

I made the mistake of seguing into commenting on how Bush was trying to usurp states rights in much the same way, with initiatives such as NCLB, trying to shoot down the one state's euthenasia law, and DOMA. She didn't like the comparison, in that she said the GOP wasn't a minority, and besides Reagan had done the same thing with the speedlimit of 55 law and forcing states to adopt it. Not that she thought that was a good thing, so I don't know why she brought it up, except I suppose to point out the futility of my efforts in the realm of politics. "As soon as you get betrayed by a politician you'll be like me and not care about politics anymore."

Gads, I hope not. Even though she considered him a beatable candidate, she decided at the last minute to vote for Bush because Kerry ticked her off with the Mary Cheney comment. Her original stance was going to be to vote Constitution or Libertarian, mostly because she doesn't like to vote for any incumbant ever.

I referred to Bush as evil in front of her, after which she wants to know why. I told her I thought there was a possibility that he wasn't a Christian. She doesn't believe that.

We've also discussed Abu Ghraib, which I found appalling but that she considered as just par for the course in wartime (Doo doo doth happen, as it were).

I can't help feeling that though she professes to be Christian, that there is something wrong with her heart. Her answers are to pat and unconcerned. It bothers me. But then as they say, the Church isn't a museum for saints, it's a hospital for sinners. But I never understand how Christians can strive to be Christ-like, and not realize that being down with the Bush agenda is not compatable with that goal.

Comments, feedback, insults, input? Thanks in advance for any answers and for reading my little ramble.

[realFedUp]

1. sounds like a Pharisee to me

hypocrisy, thy name is conservative.

We are all here as living members of faith
to help protect God's creations, including
the environment and other human beings of
all races, gender, sexual orientation
and means.

Torture, killing, shaming, denying food,
water, decent wages, equal rights under laws,
the freedom to express oneself, access to
taxpayer paid representatives are just some
ways current day Pharisees are living hypocritical
lives and certainly not in the ways Jesus would
advocate.

[elshiva]

2. Rapture is not a biblical concept.

There is some reference in Thessalonians about "meeting in the air," but this was symbolic language by Paul. The word rapture is not in the Bible.

The word "homosexual" is also not in the Bible. References to "homosexuality" are really bans on male-on-male prostitution, which the Canaanites (in the time of the writing of Leviticus)and the Greeks (when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans) practiced in part as worshipping of their gods. The issue is more about idolatry than consenual sexuality.

That is the best I can do right now to sum up what I learned getting my B.A. in Religious Studies. Was that helpful LittleClarkie?

[LittleClarkie]

3. Somewhat. Thanks Elshiva

I find it interesting that this is not in the Bible. I think there is alot of over-reading in Revelations, which is so highly symbolic anyway. I've been told by some that Revelations makes more sense if you realize that the Beast is Caesar and the mark of the Beast is a mark you had to get to show you'd worshiped Caesar that day. So Revelations would be more a way for Christians to communicate at the time so that if the Romans found their writings, they wouldn't be able to make heads nor tails of it. I rather like the idea that it was used more as a book of encouragement and hope of things to come at the time than as some sort of roadmap to the future.

[elshiva]

4. The Historical Critical Method Vs. Literalism

The Historical Critical interpretation is what they teach at College, not literalism. The Historical Critical Method looks at a book in the Bible and asks what historical context was this written in? Revelations was written at the end of the first century CE when the Church was just beginning to be persecuted by Rome. The writer of Revelations saw this persecution as the endtimes. Nero WAS A BEAST, he burned Christians as human torches for fun.

Anyway, I don't think Revelations' can be taken literally. These were visions/dreams that (I believe) God gave the writer to comfort him and his audience (the 7 churches).

Matthew Fox (a theologian) wants liberals to reclaim Revelations.

[LittleClarkie]

5. I looked at a book once with that in the title

The Historical Critical Method. Very interesting little book. Green cover if I remember correctly. Introduced me also to the idea that when Gentiles were incorporated into what was essentially at that point a Jewish sect, that perhaps they brought with them some pagan beliefs. I think it was that book that suggested the virgin birth and the resurrection both might have been pagan corruptions of the original story of Jesus. I'm not sure what I think about that.

But what's always been most important to me is Jesus' teachings. Never could get into Paul somehow. What a grump.

Even though the Evangelicals have claimed power, much of what they are doing doesn't look Christ-like to me. Some mean well, but others are just wrong. Dobson for instance. Targeting Dems for not following like sheep behind Bush. He should be ashamed of himself. These Congresspeople are beholden to no one but their constituents, not some nutjob who thinks he wields political clout. Damn I hope he isn't as powerful as he thinks he is. Somehow I can't picture Jesus acting this way.

[elshiva]

6. Paul is cool. Give him a chance.

Not a grump just a guy who had a lot on his mind.
Don't know about Jesus as a Republican. Dobson, Falwell, Phelps, and co. are a bunch of egomanical haters who hide behind the name of Jesus.

Remember: GOD DATES FAGS! He heard him wrong!

[RevCheesehead]

7. I agree with elshiva about Paul.

I personally believe Paul has been so misunderstood and misquoted, that people would be shocked if they sat down and actually read through any of his letters. (For a good read, try Eugene Peterson's The Message. He puts the meaning of the text in easy to read and understand language that is spot-on, theologically.

I find it helps me to remember that Paul was once a Pharisee who persecuted Christians. After his conversion, he was literally a changed man. But perhaps some of his older habits remained. He had problems with any number of things, but I really think you have to know something about the situation in which he wrote to fully grasp the meaning. (Just as someday, historians will read our blogs, - and if they didn't know about the BFEE, the phony WMD's, etc, our words might convey a completely different meaning than what we intended.)

One of Paul's biggest hangups was that he was literally waiting for the immediate return of Jesus. That's why he told people that they would be better off if they remained unmarried. He also had some kind of chronic ailment (his "thorn in the flesh") which was a considerable burden to him. And he did plenty of prison time, too. He also had at least one very difficult church (in Corinth), who gave him endless grief (something I have related to very well in the past). Those things could certainly make someone seem grumpy!

I do not believe Paul would tell me (a woman) to sit down and shut up, that I had no business leading a church - because Lydia (and so many other women) did. Funny how the fundies forget about THAT part of the bible! I also think Paul was unfamiliar of the notion of homosexuality as a lifestyle - he saw it enacted in cultic practices in the surrounding region, as part of pagan worship. (also note that in the NRSV bible, the word "homosexual" does not exist.)