Nosmo King
Gold Member
What is "ideological evil"? What are the aspects of "contemporary cultural darkness"?Why do so many Right Wingers actively seek to conflate faith and politics, two subjects along with money ought to be avoided in polite conversation. Why do Right Wingers want to wrap themselves in the two most potent symbols in our culture; the flag and the Bible?
Surely it makes their political/Ecclesiastal world more comfortable, but not unassailable. Faith is not a matter for compromise. No one of faith would broach compromising their belief in God. Similarly, they feel that their political ideology is inviolate, pure, absolutely correct and anyone opposing it is a heretic.
I am a man of faith. I have been a Christian all 61 years of my life. When I became politically aware back in the late 1960s, I took a Lineral stance and I have not backed away from it. But I do not for one second want my fath to inform my politics. I do not, for one second, think that it is right, appropriate or American to call my politics my faith or my faith politics.
I think the reason so many on my side of the aisle look askance at 'Chritianity' is due to the dogmatic and twisted interpretations so many 'Christians' use when defending indefensible political positions. Creation vs. evolution, marriage equality, racial relations and, the big one, reproductive freedom. These issues, these wedge issues, these cultural issues are, in the absence of a polarizing president, what divide this culture the most.
When a baker discriminates against a customer not because the customer is completing himself in an unseemly manner, but because the baker thinks the customer's lifestyle is icky, 'Christians' twist a beautiful, loving faith based on forgiveness and empathy ito something unrecognizable as Christianity.
When 'Christians' take it upon themselves to harass a frightened young woman who has made the most emotionally excruciating decision of her young life, one must ask what ever happened to the Golden Rule?
So the righteousness of a narrow interpretation of faith collides with the righteousness of those who harbor political paranoia, we get to the point of why and how the Left feels justified in dismissing 'Christianity'. By the way, if you want a paradigm for what happens when faith meets politics, look no further than the Taliban. Fundamentalism attracts strange bedfellows.
I read you as a double line, middle of the road fence walker. Either one stands in solidarity against ideological evil, or one is complicit with said evil, regardless of self-moderation or faith. One cannot claim to have faith and respect for the ancient foundations of moral fact, while still claiming to be possessed of a mind open to and embracing contemporary cultural darkness. Doesn't work that way. You wish to have the best of both worlds. Trust me, that desire is a sinking ship.
Is it tolerance? Is it equality? Is it reproductive freedom?
You use those hyperbolic terms as a saber to hack at those who hold different opinions than yours. Please specify. Otherwise we cannot truly dialogue.