A call to left wing true Christian fundamentalist firebrands.

[gulliver]

Why don't we have any Christian firebrand preachers on our side calling the Republicans godless and un-Christian? We should. There is an exceptionally strong case to be made.

We talk about it here all the time, but we don't have any strong preacher voices hitting the Republicans with a booming "Woe unto you, worshipers of the golden calf."

Don't we have any true Christian fundamentalists out there? You know, the kind that think that what Christ actually said should matter? What a topsy-turvy world.

I don't think disabusing the Republicans of their sanctimony should be the business of the Democratic mainstream, but someone on the left should do it.

[mhr]

1. Where Is Martin Luther King When You Really Need Him?

eom

[kweerwolf]

2. Probably because "true Christians" ...

... aren't the type to go around labeling others as godless and un-Christian.

The first "left-wing" Christian that comes to mind for me is John Shelby Spong. He's an Episcopal bishop (or he may be retired now) and has written several books including "Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalists."

Mention his name around fun-D'UH-MENTAL-ists and watch them start spitting venom! He's a liberal theologian and has been involved in a lot of work and research about the "historical Jesus" which the fundies think is heresy since they claim it strips Jesus of his divinity.

[eaprez]

8. uhhhhh Jesus did....he of course didn't use the word "unchristian"

but he most certainly did call the leaders of his day hypocrites..even the rigid religous leaders of his day.

[FreedomAngel82]

16. Most definietly

Jesus surely did. He just had a nice way about doing it. Maybe we can borrow some of his language.

[eaprez]

36. There was nothing NICE in how he did it.

He threw the money changers out of the temples and called the religious leaders hypocrites and pointed out their falicy in applying the laws of their faith so ridgedly...remember the story about saving the sheep on the sabbath......

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Another person they get upset over

is Jesse Jackson. They can't stand him. On the Christian board I go on someone posted a list of fluencial Christian leaders and Jackson was listed and they got all pissy about it. Of course I gave them biographies from trusted sources and all that. I guess they don't like civil rights. :shrug:

[meegbear]

3. God write up on this in Salon

PM me your email address and I'll mail you a copy of it.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Because many of them are godless and unchristian themselves.

They've been compromised. They're just as dirty.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Perhaps because liberals and progressives seek reconcilation

Martin Luther King might be described as a fundamentalist or something close to it, but I can't imagine him threatening those with whom he disagreed, even hardened White supremacists, with damnation.

[SemperEadem]

32. how can another human being damn your own soul?

they can't. THey're just words. Just because someone spent time reading religious materials for a set amount of time and received a certificate for it doesn't mean that they've got any kind of power over your eternal soul. It just means they've spent time reading religious materials. These the the same people who believe they know the mind of God, too.

[donco6]

6. Not sure it's possible.

To be a "fundamentalist" you'd have to take a literal view of the Bible, which is one of the biggest hangups of all. RW fundies can't get past it.

Here are the major tenets:

Inerrancy of the Scriptures
The virgin birth (or deity) of Jesus
The doctrine of substitutionary atonement
The bodily resurrection of Jesus
The miracles (or, alternatively, the second coming) of Jesus Christ <1> (http://www.fpcnyc.org/fundamentalism.html)

"Derivatively, a fundamentalist Christian is a Christian who holds the Bible to be infallible, historically accurate, and decisive in all issues of controversy that the Bible is believed to directly address; which is the central issue for which the Christian Fundamentalist movement has contended." Wikipedia entry - good one.

This is one reason creationism is such a big deal. If you believe in a literal interp of the Bible, and the Bible is "historically accurate", you can't believe in evolution. It's a litmus test. So how many lefties are going to be "fundamentalist firebrands?" Not many, IMO.

[Old Deuteronomy]

13. I firmly believe....

all those things, yet I am not a Shrub-hugger. I se him as the forerunner of the anti-Christ and I say so LOUDLY (for all the good it does).

[donco6]

19. Really?

You probably don't care to speak to an openly gay man then. The "inerrant" Bible is pretty clear on what it thinks of them. (And yes, I know about the alternative interpretations of Romans, et al., but most true Fundies don't believe in that method of interpretation.)

[Old Deuteronomy]

22. Who am I....

not to speak to a gay person? Am I his/her judge? Do I walk in his/her shoes? Noooooooooooooo... I do not (though when I get the best of neo-cons, they start with the "you must be queer" crap) -- I can speak to and with anyone... and I DO believe the Word (Romans and all) is true and means what it says -- but it also goes ON to say that GOD will handle that... not me... my duty is to show LOVE and compassion...

[donco6]

25. You're weird.

And I mean that in a good way. :)

[Old Deuteronomy]

38. I'm sorry ....

maybe I try harder.;)

We gotta ALL live together...if we live passed 2008 with the Nazi's in office.

[megatherium]

14. Fundamentalism?

Some of these doctrines are shared by non-fundamentalists. Catholics and many mainline Protestants (Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc) believe in the divinity of Jesus (the Resurrection), but do not believe in inerrancy of the scriptures. Nor do they interpret scripture in a simple-minded, literal way. They also accept evolution (although they might believe that God directed the process in some subtle fashion).

There are also evangelicals who believe in evolution, who believe that the Bible is inspired and infallible. They just don't insist on a literal reading of Genesis 1 - 3, taking "days" to mean "ages".

To make things still murkier, it should be mentioned that political divisions cut across doctrinal lines in an often confusing manner. There are left-wing evangelicals (Jim Wallis is a good example, there are others). Certainly, there are liberals in the mainline denominations. But the fundamentalist megachurches are as a rule strongly right-wing. We have one in the Louisville area, which locals refer to as Six Flags Over Jesus. 18,000 members. By the way, they're having a conference in May about how homosexuals can become straight. (They had a three-sermon series in October about marriage, right before the election, when there was a anti-gay-marriage ballot measure in Kentucky; they also put billboards up all over town about marriage being for one man, one woman. How nice.)

[donco6]

17. That's the point

You have to hold to ALL FIVE to be a true Fundie. Lots of other groups hold to three or even four. Some have even more (baptism for salvation, KJV only inspired version, submersion baptism only, speaking in tongues only proof of salvation, etc.)

If they ever wind up truly in charge, we'll see a hellstorm of infighting over these idiotic doctrinal issues.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. That must be a pretty short conference

on the same-sex issue. I guess all they're going to do is sing and pray? I think it's really sad personally. I also believe in science and all that. Without it how could we come this far? Even if a higher being (God for example) created it. Also something to think about. I once saw on this network I think was the learning channel and some scientists were on talking about time and space dimension and all that. Basically they were saying our dimension is the only one with time and from my experiences the other side (aka Heaven in Christianity) doesn't have time at all, so who knows how long it really took. A few years could feel like one day.

[FreedomAngel82]

18. Something that's never made sense to me

as a Christian is Jesus' ressurection. From what I know dealing with spirits, ghosts and the spiritual realm all together you can't enter the other side without being dead and out of your body (since our bodies our are shells for being on this dimension). So how could Jesus just wake up from the dead and poof go to the other side (aka Heaven)? Same thing with the ressurection apocolpyse stuff.

[donco6]

20. Christians believe Christ rose bodily from the dead.

I.e., not a "ghost" or "spirit." Flesh and blood, reanimated. It's very important in Christian theology.

But you ask the "how could" question, which begs the fact that it's defined as a "miracle." There is no "how could" answer to it. It's a matter of faith and belief.

[FreedomAngel82]

24. I'm Christian

and all that but I also know a lot about the spiritual realms and how things are with that, so how could someone enter the other side without being physically dead? It doesn't make much sense to me. I do believe he rose and all that but from my own experiences with the spiritual realms it just is something I don't get. Heaven is in the afterlife where the spirits are (no bodies).

[donco6]

26. Well, all I can tell you is what Christian Theology claims.

I'm not a Christian, but was a fundie for many years. (and spare me the "once saved, always saved" crap).

There are several instances of people being brought to heaven bodily. Jesus, of course. The Apostle John in the Book of Revelation speaks of it. And there was an Old Testament figure - forget who - who was "no more" because God took him to heaven.

Again, HOW it happens - well, there isn't one.

[FreedomAngel82]

28. I remember those stories

And I know who you're talking about in the OT. A chairot took him up right? I wish there was a how. Maybe it'd clear my curiosity.

[donco6]

30. Oh - that's another one

Ezekiel and the flaming chariot. But that's diff from the other guy. Enoch was his name.

[okasha]

33. In orthodox Christian theology

Jesus rises bodily because he is "perfect God and perfect Man," ie., it's a sign of his divinity and is clearly miraculous. Catholics and some others extend the same privilege to Mary, though she is "assumed" by an act of divine grace, rather than "ascended" under her own power.

[donco6]

34. Yes.

And true Fundies think anything to do with Mary is idolatry. Catholics see her as an intermediary - someone who can speak to God on our behalf.

[madrchsod]

7. nah..remember there is no way in hell

you`ll never convert them. i go with the theory of these people to convince the undecided that their christianity is about justice and peace.
http://www.christiancentury.org
The Christian Century Magazine

http://www.jesusonthefamily.org

[FreedomAngel82]

23. I've given the second one before

I don't know if anybody has ever been there who I gave the site to. I think it's a resourceful website to use. That and SoJourners.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. How I (would) do it

I'm still working on this, because it involves some actual research, but I make the claim that the modern conservative Fundamentalist Christian is not really a Christian at all. The belief system is almost identical to Indo-European war god cults, especially Celtic war gods like Esus. (Yes, that's his name.)

Take a Celtic war god cult, slap the name "Jesus" on it and cherry-pick Scripture to fit in with the warrior folkways, and you've got the Fundies of every stripe and polka-dot.

This idea wouldn't just rankle Fundamentalists. I'm pretty sure the Wiccans would also hate me for pointing out that their hunky knights and maidens fair and mages wise were really hard-drinking, gang-fighting, torture-rape-pillage partiers and religious fanatics. Neolithic European rednecks, if you will. They even had mullets -- but Marlboro Lights were still two millennia in the future.

So that's my plan: Advance the argument that fundamentalism and similar Christian sects are little more than modern berserkers who have discovered the Bible, Jesus, and a good nonprofit-organization lawyer.

I'll run that up the Maypole and see if anybody fucks under it.

--p!

[etherealtruth]

10. I'm too lazy to research this...

... but aren't there very close similarities between the Buddha and Jesus? Most of our holidays mirror pagan feast days...?

Let us know...

[FreedomAngel82]

29. Christmas for example

Is very close to the pagan holiday. I have done some research on this and according to some people who live in Israel Jesus was more then likely born around the spring time months because in his story they were doing the census and isn't that usually done around the spring months? I remember in 2000 my grandfather helped do the census in his town (Fayteville, TN) and I think that was around April? Also it talks about shepards grazing sheep in the fields and them eating grass. According to people who live in Israel (you can find this info through google/yahoo that's what I did)in December there's snow on the ground and it gets REALLY cold in the nights so it's more than likely the sheep and their sheaperds wouldn't have been out. So why December 25th? I'm not sure myself.

[Dogmudgeon]

35. Christmas and Celtic pagan culture

The parallelism between Christian and pagan holidays has long been noticed, and many of the holidays were moved to preserve some sense of familiarity for the new Christians in Europe.

But I'm really making the point that Fundamentalist Protestant Christianity in America -- which explicitly rejects paganism -- is itself built on a pagan cultural base that overrides the spiritual message of the Gospels.

The behavior of Fundies, especially in the rural American South, is uncannily similar to the behavior of the Gauls and the early Vikings, even down to their hair styles. Redneck culture, currently the object of ironic admiration, is completely Celtic/Viking. Both Strabo and Julius Caesar wrote about the tribes of Celts, and described them much as an urban snob would describe Southerners. The word "pagan", in fact, is taken directly from the Latin word for "redneck" or "hick".

When the early Christians spoke about the pagans, they were not talking about spiritual competition so much as the fact that the pagans were violent, spiteful, and obsessively superstitious. Christianity offered salvation from the petty behavior of tribal deities; the pagans lived in mortal fear of offending one or another of their gods, who would torture them for all eternity in the afterlife. The pagans were heavily into hero-worship and prized machismo above all other qualities; Christians saw all men and women as brothers and sisters, and did not worship anyone as a macho hero, not even Jesus Christ.

Modern Christians in America would do well to take the advice in the Bible: to cast off the chains of paganism and embrace the Good News of salvation and freedom from superstition.

--p!

[hfojvt]

11. "When I think, of the number of years

that she is going to have to carry in her memory, the savagery of this idiotic little moment of yours, I! just! go!
BERSERK!!!" Billy Jack

[FreedomAngel82]

27. My opinion on fundies is

from what I've read and experienced on message boards it does seem like a cult. I remember reading about a year or so ago about this girl who was involved in a Christian cult. She was going to become a member but they had her do all this weird stuff. She only had to hang out with them, she couldn't talk to her family or other friends about anything and had to trust them. It sounded really weird. She also had to fast and eat certain things. This group claimed to be a Christian group. I feel like that's what the right-wing fundies are. A cult. Why? Because if you question them they rant, rave, yell, have you arrested etc. They think only they are right and they can't be wrong. They also idolize Bush and think he's some god. I do know this one republican from the Christian board I chat on and he isn't brainwashed. You can tell he's a real republican (he's against the Iraq war and is an ally of mine on the board in dealing with it). So I can see why it'd be scary to stand up to these people.

[seabeyond]

12. more are speaking out. a good sign

just the left doesnt get coverage or much opportunity for people to hear. a challenge to say the least. but i am hearing more new testiment, left christian ministers talking. easy arguement for them

[FreedomAngel82]

31. I'm glad

That makes me happy. I remember hearing the guy from UCOC speaking out some for a while and the guy who wrote "God's Politics." Only thing I didn't like with him is how he says the "left doesn't get it" when there are democrats who are Christian. I haven't read the book yet so maybe it's something else. :shrug: I think it's all just a phase and it'll pass sooner or later. HOPEFULLY! These people are power hungry and that's why they're acting the way they are whether they are right or wrong. They think since Bush "won" the election they're right and can do whatever they want on their agenda. Just like when Bush said since he was "re-elected" he could not be held accountable for anything.

[Dogmudgeon]

37. God's Politics -- Rev. James Wallis, author

He's the founder of Sojourners magazine, the bellwether of the progressive evangelical movement.

While I take a few issues with him, it's a very few. He's a good guy. We need more like him in Christendom, America, and the world.

--p!