Christian Fundamentalism and American Politics, Part 2

george

You done missed precisely the differentiation which I detailed. Secularism isn't a belief. Sceptism isn't a belief. Indifference isn't a belief. They are the absence of such.

.. It is logically improper, and transparently so, to claim as you do (or come close to doing) that scepticism (uncertainty, absence of a truth claim) and belief (certainty, presence of a truth claim) are identical.

If this were so, it becomes a tad difficult to ascertain how it is we might learn anything, or make intellectual progress in any direction at all.

…As set suggests, there is a real functional difference in play here which you conveniently ignore (for an obvious reason, which I'll get to in a second). The earth, we now know, is not at the center of the solar system nor the universe. That knowledge was only possible as a consequence of scepticsm, uncertainty, and the recognition that truth claims impede us if held as anything other than tentative.

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I said earlier that 'creationism' is a rearguard action. It has risen as a response to a more compelling, but contradictory, understanding of the world which secular investigation has permitted. Faith holders (of a certain variety - those who ain't gonna let that faith slip away no matter what) have had but two possible defensive strategies: to compete on the empirical/scientific battlefield, thus creationism; or to do what you are doing, to argue that all truth claims are equally theory-laden and resting upon bias such that none are superior to any other.

That's where your constant dualism and refusal to differentiate stems from george.

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You can be counted on to argue that one person accepting biblical authority is no different that another person accepting the authority of, say, Louis Leakey. But there is a difference. One is held tentatively, and can be discarded. Not so the other.

What hopes and fears does the scientific method imply for mankind? I do not think that this is the right way to put the question. Whatever this tool in the hand of man will produce depends entirely on the nature of the goals alive in this mankind. Once these goals exist, the scientific method furnishes means to realize them. Yet it cannot furnish the very goals. The scientific method itself would not have led anywhere, it would not even have been born without a passionate striving for clear understanding.

Perfections of means and confusion of goals seem--in my opinion--to characterize our age. If we desire sincerely and passionately the safety, the welfare and the free development of the talents of all men, we shall not be in want of the means to approach such a state. Even if only a small part of mankind strives for such goals, their superiority will prove itself in the long run.

A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in July found that 54 percent of respondents said homosexual relations should be legal. Only 41 percent of the respondents in the latest poll said they should be legal.

Richard Waters, 71, a retired elementary school teacher in Little Valley, N.Y., and a Republican, said in a follow-up interview to the poll that he strongly supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.I think any kind of amendment that says `You shall not' will help," Mr. Waters said. I just don't think it's right for two men to go parading around in public or for two women to be doing the things they do. It's against God's law.That's right in the Bible that it's wrong."

Theresa Eaton, 49, a financial analyst in Corona, Calif., and also a Republican, agreed.

"I still believe that marriage should be between a man and woman," she said. "If I knew that we had a neighbor who was gay, I would not let my nieces and nephews go close by there. I don't want to accept their lifestyle. It can be acquired and it is not right."

Jan LaRue, counsel to Concerned Women for America, a conservative religious policy organization, said her group was involved in a public education campaign on "why marriage is important and needs to be protected." She added, "We are part of a broad coalition that is using bumper stickers, newspaper ads, articles on our Web sites and assisting with amicus briefs."

"I want my children to grow up and be normal people like me and my father and my grandfather was," said Ziad Nimri, 41, a salesman and a Democrat who lives in Spokane, Wash. "I don't want my children to start getting ideas. They see it's out in the open and you see men kissing men on television these days."

Mr. Nimri said he was also worried that if gays were allowed to marry, they would get other rights too, like tax benefits. "Because they're a minority, they're going to start actually giving them more privileges than normal people would have," he said. "Minorities always tend to get more than your average person does."

Blatham and Lola would prohibit virtually any religiously motivated person or group from such advocacy in the public domain, while welcoming secular minded individuals and groups doing the same thing, even on the same issues.

Would you deprive others of the right to political expression?

More cut & paste irrelevant trash from Hobit.

I made no assertions one way or the other about any groups, "fundy"or otherwise.

Few "group" identifications (apart from political party) are provided in these random quotes. What the views expressed have to do with "benevolent and harmless", or the converse is left unexplained.

Thinking is difficult. It requires energy. However it generally helps one avoid such foolishness.

'The church of the bar'

Like many emerging churches, Pathways generally avoids self-help-style programs, instead pouring money and volunteers into local charities such as Urban Peak, which helps homeless youths.

"There's a lot of talk about the community, not just door-to-door evangelizing," said Beth Deweese, 28, who attends Pathways. "A lot of churches do the inward stuff or the overseas stuff but forget about what's closer."

Just as Pathways changed from its inception, so did The Next Level, which started as an evening service for college students in 1993.

At its zenith, TNL was one of the nation's best-known young-adult churches, drawing 2,700 a week to its Tuesday night services with concert-quality music and production.

In 2001, TNL's charismatic young founder, Trevor Bron, resigned. About that same time, the church reinvented itself. TNL started what it calls "core gatherings" on Sundays to provide more community for the growing number of TNL folks who were getting married and having kids, said Jared Mackey, TNL's ministry pastor.

About 180 people between ages 25 and 38 attend the Sunday services, which alternate between meeting at a church and in people's homes. About 900, mostly between 18 and 25, come on Tuesday night.

Mackey believes there's a place in the religious experience for spectacle - in TNL's case, the big Tuesday night event - as long as it is combined with programming emphasizing relationships.

"Any church that has an hour and a half on Tuesday or Sunday as its full expression of following Christ, I think that's being challenged," Mackey said.

Successors to Pathways and TNL have proven to be diverse.

Mike Shepherd, 39, started Connected Life Church in August. He calls it "the church of the bar." It meets at the D-Note in Old Town Arvada on the last Tuesday of each month because the unchurched crowd "wants to play on the weekend - they want to ski or hike."

Shepherd fills the club with incense and flashes ancient religious art onto projection screens before launching into programs such as "Spirituality and 'The Matrix,"' or "Microbrews in the Bible."

"One of our big phrases is to make this a safe place to engage at the level where you feel comfortable," he said. "It's safe to explore. I've said, 'If you agree with everything I've said, I'll buy you a beer.' I haven't bought one yet."

Frank Scardina, 34, founded Denver Community Church three years ago and recently took possession of a 1909 church building at Washington Street and East Mississippi Avenue in Denver. The congregation already numbers about 200, with an average age of 27.

The house band plays originals, remixed hymns and contemporary music. On a recent Sunday, a guitarist broke a string - twice.

"Things go wrong," Scardina said. "It doesn't feel slick; it doesn't feel like a performance. We kind of get together and have church. People come across as very real, very authentic, not putting on a show."

Post / Helen H. Richardson
Laura Nicholas writes at the journaling table at the Journey in Westminster. The church is built on the concept of shared leadership; there are no senior pastors.
The Journey in Westminster, with the candles and journaling table, is built on the idea of sharing leadership. The church has no senior pastor. Michael Noel and Tim Nicholas are co-pastors, and the goal is to grow more pastors from within the congregation.

"When you hear about the emerging church, a lot of people think, 'Throw some candles up and do a cool slide show,"' Noel said. "To me, that is so secondary. The real goal is freedom, allowing people to be who they want to be."

The Journey is backed financially by Foothills Community Church in Arvada, a large Southern Baptist church. It's not unusual for emerging churches, despite doing things differently, to lean on megachurches to get started.

Some emerging churches are even closer to suburban megachurches: They are part of them.

The Crossing, led by 30-year-old Christian coffeehouse manager Brett Crimmel, started independently two years ago but recently became part of Southeast Christian Church in Parker.

In Colorado Springs, 11,000-member New Life Church has a service, "Saturday Night," that fits the emerging profile, with candles and free Starbucks coffee before church. Many worshipers get together afterward for dinner or a movie.

The Saturday Night pastor, 29-year-old Rob Brendle, enjoys the resources of Colorado's largest church, founded in 1985 by Ted Haggard, now president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Brendle has no plans to launch a stand-alone church. Rather, he wants to ensure a solid future for New Life Church as its baby-boomer-dominated base grays.

"I am training New Lifers, people who are going to fill up that building in 20, 30 years," he said.

Robert Webber, a professor at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Ill., and author of "The Younger Evangelicals," thinks emerging churches will prove influential beyond evangelicalism, much like megachurches have shaped how people of different faiths worship for two decades.

"I certainly don't think everybody's going to go there, just as everybody didn't go for the contemporary thing," Webber said. "Megachurches will last. But what could happen is, as their leaders die, the churches will die."

Poll respondents were asked about the recent controversy surrounding the display of the Ten Commandments at the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery. Three-quarters of Americans (77%) believe that the Constitution's provision for freedom of religion defends this kind of display; only 21% believe the display should be removed because of the constitutional separation of church and state.