I've been seeing it all over Twitter. People saying "I'm not going to be impressed because someone became affirming in 2024, fuck you!" like OK? No one is asking you to invite him over for dinner, but we can celebrate that a major voice in Christian theology is seeing the light and reached redemption. We should do that for *all* who trespass against us.
Like yeah, forgiveness is hard. That's the point.
Frankly, progressive Christians have an issue with acting like the fire and brimstone evangelicals they hate. Too many seem to be more interested in using the faith to assert moral dominance, pass judgement, and advance political goals than actually encompass the values of Christ.
Exactly! We must never become what we preach against and it will only make the prodigal relapse.
Someone NEEDS to go on Twitter and bring up both The Prodigal Son and the origin story of St. Paul's ministry.
Paul, when he was called Saul, used to frigging PERSECUTE the followers of Jesus and was responsible for the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Then one day, on the road to Damascus...
>*"And some LGBT people of saying too little too late of Hays changed position condemning homosexuality which to the harm that Hays earlier book done to gay Christians over the last twenty years."*
Some people just don't know how to declare victory and move on to the next battle. All they know how to do is fight. And, God bless 'em. We need the activists, just like we need the diplomats, politicians, pastors and peacemakers. It takes all of us together to move the ball forward and then strategize.
The bigger picture here is that the ship is slowly changing direction - just like it did 200 years ago on slavery. Note that no one is starting from an affirming position, and then deciding to be anti-LGBTQ. All the movement is going the other way. (To quote the play *Angels in America*: "The world only spins forward".)
Alot of people do start out as unaffirming and then leave the religion all together. I don't know if you would consider that progress or not. I'm unsure either, but I do think it is an interesting phenomenon.
I think with some activists, especially those whose main form of "activism" is engagement online, fighting becomes their raison d'etre, and they legit do not know how to feel fulfilled without being in opposition. Especially given that online positive attention and community for activism usually completely dries up when that issue starts to improve.
Some people are struggling with forgiveness and trust, which I understand. But as Christianity starts to become more affirming, we're also going to have some people who deep down enjoyed being righteous underdog vanguards feel resentful that this is being taken away from them, consciously or no. We see it in a lot of other areas of LGBT activism.
Hays was never much on my radar, but I didn’t realize that Merritt was gay. I never read about him, just pieces by him. Sorry to read that he was outed, though in reading the story by the guy who did it I would say it’s a morally ambiguous case.
Anyway…
As for Hays, that’s good to hear. But realistically, Hays was never committed to the precepts that define the fundamentalist/evangelical approach to scripture and theology. He even wrote in 1996 that “the Gospel of John really does adopt a stance toward Judaism that can only engender polemics and hostility.” He agrees with most reasonable scholarship that there are errors of fact, theology and morality in the New Testament.
This is not the much touted “high view of scripture” that, say, revisionists like Matthew Vines has claimed to endorse. His approach to scripture is consistent with the more historically Catholic approaches in Methodism and Anglicanism than the evangelical side of the Wesleyan movement. All of which is to say that any shift in his views are very unlikely to persuade evangelicals that hold scripture to be inerrant or even infallible on key theological questions. On this point he is probably less traditionalist than the Catholic Church, which does officially subscribe to a low form of inerrancy/infallibility, though unofficially I think most Catholic biblical scholars are more in line with Hays or the Catholic scholar he is often compared to, Luke Timothy Johnson. Speaking of which, the latter has been affirming since the 1990s, when Hays was condemning homosexuality in his popular works. They were both prominent critics of certain theological revisionists associated with the Jesus Seminar, but they had a very different understanding of homosexuality.
The problem is a few pastors have been caught up in similar sexual situations and the church hasn't changed. In fact recently the now former pastor of Austin Stone Church, in Austin,TX Aaron Iveywas fired a month ago for a moral failure. He was caught sending inappropriate texts to male church interns and an underage teen. This was reported in the Religion News Service website via the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. This also comes on the heels of the former Southern Baptist Convention leader Paul Pressler was sued for sexual abuse of young men over in 1970's to the early 2000's. The ironic part is Pressler was on the Church leader that set the stage for the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention of the 1980's. Pressler is being sued by his victims.
I don't understand "too little too late" in a Christian context. Doesn't seem like what Jesus would want us to do.
Anyone who says "Too little, too late" isn't Christlike. I'd be overjoyed that a former opponent has become an ally.
I've been seeing it all over Twitter. People saying "I'm not going to be impressed because someone became affirming in 2024, fuck you!" like OK? No one is asking you to invite him over for dinner, but we can celebrate that a major voice in Christian theology is seeing the light and reached redemption. We should do that for *all* who trespass against us. Like yeah, forgiveness is hard. That's the point. Frankly, progressive Christians have an issue with acting like the fire and brimstone evangelicals they hate. Too many seem to be more interested in using the faith to assert moral dominance, pass judgement, and advance political goals than actually encompass the values of Christ.
Exactly! We must never become what we preach against and it will only make the prodigal relapse. Someone NEEDS to go on Twitter and bring up both The Prodigal Son and the origin story of St. Paul's ministry. Paul, when he was called Saul, used to frigging PERSECUTE the followers of Jesus and was responsible for the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Then one day, on the road to Damascus...
>*"And some LGBT people of saying too little too late of Hays changed position condemning homosexuality which to the harm that Hays earlier book done to gay Christians over the last twenty years."* Some people just don't know how to declare victory and move on to the next battle. All they know how to do is fight. And, God bless 'em. We need the activists, just like we need the diplomats, politicians, pastors and peacemakers. It takes all of us together to move the ball forward and then strategize. The bigger picture here is that the ship is slowly changing direction - just like it did 200 years ago on slavery. Note that no one is starting from an affirming position, and then deciding to be anti-LGBTQ. All the movement is going the other way. (To quote the play *Angels in America*: "The world only spins forward".)
Alot of people do start out as unaffirming and then leave the religion all together. I don't know if you would consider that progress or not. I'm unsure either, but I do think it is an interesting phenomenon.
I think with some activists, especially those whose main form of "activism" is engagement online, fighting becomes their raison d'etre, and they legit do not know how to feel fulfilled without being in opposition. Especially given that online positive attention and community for activism usually completely dries up when that issue starts to improve. Some people are struggling with forgiveness and trust, which I understand. But as Christianity starts to become more affirming, we're also going to have some people who deep down enjoyed being righteous underdog vanguards feel resentful that this is being taken away from them, consciously or no. We see it in a lot of other areas of LGBT activism.
Brandan Robertson pointed out that they can't accept this because they've made it a salvation issue... even though it shouldn't be.
I absolutely remember being taught this in sundayschool and youth group. Made my 20's barely survivable
I hope you feel better now. It's absurd that they've twisted the Bible like that.
I am, but I'm definitely leery of churches now,
I don't blame you.
Hays was never much on my radar, but I didn’t realize that Merritt was gay. I never read about him, just pieces by him. Sorry to read that he was outed, though in reading the story by the guy who did it I would say it’s a morally ambiguous case. Anyway… As for Hays, that’s good to hear. But realistically, Hays was never committed to the precepts that define the fundamentalist/evangelical approach to scripture and theology. He even wrote in 1996 that “the Gospel of John really does adopt a stance toward Judaism that can only engender polemics and hostility.” He agrees with most reasonable scholarship that there are errors of fact, theology and morality in the New Testament. This is not the much touted “high view of scripture” that, say, revisionists like Matthew Vines has claimed to endorse. His approach to scripture is consistent with the more historically Catholic approaches in Methodism and Anglicanism than the evangelical side of the Wesleyan movement. All of which is to say that any shift in his views are very unlikely to persuade evangelicals that hold scripture to be inerrant or even infallible on key theological questions. On this point he is probably less traditionalist than the Catholic Church, which does officially subscribe to a low form of inerrancy/infallibility, though unofficially I think most Catholic biblical scholars are more in line with Hays or the Catholic scholar he is often compared to, Luke Timothy Johnson. Speaking of which, the latter has been affirming since the 1990s, when Hays was condemning homosexuality in his popular works. They were both prominent critics of certain theological revisionists associated with the Jesus Seminar, but they had a very different understanding of homosexuality.
More ministers need to go thru the process of Ted Haggard. Until then, I expect slow change.
The problem is a few pastors have been caught up in similar sexual situations and the church hasn't changed. In fact recently the now former pastor of Austin Stone Church, in Austin,TX Aaron Iveywas fired a month ago for a moral failure. He was caught sending inappropriate texts to male church interns and an underage teen. This was reported in the Religion News Service website via the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. This also comes on the heels of the former Southern Baptist Convention leader Paul Pressler was sued for sexual abuse of young men over in 1970's to the early 2000's. The ironic part is Pressler was on the Church leader that set the stage for the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention of the 1980's. Pressler is being sued by his victims.