The Christians I Know....

[poe]

Jose M. Tirado, a Buddhist living in Iceland, writes:

"None of the Christians I know here think George Bush is anything but a boor and a bully, fearing him much more than any tin pot dictator the US supports then disposes of with growing fickle regularity.

The Christians I know here founded the first women's political party in Europe and successfully elected the first woman President who was a single mother at the time.

The Christians I know are by and large socialists believing that poverty should be eliminated, hunger eradicated and that social equality should be the primary purpose of having a government.

The Christians I know take none of the millennial "end of the world" talk seriously, regarding it as silly, outdated and dangerous."

To read the entire article go to www.counterpunch.org/tirado01142005.html

Perhaps the Icelandic people don't have the frothy Falwell, the raging rapture ready Robertson and the rest of the tellytubbyvangelists to get them to fully appreciate the paranoid all-knowing bearded big guy in the sky.

Perhaps it's the world of McAmeriWalMartika that is fundamentally sick.

[coloradodem2005]

1. Too bad I don't see them in America.

n/t

[youngred]

2. they're there

look around

[coloradodem2005]

4. Where?

n/t

[Telly Savalas]

6. Try looking in one of the many liberal churches.

Last time I checked folks like Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton weren't GOP operatives.

[methinks2]

7. I'm here, and I'm a Christian

I will tell any who will listen that it is because of my Christian beliefs that I cannot support this prez.

[youngred]

8. right here for one

Christians in America are not all whacked out fundies.

[TWiley]

9. Is the problem with American Christianity?

The "American" contribution to the worldwide practice of Christianity is vulgar Televangelism.

Instead of importing goods from China, we need to be importing the morality of good Christians from other nations. This imbalance represents the largest, and our most important deficit.

If there is a "majority" of Christians in America who oppose the bushtapo, then where are they? Why is their no public opposition from the American Christian camp? The only public acts of Christian leaders is to support the bush family war in the middle east.

Why has a Christian voice of opposition not been raised from all this filth? Evidently, there are either no leaders, or no believers.

[stray cat]

3. This christian see nothing christian about Bush's policies

or the so call "moral majority". I suspect John Kerry, John Edwards and Obama Barrack would also agree,

[leesa]

5. "McAmeriWalMartika"...I like that!

[mhr]

10. What I Wonder Is Why It Is So Hard For The Rational American

Christians To Organize And Then Expose And Denounce The Fundamentalists?

[Az]

11. Tolerance

Liberal and moderate Christians have adapted and embraced the idea of tolerance. This is a key component of a post modern society. The idea being that in order for a diverse society to work one must have tolerance for other positions. Its the social contract we operate under.

However there is a flaw within this construct. It only works as long as everyone plays by the same rules. But the more conservative sects have given up on the social constract and have decided that theirs is the only proper way and have begun trying to force it on others. But due to the inability of post modern systems to advocate one system over another there is a reluctance to speak out against others for the beliefs they have.

[mhr]

12. Very Nicely Stated - Me Thinks It Is Time For The Tolerance

Movement to adopt change and move against the intolerance of the Fundamentalists.

If rational Christians won't do this then who will?

[poe]

13. in the church not made with hands

i am not a christian and don't even like god to bless me when i sneeze but in the area i live in the quakers and folks from the catholic worker are on the front lines of evey protest and are fearless in the face of billy clubs and possible arrest. i admire these people and we are often together, however having lived in the ozarks, where the land is gorgeous, all stereotypes about intolerant, unthinking and downright violent holy hypocrites proved to be quite true and even understated.

[SOteric]

15. I'm sorry, - there's a basic flaw in your theory.

Liberal and moderate Christians aren't motivated or inhibited by matters of a social contract in moving against their more fundamental brethern. Well, - perhaps there are a few, but in general this is not the case.

We don't move and organise against the fundies because it's against the most basic of our beliefs and teachings. We've been instructed by Christ to "be thou in communion with one another," we've been taught to turn the other cheek, we've been commanded to love our neighbours as ourselves. We've had tolerance, forgiveness and compassion modeled to us as the ways to follow the Christ in whom we have invested faith. The much contested teachings of Paul are all about various early churches spatting and feuding with one another and how very much against the teachings of Christ himself those contests of grace actually were.

No part of that faith and those teachings indicates that we may love, forgive, embrace and tolerate only as long as everyone else plays by the same rules. And no conscious part of the Faith matriculates a set of sentiments with regard to how society can best function with diversity.

[SOteric]

14. The U. S. is also filled with such Christians.

DU is filled with such Christians. They don't get much attention because they aren't extreme enough to make the news, incense the agnostic and athiests, and of course, they don't campaign en masse against other Christians with more fundamentalist views.