What can we do about Libertariansm? There are several millions in Texas who are urging others to boycott Independent and Democrat votes. Someone ought to pipe through some Disney down there.

What kind of “threat” would someone call this?

Tom – sort of a play on words… it is the threat to Christianity said differently…

No, I see what you’re saying so I’ll flush my comment “what kind of “threat” would someone call this?” out. I’m simply asking the question, albeit rather rhetorically, is it not harmful to openly address this wave of thought in the state of Texas? A PLURALISTIC citizenry crosses all boundries, including political and esp. religious spectrums of influence.

“to avoid openly suggesting,” is what I should have said.

Here’s my 2 bits.
My church is not political at all. During election time or anytime our preacher does not discuss things. Which is good, I like that.
However as time has gone on, and I have more children, I find myself more interest in politics. In a way, because i want to protect my family. And I fear not saying anything just lets this world become more like one big trash can full of premartial sex and no integrity. I want my kids to at least have a chance at staying innocent through their childhood. Why shove all that Desperate Housewives and the 11′oclock news stories of children getting molested/killed down their throats now. Plenty of time in adulthood to experience the real world.
And I think somehow, by not saying anything at all, makes a statement too. Yes I do pray for the world. But I have a duty to protect my children.
Oh please don’t flame me and just jump all over what I said above. Just giving you another perspective.
Thanks.

obmoody– your concern about the coarsening of our culture is shared by people on the left and the right.
It’s not clear to me where the role of the government is in this sort of thing. On the one hand, TV tales of explosions and consequence-free sex and stories about white women disappearing are Bad for America; but on the other hand, it’s not so great to just go and ban those things, either.
If I weren’t a sports fan, I wouldn’t bother owning a TV.

I don’t think I am for banning it either, just take it off of daytime tv or before 9pm.
It is coarsening of our culture, that is a great way to put it.
We just keep lowering our standards and suddenly 6th graders think oral sex is as meaningless as making a phone call.
I feel our country keeps turning a blind eye because we don’t want to offend people. So I don’t know how to respond to this “christians are anti homosexual”, but these are the same people who feel its okay be “anti-christian” but pro everything else that offends me.
Sorry don’t know if that all makes sense.

Regarding certain types of television programming, obmoody posted: “I don’t think I am for banning it either, just take it off of daytime tv or before 9pm.”
Whatever happened with turning the TV off, or turning it to another channel? Are we so unable to control our own environment that we must ask the government, the TV industry, or television manufacturers to do what we seem unable or unwilling to do?
obmoody, I agree with your observation that television programming has become more and more coarse. That is why the TV is off much of the time in our home. We select what we watch, and we have done so for many years (since the days before cable and remotes).
Are you unable to do likewise?

I am not a Christian, although I think the message of Jesus is a gift to the world. My issue with most Christian chruches is that they seem to have very little to do with the message of Jesus. Many organized churches seem driven by money and power – not concern for the poor or those that are “different.” The whole concept of the prosperity gospel is odd to me. I also find the hate and anger spewen by the ego-driven mega preachers (and many other evangelicals) off-putting. I also watch some of the biblical literalists and would laugh to myself if it weren’t so scary. (Even if God wrote the bible and it was literally true, did He also translate it from the orignial Aramaic?)
I hope this post has not offered any offense, as none was intended.

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most respected leaders of modern history. A Hindu, Ghandi nevertheless admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. Once when the missionary E. Stanley Jones met with Ghandi he asked him, “Mr. Ghandi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?”
Ghandi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Yes, I can turn the tv off, its not that I am watching these shows… I am just talking about the mere commercials for these shows are offensive, I guess I should of been more clear. I probably would watch less tv if I had more time just to devote to an entire movie once in a while.
Actually, we have a No TV day in our house.
PS I agree with Ghandi, most people who call themselves christians, do not walk the walk, they just talk the talk.
PPS Prosperity gospel is scary.

There are certainly problems with American Christianity, as David points out, and of course in other places too. Changes need to be made.
However, if you look at what many who dislike Christianity would like to change, their vision is totally unacceptable. They want religion to be a totally private thing, not just out of politics but out of all areas of public life that make them uncomfortable. Christians are only to pray in their houses and churches, not comment on how anyone lives his or her life, bear any criticism without complaint, and constantly be about doing good works. They want a total disengagement except for the “nice” and non-confrontational aspects of the faith.
And course for some, it’s all about teh ghey and nothing but teh ghey. (I hate that this has become the issue of our day.) For them, nothing but full acceptance and approval of everything homosexual is enough. If Christianity has to change in that way to become acceptable again, it’s not worth having.
BTW, as someone who knows Hindi, I have to point out that “Gandhi” is the only acceptable spelling for the Mahatma, not “Ghandi.” (Sorry, but I see a lot of people make that mistake.)

There’s a much simpler explanation to why conservative Christians have such an image problem with both non-Christians and theologically more moderate Christians:
People do not react well in the industrial world in the modern age to Old Testament prophetic messages of “You’re evil! Convert or go to h*ll!” (There are arguments that some in the developed world DO respond to such messages — but I somewhat dispute even with that, as I’ll detail below.)
Now, that sledgehammer bluntness was probably necessary back in a day when sexual and other depravities would make the Folsom Street S&M Fair in San Francisco (with which Rod Dreher is oddly obsessed) seem like true family values. Though I’ve actually seen this more in recent years on the abortion issue than on the issue of gay rights — on subjects from Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell saying America deserved 9/11 because G-d was angry about abortion, to Catholic bishops using Communion as a political tool to show their opposition to John Kerry (a Catholic) and support for George W. Bush (a non-Catholic).
Ironically, there is a slightly but crucially (pun intentional) different point of view to conversion — and we see it in the letters of Paul to the nascent Christian communities in Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor. (I use Paul, with his fierce opposition to homosexuality, to take the gay rights issue off the table.)
Paul’s message was more nuanced. If one wanted to translate it into New Age type thought, it might be, “Yes, I think you’re scr*wed up. But more to the point, deep down, YOU think you’re scr*wed up too. And I have Good News that can help you.” (Spare the GEICO commercial jokes.)
That may sound like psychobabble. But it’s really not — it’s simply taking people seriously as individuals, and trusting that one’s message will bring a conversion of the heart, not just a forced one from threats.
(Or worse, an openly and fiercely expressed wish that those who do not undertake such a conversion, by the heart or by the sword, should be punished by G-d in the worst possible ways.)

“Homosexuality? that is not part of the Christian Church as something that is supported, condoned or promoted, it is part of worldy, secular and pagan beliefs.
The “non’Christians” do not like Christians because of the heretics and unrepentant people infecting the Church COMBINED WITH a media and entertainment industry driven to selling people into a culture of “anything goes.” And “anything goes?” that is certainly non-Christian, un-Christian and anti-Christian.
And then no longer comment on it and them ever again. Just respond with the Gospel and the teachings of the Apostles. Whatever “the world” wants to do with homosexuality let them have at it. Like Peter says, we don’t have to engage in this behavior. Let unbelievers and non-believers live as they wish. God has a responsibilty towards hem in all of this too.
Christians should stop allowing The Gay Agenda and Secular Humanists (and any other anti-Christian groups) to drive this wedge “into” our community. It’s clear who is and who isn’t Christian really. Gays and their hedonist supporters have done well with their crafty cunningness to corrupt society to believe that Christians are bad people because they oppose unrestrianed promiscuity, the subversion and destruction of the family, unnatural sex and perversions to be promoted in all of its political garb.
And then . . .
We can get on – once we cast the gay and perversions dust from our shoes – with the what Christians “should” do. That is to preach and live the good news of the Gospel and allow “other” people to choose it or reject it.
Remember!!!!!!! We Christians are “mostly” comprised of people that LEFT, or no longer “choose” to engage in, behaviors that non-Christians desire and “Christians” shouldn’t engage in. So let’s stop engaging with gays and others that “choose” non-Christian life. And don’t find it surprising that “polls” od non-believers will reflect a bad opinion of Christians. Let us be Christians and let them be them. Never forgetting that we came FROM their ranks. Nobosy is born a Christian. It is purely a choice, and a free choice at that.
We have allowed the Secularists, Humanists, Socialists, Liberals, Progressives, Atheists, Agnostics and other obvious unbelievers to come into the Church and pretend they are believers. People that are unwilling to repent and change the behaviors and activities they desired and engage in as non-Christians, are giving this bad name to Christians everywhere.
Christians are called on to “love one another” and by this behavior to one another, we should be known. This in turn builds strong Churches and Church communities. And we no longer “oppose” non-believers in whatever they “choose” to do.
It’s not that we shouldn’t have anything to do with politics, it is that we should not talk about politics with non-Christians, or join with politicians and what they are.

No Donny, that faithful remnant line does not necessarily refer to people like you or us. They were the people who returned to Judea and took over the religious establishment. As I recall they demonized those Samaritans and pretty much anyone who didn’t have the pedigree needed at the time. A claim to such a pedigree of correctness – has been a destructive force. it continues to be destructive today. It aften results in religiosity.
Religiosity is always filled with itself and sure of it’s righteousness. Only problem is that religiosity is always willing to despise others in language carefully formed by cherry picking Scripture or dogma. Its sense of self importance is always inflated. And religiosity has demons of its own creation.
Seems like the faithful remnant metaphor might be a bit ironic. Everyone who wants to claim God as their own and leave pretty much everyone else on the road to hell has claimed it over the years.
Of course, if you want to claim that metaphor just go right ahead and do so.
My preference would be to abandon such thinking – it is violent and egocentric – but feel free to claim it.
God is not violent or exclusive – we are. The synthesis of all that God teaches us in these thousands of years is “love one another”. It is very hard to do. Bubbling rage covered over with a thin veneer of Jesus is still rage. I can hate for Jesus and feel pretty darn proud of myself. We’ve all been guilty of such attitudes – it is the human condition. The trick is to abandon our rage and quit pretending it is for God.

Wow thinker, that was thoughtful. Very nice.

>>>”So let’s stop engaging with gays and others that “choose” non-Christian life.” Donny
Yes, Donny, just as our Lord himself modelled in the pages of the gospels.

Correction:
I meant “developING world” in the second paragraph of my previous post.
Donny:
Are you perchance any relation to Ed Anger?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Anger

In my experience, most Christians are closed minded and hypocritical. I wanted to be a Christian when I was younger. But the more I saw of the Christian leaders like Dobson and that mean guy that runs all the anti-everything boycotts trying to bully companies into discriminating against homosexuals and any group that stands up against his power and money grubbing ways, and how NO Christians were standing up to this bigotry, even if only in the name of “loving your enemies,” I realized that the Churches are just big businesses now, as corrupt as the many corporations that now drain the lifeblood out of this nation in the name of personal profit…well, I realized that I had to find my own way, and stop looking to established monied interests for guidance. I now practice humanism combined with buddhist precepts that teach me to PRACTICE being a good person, rather than just judging other people for failing to live up to someone else’s hypocritical standards. If churches become predominantly good forces in the world, something which has yet to EVER occur in the history of Christianity, perhaps then non-Christians will be tempted to visit them again, in hopes of getting some much needed ethical guidance in this troubled world. Until then, I predict the Christian religion will continue to follow its current course of greed and hypocrisy, supporting war and demonizing all who dare to think for themselves.