Tell Focus on the Family what you think of them

[Kanada Kev]

i don't know! but i'd say a start would be to talk to them not as if you think they are wrong, but as a (and i know this won't agree with most of you, nor does it me, but cough it up in the name of communication) fellow brother/sister under god, and attempt to show them that there are other ways to find 'the way' through life. that you can still be a good, wholesome, spiritual person without the rigidity of evangelicalism, that their idea of salvation can exists in many forms, that each man, unto himself, will fight his own demons through life, and in the end will face them under his own terms. that their god does not want a race so judgemental and that by being so is only driving them away from their fellow man and would 'god' really want that?

Birdy, that is such an amazing way to explain it all. I fully support your stance and feel like your words summarized the way I feel in such a succinct manner. HOWEVER, as somebody who has to deal with a couple of evangelicals (my dad and his bible studyin' wife) is that they are not open to accepting any other way of belief. They are RIGHTEOUS and it is their purpose to convince people to join their way. They'll nod and hear your words, but inside they simply think you're a lost soul. If you don't believe in their storybook, it's simple, you're not going to heaven for eternal life. Done.

It totally sucks, but i'm sure if i left my kids with them alone, they'd secretly go and christen them to save their souls. UGH!

I have total tolerance for people of faith. However, with evangelicals and other extremists who are unaccepting of other peoples' ways, i simply don't have any respect for them.

Just ask the next evangelical you meet if they'll leave you all their possessions to you when they get taken away by the Rapture

Later . . .

Kanada Kev =8)

[Birdy]

i understand... i have a good friend whose mom has fallen off the rocker in the name of 'god' too. she's crazy, and that's no understatement.

i guess it's just too defeatist for me to accept nothing less than what you quoted from me above Kanada Kev. it's not in me to just shrug the shoulders and claim lost cause, i've always been the one to talk it out. hell, i've talked complete strangers out of bashing some guys face in at the bar. I just wanted to say that there's no positive in ill wishes, and every positive in at least trying to make a difference. We shouldn't make such a bold generalization and push them all under the same lot and give up... who knows, maybe we can get through to one or two people. That's progress! I'd just prefer we didn't through the towel in, it's kinda the equal to how they give up on us.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I have to figure there's hope, if only because I managed to find a way out myself. Typically, it was through the example of good friends in high school who weren't caught up in it but whose kindness, sincerity, and integrity were beyond doubt (hey, timouse!), as well as me pushing my theological positions beyond what (I came to realise) I was being fed.

Sometimes it's about being made - gently - aware of the contradictions in the text (scripture) that is touted as being whole and uncontradictory, to come to see it as a constructed - and hence, fallible and errant - text. What's someone to do with the fact, e.g., that the sign over Jesus' head at the crucifixion has four different things written on it, one in each Gospel? There are dozens and dozens of points of contradiction that can be pointed out, and if this is done with an attitude of curiosity and wondering together, rather than out of attack - which doesn't do much more than arouse the fight-or-flight instincts - the door might just open a bit. To say that they don't have The Answer doesn't entail that one does oneself. There's too much mystery in the fact of existence for that.

If you play their language game, though, and work it self-consciously as if it were metaphor - that can lead to some interesting conversations. Where I find the place to resist is when they start steering that language away from metaphor and back onto the "literal truth" track. That's where I find the really interesting conversations.

[Kanada Kev]

Birdy, i hear ya. I'm one for finding a middle ground and compromise. It's just that it such an absolute with a devoted evangelical. Quite simply, you're going to hell (or at least, not to heaven during the Rapture) if you don't convert and follow their beliefs. How can you get them to see, and understand, anything else. If they do, they are compromising their beliefs and will go to hell. The only way that they will 'see' is to give up their brand of religion. Many would see that as evil as them trying to convert somebody else to their way.

I do agree ... we may be able to "get through" to a couple of them ... but that does mean taking them away, and their fellow evangelicals will do everything they can to bring 'em back since that is part of their duty to proselytize. Technically an evangelical should never "give up" on trying to convert you, but I'm sure one of their ministers would find a few words in their book of fables to justify it.

Keep up the great work on stopping violence amongst strangers. Those are truly commendable acts and I respect you in the highest for doing it. I'm all about being a peace-maker too. Too much violence and hate around us anyhow. For me, extreme religion, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and hate simply frustrate me.

Good on ya Birdy. I hope to raise a glass (drink or bowl ) with you someday.

Cheers,

Kanada Kev =8)

[Kanada Kev]

Great comments and very interesting story.

If you play their language game, though, and work it self-consciously as if it were metaphor - that can lead to some interesting conversations. Where I find the place to resist is when they start steering that language away from metaphor and back onto the "literal truth" track. That's where I find the really interesting conversations.

Yes, very interesting to see many in the discussions such as you mention, flip flop back and forth. Technically, they (evangelicals) are supposed to take the text (whichever one is currently approved) and take it literally. Then, they go back to taking it as a larger metaphor! Blows my mind. Great reads on the contradictory nature of the bible (and the koran) at:

http://www.evilbible.com/Biblical%20Contradictions.htm

http://www.godisimaginary.com/i16.htm

Later . . .

Kanada Kev =8)

[SteveThe Owl]

Keep up the great work on stopping violence amongst strangers. Those are truly commendable acts and I respect you in the highest for doing it. I'm all about being a peace-maker too. Too much violence and hate around us anyhow. For me, extreme religion, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and hate simply frustrate me.

Amen... couldn't've put it any better myself.

[Birdy]

I think we're all relatively on the same page here. It is really frustrating, but I can see there's a want in us all to do better, and that's cool. There really is enough hating, enough communication breakdown, enough wall-erecting in the world already, the only way any of us can do any better is the grass-roots approach, how we conduct ourselves in our daily lives, and in hoping that someone learns from our examples. really, that's all we've got.

kev, thanks for the kind words. i'd put back a bowl with ya one day!

DEM - glad to have you on the good side!

[Kanada Kev]

kev, thanks for the kind words. i'd put back a bowl with ya one day!

Right on!

Ain't no time to hate ...

Later . . .

Kanada Kev =8)

ps - here's a link my dad just sent me for a "great" book ... if you knew my dad, the first thing you'd say is "he's read a book? Without pictures?"

http://www.integritypublishers.com/product.asp?prodid=218&deptid=

[d_rawk]

I'm interested in this question of how to have a constructive conversation with groups of the FoF sort.

If I had any hardline evangelicals in my life - I don't - I would try to engage them with writers and thinkers who share a lot of ground with them but who also offer a way and a challenge to think some of their own underlying assumptions through. Willard, for example, who is safe and non-threatening to evangelicals, and who ultimately is evangelical himself (in a more benign sense of that word than we are accustomed to playing with).

Also Brian McLaren, N.T. Wright, etc..

A lot of this has to do with throwing off the shackles of modernity and the tempting certainty that it invites. Some of it, I imagine, is generational. All the debate and conversation in the world won't do much for someone who has held fast to a particular ideology their whole life and who is essentially married to it. As in politics. Some of it is just going to have to be the new generation(s) supplanting the old.

But we've seen that young people by and large are feeling entirely alienated by the message, certitudes and politics of both the evangelicals and the mainline churches. There's no air for them to breathe. Some of the hunger for 'revival' has forced those who see a need to deal with this problem to crash headon with counter movements like emergent/emerging and missional churches. I suspect that will be a positive thing, overall.

I'm skeptical though that those of us who are on the outside will be able to do much to change these larger organizations, or to find ways to reach those people who make these organizations up. Except on the individual level through existing personal relationships, as per Dr. Evil Mouse's story. It will probably have to happen internally ... I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the ground has already started shifting, however slowly.

Or maybe I just want to think that it has?

[MarcO]

You're all very smart and reasonable people, so I wish you would all just shut the fuck up and join me in wishing these people's genitals to slowly turn black and float off into space.

[djmelbatoast]

Here, here.

[d_rawk]

MarcO, you're awesome.

I've been thinking about this a bit, and it occurs to me that if your fundamental (language not picked accidentally) notion is that -- "one is saved through faith in ..." ('...' being, in this case, 'Christ' but could be anything), there is a bit of difficulty there.

Because in this context, "saved" means "rescued from eternal damnation" and "faith" means "unflinching belief" despite competing ideas.

That is a very, very hard lock to pick. Seriously. How does one even go about it? Because if you are only rescued from some terrible fate by some decision of belief, you of course can't take the opportunity to evaluate counter arguments, and you can't engage yourself with reasoned argument. Because at some point along the way, you've made a decision to 'believe' which in the language of the day means 'deciding is true' regardless of any and all other factors. So how can you do anything but "nod your head" (in the words of Kanada Kev) and decide that the other is a "lost soul" (again), because letting those ideas in represents a serious, dangerous risk. If I entertain skepticism, I risk losing my 'faith'. And if I lose my faith, I lose my 'salvation'. That's a difficult predicament to be in.

In a sense, it isn't fair, because those of us who haven't gotten caught up in all of that don't have that same risk staring us in the face. We haven't had to push out competing ideas for fear that they may rattle that only thing that we have to protect us, which is that same unflinching clinging-on to a decision that we are 'believers'. If they lose that, they lose it all. I might think it a misinterpretation of the language, a misreading of Paul - and as the case may be, not at all biblical - but I have the luxury of assuming that risk from my vantage point, which the other side doesn't.

Myself, I hear:

A husband says to his wife, "I plan to start a business, and perhaps through those efforts we might have wealth and security"

And the wife says, "Yes, but what you are talking about is dangerous and scary. Can't we just go on the way we have, poor as we might be, and not take such risks?"

And the husband says -- "We can do this. Please, you must believe in me. You must have faith in me."

(And what, here, is the husband asking of his wife? He certainly isn't asking her to believe that he is real or that he exists. That would be absurd. And unhinged.)

The ancient historian Josephus, dealing with a general with whom he disagreed, implored that general to “repent and believe in me". What was he asking of that general? This, keep in mind, was not a religious man. (and a man, incidentally, who wondered aloud why this cult of christianity hadn't yet died out seeing as their leader had already been executed).

That's a pretty safe spot, for me, to engage with fundamentalists. I assume no risk at all, and they assume a ton of risk. Damnation of all things! (which, again, myself not believing in, isn't a concern for me at all).

So how does a dialogue happen? How does it even begin?

And if I'm just a fag-friendly pinko liberal in the first place, why would speaking with me even be worth such risks?

[phishtaper]

I'm interested in this question of how to have a constructive conversation with groups of the FoF sort.

why would one even bother is my question. its impossible. its just as productive as pissing into the wind, or talking to a rock, or extinguising a campfire with farts. they just ain't interested in even attempting to listen to what you have to say, so in no way can it ever be a real dialogue. its just an invitation for them to try to convert you to their distorted way of thinking.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Nice one, d_rawk. I think you nailed it - they take enormous risks in taking a hypothetical attitude towards their own beliefs, to test them. Often enough, they're even told to let their faith be tested, but there's also often enough a lot of fragility there that scares people away.

As an extreme example (and obviously not a mainstream evangelical one), someone once made the point that for the folks holed up in the place at Waco when it was under seige by the FBI, to be invited to leave was the same as being invited to leave Noah's Ark. It was the world outside they saw as the real menace, regardless of the world outside saw themselves (and it didn't help that those people outside were armed to the teeth and had already killed a number of them, confirming for them that they were in fact agents of the devil).

I'd like to think, PT, that these sorts of conversations are important and valuable, for a bunch of reasons (who else is going to do it, e.g.?). I'd also like to think that under or behind all the bluster, these are all people who are looking, who have that niggling little "remainder" in their cosmic math that they can't account for, and as human beings, we can help each other out when we're able. That sounds schmaltzy, I know, but, well, there ya go.

("extinguishing a campfire with farts" - nice!)

[phishtaper]

I'd also like to think that under or behind all the bluster, these are all people who are looking, who have that niggling little "remainder" in their cosmic math that they can't account for, and as human beings, we can help each other out when we're able.

i don't doubt that some may be rescued. but when you've been told you are going to burn in hell way too many times over the years, you tend to lose your ability to empathize with most of these individuals. it's useless engaging them in debate because you simply cannot argue intelligently with people who selectively (mis)interpret various passages in an historically mis-translated book that they hold up as THE way for YOU to live YOUR life, yet they themselves violate most of it everyday - but gawd forbid you point that out to them. (and yes, i am grossly overgeneralizing here with "they", etc.). if you want to venture into the pit of vipers to try to save the one with the least amount of venom, then you are a better man than me. I'm just sick of trying.

[Birdy]

I think it's okay to be 'sick of trying'. At least that means you've tried to begin with.

I think we've got to remember that the kinds of people who fall to the Evangelical church are the kind who are/were looking for answers in the first place. They were once receptive enough to consider taking the 'born again' plunge, so why, necessarily, can they not be receptive again? Even some good folk can be rescued from the grips of undying faith, nothing is impossible.

This really isn't an overnight endeavour. Maybe it begins with the few that you actually are able to reach, and instead of continued support, the church sees declining membership. Change is and always will be gradual and it's best not to let those few stubborn roadblocks get in your way... even though, after countless head-wracking experiences, you'd be so inclined to. Not to be too sensationalistic (even though i'm so inclined to) but what if Martin Luther King gave up? Or Ghandi? Positive change isn't going to happen by walking away.

[djmelbatoast]

Did you just compare yourself to Martin Luther King and Ghandi?

[Birdy]

not at all.

kinda puzzled as to where you pulled that from?

edit to add:

sheeesh, nothing like being made to feel bad, in the want of doing good.

:crazy:

further edit to add: the more i sit with this, the more i resent that comment A LOT dj. like.. a lot, A LOT.

Edited November 16, 2006 by Guest

[djmelbatoast]

This really isn't an overnight endeavour. Maybe it begins with the few that you actually are able to reach, and instead of continued support, the church sees declining membership. Change is and always will be gradual and it's best not to let those few stubborn roadblocks get in your way... even though, after countless head-wracking experiences, you'd be so inclined to. Not to be too sensationalistic (even though i'm so inclined to) but what if Martin Luther King gave up? Or Ghandi? Positive change isn't going to happen by walking away.

I meant to cause no offense and was joking a bit but in this statement you are comparing the civil rights crusade with being able to talk with evangelicals. (Which I think is hilarious) I know you aren't saying that you are as great as these people but you are making a connection between what they did and what you do.

Sorry if I made you upset.

[Birdy]

Doing good, in whatever light you're attempting to do it in dj, isn't 'hilarious'.

And in light of how i feel about evangelicals and just how much power they have in society, which my views are expressed here:

i dunno, i'd say it's a pretty real one. real enough for countless people to unite under 'god' to support a crazed man to go to war against the world, to fight an unknown enemy, to commit atrocious war crimes, to turn our society into a bunch of fear-mongering morons who nod our heads yes because we're afraid to say no. all the while, these people never question why, they never wonder if it's wrong. it's right to them, in an entirely new kind of right that most of us can't understand. hence, the brickwall.

i think it's pretty damn important that we attempt communication. They are extremists. Extremists who are bombing and killing innocent people EVERY DAY by the thousands, who are wishing people written off the face of the earth for their sexual preference, who think the lot of us are going to burn in eternal hell for not accepting the word of their god. So yah, in this light, comparing it to the civil rights movement doesn't seem so bad to me.

The connection i drew was to show that we all have it in us to be great and to show that people like Ghandi and Martin Luther King didn't give up when they felt like they weren't making progress, that to do good, you've got to keep trying, even when you think you are and when it feels like, you're failing. Ghandi and Martin Luther King didn't become great overnight, there's always a starting point.

[phishtaper]

Ghandi and Martin Luther King didn't become great overnight, there's always a starting point.

yes, and ironically, Ghandi started out as a lawyer.

[Birdy]

look at that!

dj- all that stuff being said up there, i'm sure you didn't mean to trivialize anything and i apologize if i'm trying to make it sound as if you were. i think more than anything, i'm 1/2 irish and feeling feisty today.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I wish this conversation were happening at a pub, and Jesus had conjured up the drinks.

[phishtaper]

mmmm, jesus juice. but no children, that would be wrong :blush:

[Birdy]

haha.. i wonder what would happen if we moved these debates from an internet forum to an actual bar somewhere, where we'd be forced to chat it all out face to face under the heavy influence of lotsa booze! i wonder if we'd survive.