CSotD: Kicking over the tables
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This Deep Cover doesn't really plow a lot of new ground, but it's something worth saying, and it dovetails nicely with yesterday's Matt Bors cartoon, in that there should be conservatives calling b*llsh*t on those who claim to be Christian but who apparently haven't done the reading, starting with that bit about praying on street corners so that others may see you pray.
Yet they leave it up to liberals, despite what Paul wrote to Timothy about the importance of holding leaders accountable: As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.
Granted, some of the reading they need to do is history, not theology. Through much of the Dark and Middle ages, the Church functioned as the government, particularly on the local level where things like marriages were recorded, and it's not clear to what degree that had to do with the sacrament of marriage and to what degree it was the recording of a legal transaction that potentially involved property and inheritance.
I recall reading a book on Australian history — which I do not have at hand — that said the reason so many "prostitutes" are listed as having been transported there is because of a particularly powerful clergyman who put that label on any woman who lived with a man even if they were married but the ceremony had not taken place within the Church of England.
However historically significant that particular fellow was, there are plenty of people who pride themselves in their piety but who have problems disentangling the sacramental from the legal, as well as disentangling the things that are any of their business from the things that certainly are not.
And it's disturbing to see the loudest cries against Sharia law coming from those who would impose their own religious values in the courts, but, then, there is a reason the term "American Taliban" has come into use.
I respect those who feel social work is the duty of the churches and not of the government, and who back that up by giving of significant time and money to the social programs in their own churches. But you can't just hand someone a flyswatter and claim you've helped to eradicate malaria, nor is it fair to cut government programs and rely on the non-profits to take up the slack as if they had, up to this point, been doing nothing.
Religious values aside — and social justice is at the center of all major religions, not just Christianity — there are solid economic development and social stability values in maintaining a reasonable level of charitable outreach in a society.
But the American Taliban don't base their reasoning on such pragmatic ideas or, as Tim Eagan points out in this cartoon, on the values espoused by the man they claim is God.
When I was in college, our orientation included a session at the church in which a priest, attempting to make Mary more human and less of an unreachable ideal, reminded us that the wedding feast at Cana had probably already gone on for a day or two when they ran out of wine, and that the pious, alabaster Mary of Christian lore would have gone home grateful for an early ending. But, instead, a very human, fun-loving Mary prevailed upon her reluctant Son to keep the party going for another day or two.
While I question his judgment in pointing that out to a churchful of 17- and 18-year-old boys, it is worth noting that those who say drinking is sinful are putting their judgment above that of Jesus and his mother. Whether or not you are required to be holier than the pope, you sure aren't required to be holier than God.
But, then, as I said at the beginning, Deep Cover isn't breaking new ground with this criticism. Tim Eagan's opinion is at least as old as Paul's first letter to Titus: They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
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