On 12/12/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
me:
> > yup, polls are relevant. But whatever happened to old-fashioned
> > analysis of the social structure to figure out where the stress points
> > are?
Yoshie:
> What do you think are stress points today?
clearly one concerns the distribution of income and the distribution
of medical benefits. Class differences are getting worse.
Those are objectively stress points, so is the Iraq War, but
subjectively none of them appears to be sending people up in arms at
this moment, though certainly there are (overlapping) groups of people
who are working on them as issues.
On 12/12/06, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted this new poll to LBO-talk:
<http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/tables/live/2006-12-11-iraq-
poll.htm>
11. Just your best guess, how much longer do you think the U.S. will
have a significant number of troops in Iraq – less than six months,
six months to a year, one to two years, or longer than two years?
Less than six months 2
Six months to a year 16
One to two years 38
Longer than two years 42
No opinion 1
12. How much longer do you think the U.S. should have a significant
number of troops in Iraq – less than six months, six months to a
year, one to two years, or longer than two years?
Less than six months 30
Six months to a year 25
One to two years 25
Longer than two years 14
Withdraw all now (vol.) 2
No opinion 3
The gap like this would be a good point of departure if an organized
Left existed, but there is no organized Left in the USA today.
On 12/12/06, Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> Well, nothing is permanent, for sure, but Christianity has proven more
> staying power than state socialism, which didn't last a century. :->
> So, they are likely to be around, for a foreseeable future.
"Christians" is, I think, the wrong category. The "Christian Right"
(politically active right-wing evangelicals and fundamentalists) have
been around only a few decades as a significant political force. And
those categories are, perhaps, too broadly defined. We can't know how
long these groups may flourish, but that flourishing could be quite
unstable, subject to great swings.
Certainly. The evangelical end of it is still on the upswing, though,
whereas our kind of Christians are on the downswing, just as we are in
the USA. :->
That said, there are signs of positive change even among evangelicals
on poverty, the environment, and homosexuality, though not yet on
abortion:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/us/12evangelical.html>
December 12, 2006
Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance
By NEELA BANERJEE
RALEIGH, N.C. — Justin Lee believes that the Virgin birth was real,
that there is a heaven and a hell, that salvation comes through Christ
alone and that he, the 29-year-old son of Southern Baptists, is an
evangelical Christian.
Just as he is certain about the tenets of his faith, Mr. Lee also
knows he is gay, that he did not choose it and cannot change it.
To many people, Mr. Lee is a walking contradiction, and most
evangelicals and gay people alike consider Christians like him
horribly deluded about their faith. "I've gotten hate mail from both
sides," said Mr. Lee, who runs gaychristian.net, a Web site with 4,700
registered users that mostly attracts gay evangelicals.
The difficulty some evangelicals have in coping with same-sex
attraction was thrown into relief on Sunday when the pastor of a
Denver megachurch, the Rev. Paul Barnes, resigned after confessing to
having sex with men. Mr. Barnes said he had often cried himself to
sleep, begging God to end his attraction to men.
His departure followed by only a few weeks that of the Rev. Ted
Haggard, then the president of the National Association of
Evangelicals and the pastor of a Colorado Springs megachurch, after a
male prostitute said Mr. Haggard had had a relationship with him for
three years.
Though he did not publicly admit to the relationship, in a letter to
his congregation, Mr. Haggard said that he was "guilty of sexual
immorality" and that he had struggled all his life with impulses he
called "repulsive and dark."
While debates over homosexuality have upset many Christian and Jewish
congregations, gay evangelicals come from a tradition whose leaders
have led the fight against greater acceptance of homosexuals.
Gay evangelicals seem to have few paths carved out for them: they can
leave religion behind; they can turn to theologically liberal
congregations that often differ from the tradition they grew up in; or
they can enter programs to try to change their behavior, even their
orientation, through prayer and support.
But as gay men and lesbians grapple with their sexuality and an
evangelical upbringing they cherish, some have come to accept both.
And like other Christians who are trying to broaden the definition of
evangelical to include other, though less charged, concerns like the
environment and AIDS, gay evangelicals are trying to expand the
understanding of evangelical to include them, too.
"A lot of people are freaked out because their only exposure to
evangelicalism was a bad one, and a lot ask, 'Why would you want to be
part of a group that doesn't like you very much?' " Mr. Lee said. "But
it's not about membership in groups. It's about what I believe. Just
because some people who believe the same things I do aren't very
loving doesn't mean I stop believing what I do."
The most well-known gay evangelical may be the Rev. Mel White, a
former seminary professor and ghostwriter for the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Mr. White, who came out publicly in 1993, helped found Soulforce, a
group that challenges Christian denominations and other institutions
regarding their stance on homosexuality.
But over the last 30 years, rather than push for change, gay
evangelicals have mostly created organizations where they are
accepted.
Members of Evangelicals Concerned, founded in 1975 by a therapist from
New York, Ralph Blair, worship in cities including Denver, New York
and Seattle. Web sites have emerged, like Christianlesbians.com and
Mr. Lee's gaychristian.net, whose members include gay people
struggling with coming out, those who lead celibate lives and those in
relationships.
Justin Cannon, 22, a seminarian who grew up in a conservative
Episcopal parish in Michigan, started two Web sites, including an
Internet dating site for gay Christians.
"About 90 percent of the profiles say 'Looking for someone with whom I
can share my faith and that it would be a central part of our
relationship,' " Mr. Cannon said, "so not just a life partner but
someone with whom they can connect spiritually."
But for most evangelicals, gay men and lesbians cannot truly be
considered Christian, let alone evangelical.
"If by gay evangelical is meant someone who claims both to abide by
the authority of Scripture and to engage in a self-affirming manner in
homosexual unions, then the concept gay evangelical is a
contradiction," Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New
Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said in an e-mail
message.
"Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely and
counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice," Dr. Gagnon said.
"I trust that gay evangelicals would argue otherwise, but Christian
proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from
Scripture."
In fact, both sides look to Scripture. The debate is largely over
seven passages in the Bible about same-sex couplings. Mr. Gagnon and
other traditionalists say those passages unequivocally condemn
same-sex couplings.
Those who advocate acceptance of gay people assert that the passages
have to do with acts in the context of idolatry, prostitution or
violence. The Bible, they argue, says nothing about homosexuality as
it is largely understood today as an enduring orientation, or about
committed long-term, same-sex relationships.
For some gay evangelicals, their faith in God helped them override the
biblical restrictions people preached to them. One lesbian who attends
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh said she grew up in a devout
Southern Baptist family and still has what she calls the "faith of a
child." When she figured out at 13 that she was gay, she believed
there must have been something wrong with the Bible for condemning
her.
"I always knew my own heart: that I loved the Lord, I loved Jesus,
loved the church and felt the Spirit move through me when we sang,"
said the woman, who declined to be identified to protect her partner's
privacy. "I felt that if God created me, how is that wrong?"
But most evangelicals struggle profoundly with reconciling their faith
and homosexuality, and they write to people like Mr. Lee.
There is the 65-year-old minister who is a married father and gay.
There are the teenagers considering suicide because they have been
taught that gay people are an abomination. There are those who have
tried the evangelical "ex-gay" therapies and never became straight.
Mr. Lee said he and his family, who live in Raleigh, have been through
almost all of it. His faith was central to his life from an early age,
he said. He got the nickname Godboy in high school. But because of his
attraction to other boys, he wept at night and begged God to change
him. He was certain God would, but when that did not happen, he said,
it called everything into question.
He knew no one who was gay who could help, and he could not turn to
his church. So for a year, Mr. Lee went to the library almost every
day with a notebook and the bright blue leather-bound Bible his
parents had given him. He set up his Web site to tell his friends what
he was learning through his readings, but e-mail rolled in from
strangers, because, he says, other gay evangelicals came to understand
they were not alone.
"I told them I don't have the answers," Mr. Lee said, "but we can pray
together and see where God takes us."
But even when they accept themselves, gay evangelicals often have
difficulty finding a community. They are too Christian for many gay
people, with the evangelical rock they listen to and their talk of
loving God. Mr. Lee plans to remain sexually abstinent until he is in
a long-term, religiously blessed relationship, which would make him a
curiosity in straight and gay circles alike.
Gay evangelicals seldom find churches that fit. Congregations and
denominations that are open to gay people are often too liberal
theologically for evangelicals. Yet those congregations whose
preaching is familiar do not welcome gay members, those evangelicals
said.
Clyde Zuber, 49, and Martin Fowler, 55, remember sitting on the curb
outside Lakeview Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, Tex., almost 20
years ago, Sunday after Sunday, reading the Bible together, after the
pastor told them they were not welcome inside. The men met at a Dallas
church and have been together 23 years. In Durham, N.C., they attend
an Episcopal church and hold a Bible study for gay evangelicals every
Friday night at their home.
"Our faith is the basis of our lives," said Mr. Fowler, a soft-spoken
professor of philosophy. "It means that Jesus is the Lord of our
household, that we resolve differences peacefully and through love."
Their lives seem a testament to all that is changing and all that
holds fast among evangelicals. Their parents came to their commitment
ceremony 20 years ago, their decision ultimately an act of loyalty to
their sons, Mr. Zuber said.
But Mr. Zuber's sister and brother-in-law in Virginia remain convinced
that the couple is sinning. "They're worried we're going to hell," Mr.
Zuber said. "They say, 'We love you, but we're concerned.' "
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
