Click through to my journal to see my latest ponderings:

http://uncleamos.livejournal.com/482093.html

Hoping this doesn't offend, but I think it should get boosted as much as possible: Sign it if you agree with it--the "far-right manifesto", the Manhattan Declaration's boasting of almost 300,000 signers, and there should be a counter-weight to that.

(this cut from http://friends-of-jake.blogspot.com/2009/12/affirmation-declaration.html)

In response to the bias of the Manhattan Declaration that opposes (among other things) gay rights, a group of affirming Christians has created a response. Called the Affirmation Declaration, its intent is as follows.

The Affirmation Declaration is a statement that expresses the convictions of Christians all over the world. It was written in response to the now famous Manhattan Declaration, to correct egregious errors contained in the document, errors that have been preached in the pulpits of many local churches for far too long.

With the growing notoriety and support for the Manhattan Declaration, our Affirmation Declaration reflects an urgent need to respond to the portion of the Manhattan Declaration dealing with issues related to sexual orientation—specifically, homosexuality and same-sex marriage. We strongly disagree with the contention that same-sex attractions and the oft-resulting romantic activities are immoral.

Because of the large number of people affected by this serious issue one way or the other, we felt it expedient to respond formally, both by submitting our Declaration to the drafters of the Manhattan Declaration, as well as by releasing our Declaration to the public, allowing Christians to show their support for love and affirmation, just as so many have shown their support for the propagation of false doctrines of oppression and inequality against the GLBTI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Intersex) community.

We also desire to let the world know that not all Christians are locked in what we believe to be an ancient worldview regarding homosexuality. We want to give people hope—hope to know that God loves them just as they are; hope to know that their gay loved ones are not destined for Hell; hope to know that although some Christian churches will never accept them or their same-sex unions, a great many will.

May the signatures we garner serve as a fire that will never burn out, lighting the way through the darkness of bad theology, and setting Christ's Church back on the right track as it relates to matters of sexual and gender orientation, and gender identity.

Like it? Go read the whole thing and if you still like it, sign it!

Jonathan Escobar, 16 of North Cobb High School has been kicked out because he refuses to change who he is and stop dressing in female attire at school. Please join in taking action to demand school administrators allow him to express himself as he sees fit and to create a policy to ensure the safety of gender variant students.

http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2009/10/georgia-highschool-boots-student-for.html

So some of you may have seen this article about the Conservative Bible Project. It would be funny if it weren't true. Basically some folk at Conservapedia have decided that all modern bible translations are too liberal. It seems only the King James Version was untainted by liberal bias...although even it has some "errors" (such as passages which probably weren't part of the original and which should be left out of the new, improved bible). It's a wiki re-translation project...I find it incredibly amusing that they are using the KJV as their authoritative source...it seems that Christianity is only palatable to them if it is filtered through the mores of the 17th century translators. Unfortunately, some important conservative concepts didn't exist at the time of good King James, so they are also changing the language to reflect modern, conservative thinking. It seems from a perusal of Mark that it means, among other things, referring to the scribes, and sometimes the Pharisees, as intellectuals...those tricky intellectuals!

Anyhow, just thought some of you would find it interesting. Unfortunately they haven't gotten to Matt 5:39 yet, I'm really dying to see how they mesh that with their brand of conservativism.

x-posted to christianchange

Students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are protesting a series of speaking engagements by Edward Delgado a so called "ex-gay" evangelist. Brought in as a guest speaker by the Campus Bible Ministries Mr. Delgado will give 14 lectures titled “From Sin’s Bondage to Christ’s Freedom" on his claim that through reading the Bible he magically journeyed from being gay to becoming a heterosexual.

Learn more about this ridiculous and unscientific claim as well as info on protests.
http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2009/09/university-of-alaska-students-protest.html

So this discussion on internetmonk (http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/liturgical-gangstas-15-that-evolution-question) re-raised some questions in my head. They're old questions and I'm hoping someone knows someone who has dealt with them, so I'm putting them out here.

I'm willing to believe that Genesis is allegorical, metaphorical, mythical, explanatory but not meant to be taken as literal history. The point of Genesis is that God somehow is the creator (whether God wound it up like a watch and went away, or kept an eye on it, tweaking a molecule here and making a quantum wave collapse there in order to guide evolution is not critical to this discussion), but that humans have chosen to walk apart from God and as such are separated from God, and as a result the entirety of creation has "fallen" from grace.  We do not live in a perfect universe and Genesis explains God made it good but we humans screwed up.  Ok...

But I believe that the story of Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection is NOT allegory.  It refers to a unique point in history where the divine reality and mundane reality intersected, God walked as man with us, lived with us, and died and came back to life, so that somehow (insert your favorite theological explanation here), in the part of the historical timeline that is post-zero A.D., humans can live in a way that is "right with God."  The universe as a whole is still screwed, and life is still brutal, bloody, and short; but individuals can now live with that intersection of divine and material reality, in a relationship with God in a way they could not before. Something that was wrong has been made right (or at least right-ish).

But working within that framework, I still have some problems, namely: Was the universe created by God to be good?
If it wasn't, then either God didn't create it or God created it flawed (helloooo, gnosticism!). Unacceptable, either way.
If it was created by God, and it was created as a good thing, then WHEN did it go wrong?

Were the dinosaurs in a state of grace? Are we digging up the fossils of a perfect world? I doubt that very much, but if not, why not?
Who had screwed up, given humans didn't show up for another however many hundreds of millions of years after them? (Following this line of thought and with thanks to C.S. Lewis, did Jesus come as a dinosaur to the dinosaurs, as a neanderthal to the neanderthals, as a human to the humans?)

You can see the problem I'm having: We have a point in time in which God intervened to fix things, but we (or at least I) don't have a clear point in time when things originally went wrong. Which means they were either always wrong, or that nothing was ever wrong to begin with. And neither of those answers is really acceptable (with one being gnosticism and the other being humanism).

I appreciate that in the scale of problems that includes solving world hunger and stopping global warming, this is not a big deal. But it's a theological inconsistency that is bothering me. Anyone have any thoughts?

Hi guys.  I'm new to the comm.  I've never had a problem reconciling my sexuality with my religion (when I was straight, I was a manwhore; now I'm just a bi manwhore), but I have been having a little trouble reconciling my dislike of some church practices and themes in Scripture.  There's a lot of it I don't agree with, and I wonder how I can identify as Christian when there's so much I don't believe or agree with.

How do you guys deal with the conflicts that can come up?

Also, I'm hoping to do some Bible study on my own, but I really ain't that academically minded; right now, I feel if I just tried to read the Bible, I'd miss half of what they were trying to say!  Can anyone give me a nice rec for a study Bible or websites?

This past weekend, the More Light Presbyterians (http://www.mlp.org/) had their conference at Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN. Here are pictures!

http://starflyrpro.smugmug.com/MLP/Gods-Whole-Family-Conference/9547665_bJfBj#642034879_Mz4Nn

A buddy recently posted this study on his blog. I thought others might be interested and this might generate some excellent discussion:
________________________________________________

And 71 percent acknowledged "confusion" over same-sex sexual attraction by age 14-15. That's according to the study "Listening to Sexual Minorities on Christian College Campuses”, conducted by researchers Mark Yarhouse, Stephen Stratton, Janet Dean, and Heather Brooke, had 104 "sexual minority" students at three schools within the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities complete anonymous surveys about their sexual desires. (Alas, it's unclear what researchers used to define a "sexual minority," but we believe it's safe to assume it means all things LGBT.)

( the rest of the article )

This is a post for those of you that don't believe in original sin. Background: I was reading a post in which a christian asked for the Jewish opinion of original sin. I knew that Judaism rejects that notion - not the notion of sinning itself, but the notion that mankind is born sinful. It reminded me of the troubles I have with original sin, hence this question. I also know there are Christians that don't believe in original sin (my college chaplain was one, for instance).

So, for those of you that reject original sin, how did you come to that conclusion? How do you support it? And what difference does it make to your faith? Any other thoughts are welcome as well. Thanks!

cross-posted to christianity, protestantism and ljchristians

Speaking as an Episcopalian, Whoo hoo!!

Ordination to any ministry in the Episcopal church is now formally open to anyone regardless of sexual orientation!!


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/us/15episcopal.html

Which is hardly the most celebratory write-up of the news--most of the blogs that are pro-justice and equality are going nuts about it.  Both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops passed it 2-1 in favor.  (Google on the resolution name, D025, to see what I mean.)

Hey everyone,

First, a short introduction. I classify myself as a recovering Pentecostal  - the church experiences I had growing up in several Assemblies of God and Pentecostal congregations spiritually wounded me and nearly caused me to abandon my faith all together from disillusionment until I discovered a more progressive and socially conscious Christianity in college. I've been lurking here periodically since last summer as part of my attempt to understand and analyze the myriad multi-fasceted points of view and interpretations of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

On to my reason for posting. My boyfriend and I recently got into a discussion of "biblical" marriage roles. He's very much a traditionalist; the husband is the head of the household and decision-maker, and the woman submits to his authority. I take a more feminist-informed, egalitarian point of view: husbands and wives ought to respect and love one another, the husband showing strength by acting as a support.

The passage in Ephesians 5 regarding husbands and wives came up, and I was curious about it's actual interpretation. Traditionally, these verses are read in a way that places the man as the "head of authority" over the wife, who is supposed to be obedient. But I can't help but think that such an interpretation reads too much Western patriarchal ideology into a more deeply significant metaphor. I found a few articles online that referenced the idea that Paul didn't mean head as "authority" but rather as part of the metaphor as the husband and wife as one flesh: as Christ is the head of the church, his body, so husband and wife are joined together as head and body (hence the whole, "love your wife as you love your own body"). It's also important to take into account that the majority of the chapter challenges all Christians to respect and submit to one another and to walk in love.

That said, I was wondering if any of you could offer some more resources for the further exposition of these verses. Further thoughts and opinions welcome!

I've been feeling very conflicted about religion in my life recently, trying to find a church where I'm truly happy and can belong, and I've run into a deep dilemma. Would anyone be willing to offer me advice?

( Cut for a long and somewhat rambly discussion of what's bothering me )

tl;dr I feel like choosing a church based on activities, rather than on spirituality, is missing the point of church, but I also feel like staying with a church that doesn't try to better the world is hypocritical.

Crossposted to my personal LJ