{"id":56615,"date":"2015-04-08T13:53:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T19:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=56615"},"modified":"2015-04-08T13:56:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T19:56:18","slug":"hellenizing-the-christians-darleen-click","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=56615","title":{"rendered":"Hellenizing the Christians [Darleen Click]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those who forget the past<\/a> <\/p>\n

Since Jewish and heathen sources agree in their characterization of him, their portrayal is evidently correct. Antiochus combined in himself the worst faults of the Greeks and the Romans, and but very few of their good qualities. He was vainglorious and fond of display to the verge of eccentricity, liberal to extravagance; his sojourn in Rome had taught him how to captivate the common people with an appearance of geniality, but in his heart he had all a cruel tyrant’s contempt for his fellow men. The attempt of modern phil-Hellenes to explain Antiochus’ attitude toward the Jews as an endeavor “to reform a stiff-necked people”<\/strong> receives no confirmation from the fact that a Tacitus first formulated it. Antiochus had no wish to Hellenize his conquered subjects, but to denationalize them entirely<\/strong>; his Aramean subjects were far from becoming Hellenes simply because they had surrendered their name and some of their Semitic gods.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Are doomed to repeat it<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At this point, it should be clear why religious groups have worked hard to pass an expanded version of RFRA. The Colorado Commission made the grotesque and inexcusable comparison of the refusal to do business in a highly competitive market with the mass extermination of helpless individuals in government gas chambers. Commissioner Rice\u2019s insistence that Cakemasters has used its religion to \u201churt others\u201d means that anyone who turns a person down for business \u201churts\u201d that person. Her formulation shows no appreciation whatsoever for the relative harms involved in these low-level commercial interactions. Craig has dozens of alternative outlets clamoring for his business. Phillips and Elane Photography don\u2019t have that luxury; they are now put to the impossible choice of closing down or violating their religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

It is all too easy to denounce, as does the New York Times<\/a>, Indiana\u2019s RFRA law as being driven by \u201cbigotry against gays and lesbians.\u201d But that is malicious libel against individuals at businesses like Cakemasters and Elane\u2019s Photography who have thought long and hard about their unwillingness to participate in marriage rites that are contrary to their religion. They also have no interest in turning away gay and lesbian customers in any other commercial activity. Unfortunately, the relentless pressure of state civil rights commissions makes these small religious businesses a \u201cdiscrete and insular\u201d minority, as the Supreme Court said in 1938 about state coercion against disenfranchised racial minorities. It is easy to tolerate people with whom you agree. It is necessary in a free society to tolerate those with whom you disagree. It is this loss of tolerance, this self-righteous indignation, this vilification of a vulnerable religious minority that makes this recent chorus of incivility so disgraceful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

… and auditioning for the role of Antiochus<\/a> <\/p>\n

[H]omosexuality and Christianity don\u2019t have to be in conflict in any church anywhere.<\/p>\n

That many Christians regard them as incompatible is understandable, an example not so much of hatred\u2019s pull as of tradition\u2019s sway. Beliefs ossified over centuries aren\u2019t easily shaken.<\/p>\n

But in the end, the continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision. It\u2019s a choice. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since \u2014 as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing. […]<\/p>\n

So our debate about religious freedom should include a conversation about freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn\u2019t cling to and can indeed jettison, much as they\u2019ve jettisoned other aspects of their faith\u2019s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity. […]<\/p>\n

Religion is going to be the final holdout and most stubborn refuge for homophobia. It will give license to discrimination. It will cause gay and lesbian teenagers in fundamentalist households to agonize needlessly: Am I broken? Am I damned? […]<\/p>\n

[Matthew] Vines said that the New Testament, like the Old Testament, outlines bad and good behaviors that almost everyone deems archaic and irrelevant today. Why deem the descriptions of homosexual behavior any differently?<\/p>\n

Creech and Mitchell Gold, a prominent furniture maker and gay philanthropist, founded an advocacy group, Faith in America, which aims to mitigate the damage done to L.G.B.T. people by what it calls \u201creligion-based bigotry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gold told me that church leaders must be made \u201cto take homosexuality off the sin list.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

His commandment is worthy \u2014 and warranted<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You will be made to care.<\/p>\n

Or else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those who forget the past Since Jewish and heathen sources agree in their characterization of him, their portrayal is evidently correct. Antiochus combined in himself the worst faults of the Greeks and the Romans, and but very few of their good qualities. He was vainglorious and fond of display to the verge of eccentricity, liberal to extravagance; his sojourn in Rome had taught him how to captivate the common people<\/p>\n

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