Calls for tolerance untenable for some (@ Mayor's prayer breakfast)

[Ediacara]

Calls for tolerance untenable for some
A belief that other faiths are not legitimate prompts some Christians to support blocking a Muslim speaker

Monday, May 10, 2004
JILL SMITH

The removal of Muslim speaker Shahriar Ahmed from the program of the Mayors' Prayer Breakfast of Washington County spurred a call from many in the county's religious community for religious tolerance.

But for a large group of conservative Christians, tolerance is simply intolerable if it means saying other religions are legitimate paths to God. For them, belief in Jesus as the son of God is the only way to heaven.

Clark Tanner, pastor at Beaverton Christian Church, and millions of other Christians say they believe Muslims and other non-Christians will go to hell after death -- not because they are bad people, but because they have not accepted Jesus as their savior.

"The only thing I can say is what the Bible says," Tanner says. " 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me.' "

More at the Oregonian

[WillParkinson]

1. Ah, what a fun(die) group of people!

And what the hell is the mayor doing holding a prayer breakfast anyway?

[MissB]

5. Actually, that is the name of the breakfast- not sponsored by a mayor

Many of the mayors did go last year. This year, the mayor from the biggest city that was participating wanted to invite a rabbi and muslim. The breakfast organizers did not like that, so most (perhaps all) of the mayors backed out of the breakfast this year.

[SemperEadem]

9. then it should be renamed

"The Intolerant Protestant Fundamentalist Christians who are trying to take over government and subjugate non-believers Prayer Breakfast"

[davidinalameda]

2. bet the bible thumpers would have had a field day

if one of their own had been kicked off the program

[makhno]

3. Religion is very clearly the problem

Just what is the mayor's prayer breakfast and why in the world would such a thing exist? To create problems such as this? This whole debate should get nowhere near the political system. Keep it in the seminary.

[madrchsod]

4. there is nothing inherently wrong with such

a "meeting". this sort of thing has been done for years without any problems. but now we have these right wing bullshit preachers who want only their beliefs to be heard. to bad this nation is so controlled by a few people who want to control so many

[54anickel]

6. I agree, it is the intolerant My way or the highway view that is the

problem.

I pray for fundies everyday. I don't profess to have the answers, but I worry that they may be the false prophets warned about in the Bible. To the ones who give this argument, I point to the final commandment utter by Jesus to his disciples in John:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you....

This latest WWJD craze drives me nuts as well. For anyone to have the audacity to think they somehow could know the mind of Jesus. It should be, "What would I do differently if Jesus/God/god (place whatever higher power here) were standing right in front of me this very moment".

Sorry, I don't normally go off on religious tantrums, but this sort of stuff just ticks me off.

[Just Me]

8. I find the misuse of religion for power over others antithetical to Jesus.

I, too, usually avoid engaging in this stuff. But, being a person who has studied various religions and a person who does Love God and the hope underlying Jesus' vision,...I find these abuses horrible.

[Bake]

16. The mind of Jesus

I disagree to an extent, although I appreciate your viewpoint. We may not be able to know the mind of Jesus with regard to every conceivable situation, but based upon his teachings as told in the NT, we can get a pretty good idea of what he might do in certain circumstances. He would not hate. He would not kill. etc. etc.

Bake

[makhno]

11. Religion and politics

These two things don't, or shouldn't, mix. A mayor could meet with leaders of the city's religious communities, but to call such a meeting a "prayer breakfast" makes it a tad bit too ideological for my tastes. If it was simply a meeting to discuss the concerns of the communities, I doubt there'd be much place for this crass behavior by the fundies.

[ashling]

14. If it was a meeting to discuss concerns of communities,

these people wouldn't go in the first place. They only care about their concerns.

This is exactly what led to the prison abuses in Iraq.

[progressivebydesign]

7. Don't those people realize that they, in fact, would be the ones in hell?

If the Bible weren't more than a work of myth and fiction, then these very people (who like to pick and choose what to believe), would be the ones going to hell. Jesus, the person, taught kindness and concern for other people.. he was actually quite the liberal. So many of these religous nuts are being brainwashed and led into these religious frenzies. Treating people the way they do, is not Christian. These loonies are all talk.. they love to get together with their other like-minded people and talk about how damn Christian they are, and how much the LOVE Jesus, etc. What ever happened to the part in the Bible where God tells them to pray in secret? I wish they'd pay more attention to that part and leave us alone. I have no use for a religion based upon paternalistic MALE figures telling me what I can and can't do and think and feel. I'm totally turned off by the demanding nature of that religion.. GOD must come first, etc... What kinds of evil has been perpertrated on Earth by people in the name of religion? Are the people who kill strangers, and even their own families, because they believe GOD was speaking to them, any different than those walking around now saying GOD told them to rent this house, and God told them to buy this business. Sounds like mass hysteria after 9/11 to me.

[jobycom]

10. So you all did catch the reverse implied, right?

"Muslims and other non-Christians will go to hell after death -- not because they are bad people, but because they have not accepted Jesus as their savior."

The flip side is that people who "accept Jesus as their savior" will go to Heaven whether they are good or bad, in the mind of Clark Tanner. THAT's how they justify Bush.

I'd sit down to dinner with the most radical Muslim before that type of Christian any day.

[salin]

12. I have come to think of it as selfish, superficial Christianity

for some fundamentalist evangelicals - the point isn't anything about Jesus's teachings - Jesus only existed to die to allow the fundies to go to heaven. All that balderdash in the gospels is just that - irrelevant rubbish. That is how they can ignore that the story of the Good Samaritan highlights the virtue of the nonbeliever who tends to the person in need over the believer who callously walks by.

I recently attended a service that included baptisms (teenagers) - and not once was there any discussion of the teachings of Christ, and thus the meaning of taking this on - in terms of the responsibilities of trying to live/walk the walk of the teachings of Christ. Almost all was about accepting Christ to be "saved"... a few admonissions to not be "tempted by evil..." and not a word about what Christ taught, stood for, etc. As a sat there ... it sounded like the most self-serving interpretation I had ever heard. Christianity for the "Me Generation"... where the only point is a ticket to heaven... with the extra bonus of heavy doses of self-righteousness at the expense of others which, of course, by default gets its leaders to act in discordance with the teachings of Christ related to judgement of others, treatment of others, etc.

[jobycom]

13. Pelagius complained about that in 4th century.

St. Augustine had him condemned as a heretic, though.

[struggle4progress]

15. So instead of practicing the gospel ...

then (as now) everyone can enjoy power struggles within the Church, all nobly disguised as issues of dogma and heresy. x(

[jobycom]

17. Well, it was a bit more complex than that

This was early on, when Christianity was still a small religion and was off and on still frowned upon by the empire.

Pelagius believed that a person was saved by doing good deeds, whereas Augustine believed that not everyone could live up to such drastic standards, and that it was only by baptism and by God's grace that one was saved. Augustine had two concerns-- One, if a person was told they could only be saved by doing good, they might be discouraged from trying if they felt they had already blown it. Two, Christianity would become an elitist religion where a lot would be baptised, but only a few pure saints would be considered "true" Christians. Then, Christianity was still in competition with other religions, not the one monolithic entity it is now, so he did not forsee a world where everyone could claim to be Christian but only a few would act like it. To him, if you made the choice to be baptised and raised a Christian, you were trying to do what you were supposed to.

Pelagius, on the other hand, told Christians that they could do the right thing all of their lives and still not be saved because their intentions weren't pure. Or, they could commit one sin near the end of their life (or the beginning) and wipe out their whole lifetime of otherwise good works. That was too elitist for most Christians at the time, and his views were rejected.

[struggle4progress]

18. Well, you're probably right but I'm suspicious ...

Augustine was an academic, and it's a profession known for vicious political games. All this was a long time ago, too, and I wonder if the winner's version of events may have passed down more readily and intact than the loser's version.