Rachel Held Evans sets the World Straight

[Stephen Fox]

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/persecution-complex

[Sandy]

Stephen, you've done very well with a couple of your recent recommendations. This one is excellent. Do you think you could change the title of the thread, though?

[Stephen Fox]

I confess the pun registered with me after the fact, but I like it, like whatsherface, Katie Perry the preachers daughter.

Did you see the Mohler interview of Wacker? In the History section. Im waitin on Steven Miller take on Marshall Frady to set that one straight next year, to be published by Harvard Press, the Worlds of Billy Graham

[Stephen Fox]

World Made Straight is title of a novel by my friend Ron Rash. Its now a movie you can see on Netflix, pretty well done and true to the novel, set in Marshall NC

[Michael Wrenn]

I think she has her head in the sand.

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

I believe the persecution complex is necessary to evangelical Christianity. It matches the "righteous remnant" theology. Many fundamentalists get a sense that they are right and righteous because they are opposed by the "world." If they aren't really being opposed they have to pretend they are being persecuted to justify or prove their view.

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

While we are talking about what RHE posted, I'd say that the whole "we are being persecuted" thing ends up looking just silly to people who aren't evangelical Christians.

Someone I know online claimed that Christians are being persecuted because same sex persons are able to get married against her wishes. Yet, a close member of her own family recently married in a heterosexual wedding and no one ever threatened not to marry them, not to bake a cake of them, not to take their photos, or not to do business with them because they are straight.

I pointed out to her that until you yourself are denied the right to do want you feel led to do then you've not been persecuted. Persecution is not someone else getting to do something they feel led to do that you don't like. That is simply, for them, the free exercise of their own rights and they own religion.

While some people are making up baloney about pastors some how being forced to perform same sex weddings, for some years pastors in denominations who support performing same sex wedding weren't allowed to do that in violation of their own religious beliefs.

So Christian really need to absolutely stop calling someone else getting to live their own life choices persecution against those who disagree with them. Such a claim is not only bogus is it comical, laughable, and makes Christians look like less than intelligent at best.

[Michael Wrenn]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

Michael, I'd also appreciate you being more specific. And you should also be aware that it is primarily right wing Christians who are claiming they have lost some right or other in the Supreme Court Decision. RHE in this case represents of the rest of Christianity that is not conservative Evangelical.

Most of us who are not part of the Evangelical wing of Christianity get really tired of Evangelicals who seem to control much of the south, wield great power in the GOP, and have successfully pushed their agenda in many parts of the country claiming they are being persecuted because they don't control everything and run everything.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

What would you like me to elaborate on?

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

Looks to me like if anything it's affected religious freedom in a positive way, albeit marginally.

[Michael Wrenn]

[Michael Wrenn]

[William Thornton]

Michael and Timothy...both right in a sense.

Timothy's right: No minister forced to perform any wedding. No church forced to host or to marry any couple. Not one.

Michael's right: Non-ministerial service providers are fined in places where there are local non-discrimination laws.

The wedding baker/florist/photographer must serve all in some locales. There is no allowance in law for his or her conscience, although many states have or are passing such protections (which will or are being challenged on the basis of federal non-discrimination statutes). Some are proposing an exception to non-discrimination laws on the basis of a non-clergy individual's artistic personal service.

We're looking at years of litigation on all this.

As a minister, I'm not threatened by the SCOTUS decision. Were i a wedding venue owner, I would prepare to serve all couples or sell my business. I don't see the courts giving license to say, "We don't rent our place to people like you gays or lesbians."

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]