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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
If it was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me. Jesus lived his life with tolerance and acceptance. You claim your faith is based on his teachings, well that's the foundation.
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Unconditional love is not the same as tolerance, either way around. And i think this is the cause of some of our conceptual confusion. The path i beleive Jesus advocates is to love the enemy while confronting them.
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This is why I equate you to the same track but on the opposite end as those fundamentalists that you deplore. You aren't living by the example that Christ says. You are willing to cast stones when you yourself are equally guilty of the same intolerance you expect from them.
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You have two forces that are both using the bible to support their beliefs. You say confront and repent. What do you think the homophobes are doing? The believe the same thing so they are confronting and repenting as well.
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And if someone keeps telling other people to be tolerant and not to rock the boat? Aren't they confronting those others, and asking them to turn away from their current behavior? We're all trying to convince each other. I make no apology for this. If i do so with hatred in my heart, and not love of the other, then that's when there is a problem. and that's one of the challenges in this fight. there are some people who simply think that queers are wrong, but genuinely do not bear hate. but a lot of people out there are very hate filled by this issue, and will do whatever they need to do to remain in a position or priviledge and power. it is the challenge for those of us who undertake anti-discrimination work to not let that hatred infect us as well.
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In my opinion this is equal to force meeting force, and from my interpretations of the teachings of Christ, it then means to turn the other cheek and live by example.
If I recall correctly Jesus did not confront many people. He confronted the pharisees, he confronted the merchants at the temple, and he confronted his disciples.
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Turn the other cheek is a cultural reference that has long since been changed. The people he was talking to were the poor and the servants. If you backhand someone (as masters do) and they turn their head, you have two choices. You can use the unclean left hand to backhand them again, or you can punch them and acknowledge them as equals. Both are the equivalent of pouring gas on a fire, and even the most hardened master would think twice about doing either. It is a statement to one who holds power over you: I am still human, and i am not going to be bullied or cowed in to thinking otherwise. It has nothing to do with passivism...
In this dramatic form, Jesus recoccomends a third way. he doesn't say punch back, to use power as they do. and he doesn't say to lay down and take it. he says to recognize the humanity within the one who oppresses you, and to dramatically demand that they recognize your humanity. These are the confrontations he has with Pharisees, the Saducees, Roman officials, Herod, Pilate, the temple elites, the crowds at Gerasa, his own disciples, the assembly at Nazareth, the list goes on and on. Confrontation is part and parcel of the revelation of Jesus. How this confrontation takes place is why it is Good News, and not a gun to the head.
i eschew the use of power as these people have. as i noted earlier, i am not seeking legal means, or to coerce them. I strictly disavow agressive violence against those who oppose me (something that they do not). i am using the public air, and nothing else. In all my work...in the American Baptist churches, in school, in community...i use nothing other than my voice and my presense. one of my all time favorite protests occured at a church meeting. Hidden in the crowd of assumbled delegates were a dozen queers and allies. Every so often, two by two, they would get up and begin loudly proclaiming that they and the ones they loved were not sick, or demonic. They were beloved children of God...sinners saved by grace.
And two by two, they were dragged out of the room by security. They made no resistance to that force, and did not fight to stay. but they did not simply accept that their church was telling them that they were forbidden. they dramatically, and with profound hope for those opposed to them, demonstrated their humanity.
i believe such a thing is Jesus' way.