I should say one author failed to "get it." Mollie responded to my piece lutherans make historic vote, and the AP wire F's it up. But rather than engage the clear language issues, she chooses to fall back onto her ideological haunches. It is quite amazing that if a story fits her ideological framework it is good reporting. If it does not, it is bad reporting. Thus she spun this back on the issue of sexual behavior in a complete and utter failure to recognize what same gender couples want – legitimacy that their love is not to be condemned. For what love that is mutually upbuilding and self-giving is not of God lest we call those passages lies?
Mollie spun this back to focus on her own ideological position that homosexuality is a sin. Then she goes to say that those churches that are welcoming and affirming are, by analogy, in effect lying to their people. Unbelievable. The fact that the AP wire report clearly used ideologically loaded language to frame the issue in inaccurate terms, which is in what I thought GR was to focus as a watch dog for religious reporting, was something that Mollie chose to use as a platform to spread more spurious red herrings in the service of her ideology.
My use of snark and harsh language in the style of Luther himself was intentional (just read Against the Roman Papacy – my language is soft compared to Luther). Looks like it worked, as it worked for Luther.
Now, let’s look at that statement in the context of what the Christian church has confessed for thousands of years on the basis of Scripture.
This is the basis for the problem itself. “Is” does not imply “ought.” I wonder if you were to sit in Wittenburg after Luther rightly condemned the political and theological foundations of the Church if you might hear the same thing about everything from papal authority rooted in Peter to the authority of the Church over all things scriptural. Yet this is the same assertion Mollie uses to tell people that the ELCA is lying (note she does not make this claim, but the association is clear by the analogy)? Absolutely absurd and I hope people see that. The entire basis of the second half of her article is rooted in an equivocation that is completely errant. Unless of course you also believe that being gay is a choice. That assumption simply requires more reading on the matter.
Yet I digress. This is an example of how Mollie spun it back to focus on the wrong thing – her own ideological assumption that this is about sex. The fact is that it’s not about sexual activity for those seeking to legitimate their relationships. It’s about recognizing fidelity between two people who are madly in love with each other, who also happen to be the same gender. But see, that’s the hard part to accept for people who refuse to listen to alternative hermeneutics on the six passages that condemn male on male intercourse (Jack Rogers, William Stacy Johnson, and others can help). You can’t frame it in terms of how the ELCA defined these relationships because that part is Scriptural. There is nowhere in Scripture that rejects "a publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationship"; nowhere. Instead the focus has to be on sex. It has to go back to what people do with their penises and their vaginas (even though Scripture says nothing about female-female sex in the same context).
I found her nota bene somewhat hilarious. "Your comments should also be civil and focused on journalism." Perhaps Mollie should have focused on the journalism here as well. That she chose not to leaves such a comment wanting. She focused on the theology and her own theological conviction, not the headline. So much for "getting religion" here. It's hard to "get" much when all one is publishing is a justification for their own ideological conviction. As I said with regard to John Piper, this is again insurance to justify one's own ideology.
Related posts:
I am glad that you responded to Mollie at getreligion. Everything you say is correct. That is how getreligion generally operates, though Mollie is the worst of the lot: she, like many of their readers, is obsessed with homosexuality.
In any case, I also posted a comment. I expect that it will be spiked, since Mollie really, really dislikes being criticized. So I will post it here, if I may:
"I am glad that Drew Tatusko pointed out that this post had little to do with journalism and all to do with ideology. The analogy with lying is interesting if only because conservative religious groups seem to be very accepting of lying. In the Prop 8 campaign, they disseminated so many lies about gay people. Molly uses the question of “gay friendly” as simply a way of expressing the old canard about “hating the sin while loving the sinner.” But the real news from the ELCA assembly was that they agreed to disagree within the denomination as to whether homosexuality is a sin. If homosexuality is not a sin, which many members of ELCA agree, then it makes perfect sense for it to welcome members and clergy in homosexual relationships."
Can't you see that use of the phrase "gay-friendly" implies an affirmative moral judgment of said relationships. And that you can't separate sex from those kinds of relationships, and that sexual activity WAS the difference in the ELCA's recent vote?
gay friendly is not a moral judgment at all. what if i invited a same gender couple to my home. they arrive and the conversation seems ok. then over dinner i tell them, you know i don't support your relationship. am i still being friendly? think they will find my home all that welcoming knowing that i have a secret contempt for their relationship? no. not affirming is not being friendly. pretty easy.
regarding sex, for those who are not homosexual it is about sex. but for homosexuals it is not. i try to look at it from their perspective. for them, it is that the church does not recognize their relationships as legitimate. sex is only part of it and to their mind, not the main part of it. focusing on the sex bit frames it incorrectly in from the view of the LGBT community.
here is another way to think of it realistically. if i have been living with a man for several years, we co-own a home, share a bank account, might even holds hands or share a peck on the cheek in public. we sleep in the same king sized bed. whether or not we have sex is something we choose not to discuss. let's now say i am going up for ordination. if i say that neither of us touch each other's genitalia in any way shape or form, would they say, OK – you meet the standards for ordination? be honest. i think certain assumptions will be made in this case, don't you?
dgfa: and your point is what? Certainly, to be gay-friendly, it helps if you do not regard homosexual relationships as sinful. It is hard to be gay-friendly if you regard gay people as horrible sinners. The ELCA Assembly went on record agreeing to disagree within the congregation as to whether gay relations were sinful, but even to reach this level of agreement required a large number of people at the assembly who believed that gay relationships are not in and of themselves sinful. Thus ELCA can legitimately be known as a "gay-friendly" denomination, at least in many of their congregations. Similarly, the United Church of Canada is on record saying that homosexuality is not in and of itself sinful and that homosexual relationships should be supported (they courageously lobbied for same-sex marriage), so one can say that the UCC is "gay-friendly." Many Episcopal churches are "gay-friendly." Most Southern Baptist Churches are not "gay-friendly." Most Missouri Synod Lutheran churches are not "gay-friendly." Most Congregationalist Churches and most United Churches of Christ are "gay-friendly." Some United Methodist Churches are "open and affirming" (i.e., "gay-friendly"), though the denomination as a whole is not because it continues to insist that homosexuality is a sin and gay relationships are not equal to heterosexual relationships. I don't know what this concept is so hard to understand.
Clearly some would prefer that, instead of being gay friendly, more people were the opposite.
"And that you can't separate sex from those kinds of relationships,"
So you're suggesting that married heterosexual people never have sex? Or that all they think about is sex? From what I gather, both may be true for a great many of them.
Mollie's objection to the use of "gay-friendly" to describe those churches that affirm gay relationships and gay people is that she and other conservative Christians want to be known as "gay-friendly" as well. Poor Mollie is not only homophobic, but she insists that she is really deep down a friend to gay people.
This has the advantange of making gay folks seem so ungrateful. These kind friendly Christians that want to send homosexuals to heaven (as long as they convert to heterosexuality or at least repent of their sexual deviation) are really friends of gay people.
At the heart of her objection to being known as gay-unfriendly is the hurt conservative Christians profess to feel when they are called bigots and haters and hypocrites. If only gay people (and the journalists who support the gay agenda) would only recognize that the Christian churches that condemn homosexuals are really their friends. Life would be so much nicer then.
notice terry's evasion of my very simple question before mollie decided rather arbitrarily to close down comments. she opened up the theological debate in her post, but does not want us to talk about it. disingenuous to say the least. so here's my question to terry:
Nathan (#32) presents the same basic argument as Bob. Quite simple. If I invite you to my home and then tell you over dinner that I do not accept or affirm your relationship to your partner, how is that friendly? Would you be of the opinion that I am a friendly neighbor?
I think if you can answer this question, since it is the same logic outside of any theological context, it would help.
And then she proceeded to delete my restatement of that question that he did not answer as well as delete a response to the theological issue that she herself raised int he post. Off topic my ass.
Clear that those at "get religion" only "get" their own reflection and refuse to hear something rational on the other side.
"Clear that those at "get religion" only "get" their own reflection and refuse to hear something rational on the other side." Exactly. The whole thing is a kind of scam. They say that they are interested in the journalistic presentation of religion, but they post screeds that have less to do with journalism than to state their own theological positions. Then they open it up to respondents, but if one disagrees too much, they spike your comments. I love the post about Episcopalians, where they spiked many comments that defended the Episcopalians, but left a diatribe such as that one from "Sarah." They would be more honest if they simply posted a blog. But I think they get money from a source that is interested in journalism, so they have to couch their blogging as journalistic critiques. Thank you for your excellent posts there. Your insistence on trying to get people to consider things through the "other's" point of view is not only an intelligent approach but one that partakes of agape as well.
As a long time commenter at GR, I find many of your comments credible. Molly posts a lot about Gay issues, tho she does not seem to have a very firm understanding of what being Gay is about. Frequently she retreats to the ludicrous distinction between oreintation and behavior as if this has meaning. Tmatt is much better on Gay issues.
One aspect of the subject is that Mollie is comparatively young, she grew up in the Missouri Synod after it had been purged of all the 'liberals' etc, which occurred in the mid 70's. Missouri became a church characterized by formal doctrine rigidly adhered to. Prior to that it more closely resembled other US Lutherans: a folk church with ethnic heritage and formal intellectual doctrine. The groups that eventually became the ELCA went the other way: they seem increasingly folk-ish, if that is a word in religious dialog. These are different ways of doing church.
What I hear the ELCA doing is healing a rift in the family. For 40 years, Gay people and their acceptance have been spliting Lutheran families. I have known many Gay people estranged from family for being Gay, I am one of them. The anti-gay teachings have caused much misery among faithful Lutherans. Finally, ELCA has decided the price is too high.
As the resident Lutheran, Mollie has the last say on the subject at GR. But her understanding of the subject is one that came about less than 40 years ago. It is not Dr Piepkorn's teaching, which I have heard him deliver.
And as one of the more reliably out there posters at GR, I rarely get spiked.
dalea
[...] to mine over the misleading bias of the AP news wire and Get Religions' ugly capitulation to inaccuracy and clear ideological bias against homosexuals despite their call to set the record straight regarding religion and the media. [...]
dalea, I occasionally go to getreligion to see what they are up to and notice that you frequently post there. Thank you for your perseverance.
Mollie is the worst, but I am not convinced that tmatt is much better on gay issues. He is more sophisticated, but annoyingly obtuse, as in his suggestion that "gay-sex friendly" would be a more accurate term than "gay friendly."
In any case, I love getreligion's hidden agendas, and, in the most recent posting, Mollie's chutzpah. Mollie not only wants churches to discriminate against gay people, but to have gay people thank them for it. She thinks gay people should kiss the hand that slaps them in the face. Now that’s chutzpah.
She also wants to allow gay-unfriendly churches evade responsibility for the pain they cause through discriminating against gay people, spewing hatred and misinformation, lobbying against legal reform, etc. Hey, they do all these awful things, but boy they really love gay people. They’re our friends! With friends like them, gay people don’t need enemies.
More pointedly, she doesn’t want the msm to make the simple distinctions that allow people to distinguish between those churches that do accept gay people and those that do not. “Gay-friendly” is a perfectly good way to make this distinction. Everyone knows what it means, and most of the churches that are not gay-friendly would not want to be known as gay-friendly. After all, the Southern Baptist Convention has dis-fellowshipped several churches in their association for being too “gay-friendly.”
dalea, I occasionally go to getreligion to see what they are up to and notice that you frequently post there. Thank you for your perseverance.
Mollie is the worst, but I am not convinced that tmatt is much better on gay issues. He is more sophisticated, but annoyingly obtuse, as in his suggestion that "gay-sex friendly" would be a more accurate term than "gay friendly."
In any case, I love getreligion's hidden agendas, and, in the most recent posting, Mollie's chutzpah. Mollie not only wants churches to discriminate against gay people, but to have gay people thank them for it. She thinks gay people should kiss the hand that slaps them in the face. Now that’s chutzpah.
She also wants to allow gay-unfriendly churches evade responsibility for the pain they cause through discriminating against gay people, spewing hatred and misinformation, lobbying against legal reform, etc. Hey, they do all these awful things, but boy they really love gay people. They’re our friends! With friends like them, gay people don’t need enemies.
More pointedly, she doesn’t want the msm to make the simple distinctions that allow people to distinguish between those churches that do accept gay people and those that do not. “Gay-friendly” is a perfectly good way to make this distinction. Everyone knows what it means, and most of the churches that are not gay-friendly would not want to be known as gay-friendly. After all, the Southern Baptist Convention has dis-fellowshipped several churches in their association for being too “gay-friendly.”
[...] tisk). I reject each notion of "monogamy" and prefer fidelity. In this connection, Drew writes (this is a response to Mollie's article noted above): "It’s about recognizing [...]