Police officers now considered offensive

[Kidlicious]

[Proteus_MST]

Police officers are offensive
They are offending offenders

[Kidlicious]

Police officers are offensive
They are offending offenders

They also invade your safe space

[Jon Miller]

Kid, why do you attend a Methodist church instead of another?

JM
(I had actually thought you were Pentecostal.)

[Jon Miller]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/barack-obama-christian-conservatives_us_57d446dee4b00642712dd499

Basically they doubt Obama is a Christian because he is liberal. I guess liberals can't be Christians?

JM

[Kidlicious]

Kid, why do you attend a Methodist church instead of another?

JM
(I had actually thought you were Pentecostal.)

John Wesley.

[Kidlicious]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b00642712dd499

Basically they doubt Obama is a Christian because he is liberal. I guess liberals can't be Christians?

JM

Let's look at those liberal beliefs though. He says that he's against abortion but thinks it should be legal. Doesn't make sense to a conservative. As far as we know he would allow unlimited Muslim immigration to our country. All you have to do is look at countries with many Muslims and see that that's not good for Christians. For example, they just bombed a cathedral in Egypt.

That said, many people don't know all the facts and they shouldn't say that people aren't Christian. It isn't their call.

[Jon Miller]

He says that he's against abortion but thinks it should be legal. Doesn't make sense to a conservative.

Actually, quite a few conservative Christians hold this position. And almost all liberal Christians do.

JM
(Some of that is because abortion is probably the first place that intolerance in the left has taken hold in the general left instead of just the far left and academics. In the last year we started to see that even being against abortion but thinking that it should be legal (like Tim Kaine) has stopped being acceptable for many on the left (and Hillary moved from being against abortion but thinking it should be legal to being entirely pro-abortion).)

[Kidlicious]

Actually, quite a few conservative Christians hold this position. And almost all liberal Christians do.

JM
(Some of that is because abortion is probably the first place that intolerance in the left has taken hold in the general left instead of just the far left and academics. In the last year we started to see that even being against abortion but thinking that it should be legal (like Tim Kaine) has stopped being acceptable for many on the left (and Hillary moved from being against abortion but thinking it should be legal to being entirely pro-abortion).)

How is it conservative to legalize sin?

[Jon Miller]

Sin is an issue of faith and not an issue of law? That is the founding principle in the US. And a principle that most of the rest of the world (other than a few Muslim ones) has followed for the last 300 years.

JM
(I am pro life, but that is because I don't see the issue as one of sin but rather of scientifically demonstrable murder. Which is against the law for other reasons than that it is sin.)

[Jon Miller]

If it is an issue of sin, then there are a lot more actions associated with gluttony, fornication, greed, pride, etc... then there are abortions.

JM

[Lorizael]

JM, I'm not terribly familiar with the various sects of modern Christianity. What would you say are the defining features of the liberal/conservative theological spectrum as a thing distinct from the liberal/conservative political spectrum?

[Jon Miller]

There is a general sense which basically is based on how much tradition is a guide and how willing the church is to allow non-traditional views or ones that were heretical.

I can point to a couple of different important points and that can help give a sense.

One of the points is what happens after death. I have recently been reading a scholarly book about this ( https://www.amazon.com/Fire-That-Con.../dp/1504029348 ) which is excellent and I very much recommend. There are three commonly held views, all found in the early church, but Augustine basically defined the view as the traditional hellfire and burning forever. That would be the conservative view, is continued from Augustine to the protestant fathers. But recently there have been groups that don't hold those (Adventists have believed in Conditional Immortality (those who reject God cease to exist while only those who accept God live forever) since their beginning in the 1850s, Universalists have generally became so liberal that they are even hesitant to call themselves Christians but they got their name from holding the other commonly held view of Universalism (that everyone ends up in heaven) and in the last twenty years many members of mainline and evangelical and even charismatic churches have also taken the Conditional Immortality or Universalist views). The other liberal view is to combine other belief systems views (reincarnation/etc) with Christianity's original interpretations (described above).

Another of the points is about Christ. The early church had a number of different opinions, although the leaders (That we have the most papers/etc from) generally held something similar to the traditional view there were some that thought Christ was all God or all Man or became God and Man but started as just a Man. Here for example Jehova Witnesses, Mormons and Adventists all were at least OK with nontraditional views. Adventists officially moved to the traditional view 100 years ago but still could be considered as a liberal (in this area) denomination because there are many members that still hold to Arianism. I think that Mormons and JWs still do not hold to the traditional views of Christ and so should be considered liberal.

I have just hit some of the liberal denominations of the 19th century. Many of the older protestant denominations, and a portion of the Catholics, also have become very liberal.

A third example is about what to consider Christianity from the beginning and not just between Paul and Augustine. My Bible professor from college (a Lutheran Pastor) flat out said he didn't agree with Paul and I think that is fairly common among the liberal side of protestantism (Methodists, Lutherans, Angelicans, Universalists who are still Christian). The liberals disagree with Paul about Christ (is the importance of Christ that He died as an atoning sacrifice or his preaching), about women (Should women be pastors?), about homosexuality and so on. Obviously some of these have overlap with the current political liberal/conservative divide but not all of them.

I don't think abortion plays a role in theologically conservative versus liberal. Adventists have been moving from theological liberal to conservative in the last 100 years.

JM
(A fairly high percentage of pastors in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden are atheists. They believe that Christ was the first step to atheism and that the end development of the Christian religion in particular is atheism.)

[Jon Miller]

I may have made it seem like liberal Christianity is fundamentally liberal (even if conservative Christianity can be liberal or conservative). So to balance, prosperity gospel (very popular among parts of the politically conservative electorate) is a liberal theology.

JM

[giblets]

(Some of that is because abortion is probably the first place that intolerance in the left has taken hold in the general left instead of just the far left and academics. In the last year we started to see that even being against abortion but thinking that it should be legal (like Tim Kaine) has stopped being acceptable for many on the left (and Hillary moved from being against abortion but thinking it should be legal to being entirely pro-abortion).)

Unless she supports eugenics or population control through abortions, she is not "entirely pro-abortion".