Daviy,

“At one point they where murdering 1 in 14 of the population under their control. That was the Christians, not those who say they are Christians.”

Well said. The good folk who shuffle off to Church each Sunday probably don’t identify with the deeds of the Christians. Yet, they call themselves by that name and venerate Christianity. People who otherwise would never think of joining brutal groups indwell (Polanyi) in the Christian performance, whilst knowing its ruthless history. It has a power over them. Surely, the devout of Jesus could respect and revere their god in other ways.

Sells,

I am unsure whether you truly debate points. (You might think you do.)

OLO posters cite serious scholars and tangible documents. Nonetheless, you never deny the existence of say; the Dead Scrolls or the behaviour of heinous Christians. Your silence on the substantive matters strengthens alternative interpretations.

runner,

Stalin and Pol Pot were mad autocrats, yet they were not secular humanists.

Autocracy finds a closer bedfellow in Church hierarchies than it does in humane lateral mutualism and egalitarianism. The Emperors, Popes, the Monarchs of Spain, France and England, often cited in OLO, were Christians. The Christian churches have too much baggage.

Jesus people, for want of a name, should start over, taking a more independent and forensic approach to their study, setting aside the centuries of doctrinaire accretions established by the Churches.

Regarding my quotes, I feel I appreciate Biblical contexts. The alleged Flood and destruction of Sodom involved the purging sin. But does this claim make the actions acceptable? The Bible dies claim there are witches. Relatedly, the Malleus Maleficarum challanges Mein Kampf in the detestable stakes. The Bible gives weight to the former book.

The Hebrews did see themselves as the “chosen” people.

Christian authority comes from the fourth century. Jesus lived in the first century. Much happened in between these times. Nicaea is more separated from Jesus, than we are separated from the First Fleet.

Daviy wrote: If you think the Romans were murderous and satanic you should look at Jewish history.

Dear Daviy,

Jewish history has to a great extent been a tale of persecution, expulsion and massacre by Christians.

From http://www.jamescarroll.net/Constantine.html

National Book Award–winner James Carroll confronts the long and dark history of antisemitism in the Church in Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews (Houghton Mifflin; January 10, 2001). From the birth of Jesus to Constantine’s vision of the Cross, from the Crusades to the Inquisition, from the Jewish ghettos to the Dreyfus Affair, Carroll shows that the infamous silence of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust was not an aberration in Church history but a culmination of nearly 2,000 years of entrenched anti-Judaism. …. The result is a tragic history laid bare and a demand that the Church finally face this shameful past in full.

…..

One of Carroll’s main objectives is to show that antisemitism is not an impersonal force of history, but a consequence of choices made at pivotal moments down through the centuries. Beginning with the First Crusade in 1096, Pope Urban II defines violence as a sacred act; Jews are massacred in the heart of Europe or kill themselves rather than convert. Martin Luther posts his Ninety-Five Theses in Wittenberg in 1517; he defines the Jew as the born enemy of the German Christian. Gian Pietro Caraffa, the Grand Inquisitor himself, becomes Pope Paul IV in 1555; he ratifies blood purity laws and orders the Roman ghetto built. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Pope Pius VII immediately reestablishes the Roman ghetto whose walls Napoleon had demolished. Hitler comes to power in 1933; his first bilateral treaty is the concordat with the Vatican, negotiated by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who would become Pope Pius XII. The facts of history are immutable. What Carroll shows is that one person or event does not lead directly to the Holocaust. Rather, thousands of individual actions over the centuries, all rooted in a religious contempt for Jews, tilled the soil out of which grew the lethal antisemitism of the Nazis.

I don’t usually get upset at what anyone says to me but I cannot wear the statement that John Howard was a devout Christian. JH was a cunning manipulator of public opinion, but I cannot reconcile that with the statement that he was a devout Christian.

I am reminded of the passage from Mathhew 7:18 a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. I cite some of the fruit. I could spend hours citing the bad legislation enacted by the Howard government, and the way they manipulated the constitutions of the Federal Court , Family Court and High Court during the reign of Malcolm.

Fora like this give us an opportunity to debate the virtues or otherwise of various forms of government and when JH and KR went head to head in front of over 200,000 Christians in the final weeks of the 2007 campaign, the Holy Spirit moved and 23 seats shifted sides. The groans in my Christian congregation in 2004 when JH won, were palpable, but the consensus was that we could not follow an atheist. KR worked this out early in December 2004, and you will find the first shot towards leadership of the Australian Labor Party on this site.

KR is enormously popular but he has some lead in his saddlebags. JH stacked the Public Service with atheist lawyers, and they are probably practicing their deceitful ways upon him. Menzies should have been a bit more humble, and like Chiffley accepted the decision of the High Court instead of setting out to destroy it. When Fraser enacted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1981, and Hawke reenacted it in 1986, the Courts should have become courts again.

The liberal ( lawyers) Party fifth column in the Labor Party still refuses to accept the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was enacted in 1986, and that the punctuation of S 79 Constitution, which has court and judges without Capital letters, really means civil juries and jury/judges to set sentencing as a Christian right

Once again we hit the eternal stumbling block.
Millions of people call themselves Christians, and simultaneously reject every one else's right to do the same, as their interpretation of the word varies from every one else's.

"Before you attempt to remove the splinter from your brother's eye, first remove the plank from your own eye".

I agree that Howard, Bush et al do not exhibit many qualities that would be shared -or endorsed- by the legendary Jesus, but that is just my interpretation.
Sells and Peter the B. have their own interpretations, and both believe -apparently without question- that their interpretation is the absolutely right one; as of course, do the Howard's and the Bush's of this world.
They know they're right, because God said so.

JohnJ
"Still no comment from any "Liberal Protestants"? Just the atheists and runner et al going around in circles."

Whats to say?
"Liberalism stands for freedom, tolerance, fairness, self expression, choice and fulfillment." and some evangelical Christians, like Sells, dont like it.

"It [liberalism] stands against doctrine, discipline, self sacrifice and discipleship." To the extent that we are prepared to challenge convention in these areas we are guilty, as charged.

Sells isnt too far wrong in his analysis, really. Perhaps he will sharpen his attack a little more in this discussion thread or future articles. I look forward to the challenge!

I'm inclined to agree with you Waterboy, but I guess my view is that Liberalism, per se, wasn't Sells' real target. His argument that "values are window dressing unless they are founded in virtue" (presumably faith, hope and charity/love) only has value in a Christian context. This invites the obvious (though possibly unhelpful) retort of "there is no God". I was hoping for something a little more nuanced.

I was interested to see whether any Christians would be interested in debating Sells on his own terms. I suspect that most of the people Sells refers to as "Liberal Protestants" would reject the label. Even Sells can't really define what he means, lamely adopting an "I know it when I see it" position when challenged. My own observation is that contemporary Christianity can't be subdivided in the way Sells does, there being a multitude of different theological positions on these matters.

Sadly, the only Christians who have seen fit to enter this thread have been Sells, runner, Peter the Believer, et al. Not much chance of nuance there. Oh well....