It is true that the human record associated with many religions contains much dross - intolerance, violence, obscurantism, misogynism, poverty and misery. Chrisianity’s reputation suffers for the Bad Popes, corruption, selling of offices and indulgences, callousness, sexual exploitation, hypocrisy (eg by tele-evangelists), you name it.

But the many on this forum who badmouth Christianity will find nothing in the teachings of Christ to justify these - quite the reverse. All these justifiable criticisms only demonstrate how far HUMAN NATURE is open to depravity. Paul writes very truly in Galatians 2:17: "If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!"

In reading the many anti-Christian postings I have been struck by the lack of interest of writers in what Christianity is actually about, their depressing ignorance of theology, and their preparedness to retail absurdities like the claim that Hitler was a 'devout Christian'. Tendentious invective unbacked by knowledge is a poor basis for debate (and yes, I take that in mind in writing my own posting.)

By Christianity I mean the actual teachings of Christ, as amplified by the greatest of his apostles, Paul. This is not the same as the veneration of church tradition and the edifice of power and culture: those things are Churchianity.

Sells slightly disconcerted me when he characterized as 'liberal' those Protestant denominations where the opening of a service might be "Good morning" rather than a liturgical formula.

Johnj took issue with this type of division, and I do too. I wouldn't describe the Salvation Army (for example) as liberal. Relatively informal in style, yes; but conservative evangelical in theological content, very strong on holiness teaching (which I think Jesus' message is all about).

Sells would be aware of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (term coined in the 1960s), which gives as the four main sources of Christian belief: 1. scripture, 2. church tradition, 3. reason, and 4. personal experience.

Modern Christianity falls into four mainstream strands:
A. Orthodox, B. Roman Catholic, C. Protestant (with numerous subdivisions), and D. Pentecostal.

Catholicism gives equal value to 1 and 2, and emphasizes also 3 (its Scholasticism was not matched in Orthodoxy).

Orthodoxy stresses 1 and 2, and sees little need for 3, as it regards all the issues of doctrine as having been settled by the seven great Councils from Jerusalem (Acts chapter 15) to Constantinople, AD 680-681.

Mainstream Protestantism stresses 1 and 3 most strongly, and 2 the least. Anglo-Catholicism falls outside mainstream Protestantism.

Pentecostalism stresses 1 and 4 (lots of emotion) but virtually rejects 3, often being fundamentalist and anti-intellectual.

From my perspective, a person is not a Christian because he SAYS he's a Christian (like Joh Bjelke-Petersen), but because he internalizes within himself Christ's sayings:
1. My kingdom is not of this world, and
2. The kingdom is God is within you.
Shorn of all the theological and denominational complexities, Christianity is fundamentally about personal transformation. It is NOT a purely cultural or power-structure thing.

The end of persecution of Christianity in the fourth century, and its subsequent establishment as the official religion of the Roman Empire, was a catastrophe for the church in that it set individuals up to pursue personal and State agendas rather than spiritual ones.

In my view, 'national' churches like the Russian Orthodox Church have been more about fascism than about Christianity.

I agree with Peter the Believer in rejecting John Howard as 'devout'. The teachings of Christ, echoing much in the Old Testament, have much to say about social justice. When Tony Abbott still defends Work Choices, I recall Isaiah 10:1-2: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.”

JohnJ
"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."

Sells has maintained a steady critique of liberalism for as long as I have been reading his articles. In spite of his 'problem' with liberalism, his views, assuming his articles represent his views accurately, tend more to the liberal end of the theological spectrum than the evangelical although Im sure he would claim to be orthodox rather than liberal.

It is an interesting quirk of nature that we save our harshest criticism for those whose flaws most resemble our own. This, of all Sells articles, seems to me most self-revelatory although perhaps not intentionally so.

I cant speak for all 'liberal protestants' but I personally welcome criticism and I think Sells is well-placed to formulate some healthy criticism. I believe he is capable of articulating that criticism more persuasively than he has done in this article and I hope we will be forthcoming with that.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus Christ spelt out the way his government would operate. As the King he would establish courts, and in those courts, the promise of Matthew 7:7 is given. Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened for you. The English took this to heart and devised a way that a person could formally ask Almighty God for what he wanted. The Form used was a Writ, issued in the name of the Ruling Sovereign, and tested in the name of the Chief Justice. Once issued, the Writ required an answer, and to not answer was contempt of court. The lawyers of course got into the act and unless a Writ was in a specific form, it would not be issued.

In England a Writ was replaced in 1873 by a Writ of Summons, and that is what Australian Courts issued in 1900. If a claim was made in a Writ of Summons, it could not be discharged by a Judge. It could only since 1472 be discharged by a jury trial with twelve men present. Men were the only ones entitled to vote back then. The jury trial was of higher rank than a Judge, and the judge could not do any private deals behind their back, because only a jury trial exercised the divine power of Almighty God.

In Matthew 18 Verses 15-20 further guidance is given in the ways of good government. In verse 20 Jesus promises to be there, when two or three are gathered together in my name. The English to be fairly sure they got it right settled on 12 disciples, all sworn on the Holy Bible to find the truth. They kept the promise of Jesus Christ in Matthew 7 :18 and 19, and courts with judges brought forth good fruit, while a Court with a Judge brings forth evil fruit. Pontius Pilate ran such a Court for Jews, but was obliged to convene a jury trial for Romans. That was why he offered Jesus Christ Roman citizenship

For many here, Sells presents a type of paternalism where freedom is suspended and the right of a differing opinion is rejected – the greatest imaginable tyranny to a liberal thinker. But, I’ll take Sells at his word - “You call me arrogant but I only express an opinion that is counter to the prevailing view..” I’ll take his preceding and proceeding statements as pretending no absolutes (despite an appearance to the contrary) and to be merely dialectic.

The theological understanding of liberalism needs to also note the connection of progressivism with Pelagianism – i.e. a liberal philosophy of history with a characteristically liberal understanding of human nature. We can perhaps rephrase this a little further and ask, is the attempt to secure ‘salvation’ through human virtue disastrously and patently false?

Liberalism is the political aspect of the Enlightenment, and thus a central and characteristic feature of modernity. Locke attempted to justify unlimited material acquisition through his theory of property, he was seen as heralding a new understanding of the relation of human beings to the world - the desire for and the pursuit of happiness, making natural rights the foundation of the law of nature. The rule of nature is replaced by the rule of convention, and human beings and their subjectively derived aspirations becomes the centre of the moral world. Locke also assumed the parameter of an ordered cosmos in which nothing was created in vain, and in which everything must serve the purpose of God implicit in its creation. Kant believed world peace would be achieved from the gains made from international trade and universal republican freedom, and because survival would be preferred to destruction by increasingly horrendous weapons - his belief in progress was ultimately governed by moral rather than theoretical considerations.

Our Western virtue, however, has been insufficient, for after three centuries of enlightenment and scientific rationality, this society (generally) asks to comforted. It feels abandoned, and like a stunted orphan hankers more after the little gods of astrology and fortune telling. The hunger for substantive truth, more than ever, appears unsatisfied.

Relda, Sells and others,

If we could put our discussion into music and pictures and dance and drama (and, perhaps even mathematics?) as well as words, I am sure we would come closer to what Relda calls “substantive truth”. Theology as usually practised is too intellectual and too verbally sophisticated for public debate: it is more likely to enrage than engage the general reader. I suggest that the forum threads attached to Sells’ articles clearly demonstrate that.

That is why liturgy is so important. Done well, it combines so many modes of cognition that it has the potential to give a wide variety of people at least a slight grasp of one “handle” or more on God. While theological debate is necessary, it is likely to be productive only when we drink frequently from the living water of liturgical worship. (The question arises, naturally, what makes for “good” liturgy.)

Regular worshippers may communicate more effectively with the unchurched and hostile by making language only one medium among many. Of course, that statement doesn’t help much in the OLO context.

I offer these thoughts from an Anglo-Catholic perspective – admittedly just one band in the spectrum that Glorfindel earlier painted for us.