Stand and do Battle ... Against the Real Foe

Liberal Bible-Thumping

Regarding Bishop John Shelby Spong's newest book, The Sins of Scripture, Kristoff wrote:

"Some of the bishop's ideas strike me as more provocative than persuasive, but at least he's engaged in the debate. When liberals take on conservative Christians, it tends to be with insults - by deriding them as jihadists and fleeing the field. That's a mistake. It's entirely possible to honor Christian conservatives for their first-rate humanitarian work treating the sick in Africa or fighting sex trafficking in Asia, and still do battle with them over issues like gay rights."

I think that anything that expresses a departure from what amounts to 200 years of an assumed fixed and dogmatic theology is provocative. Yet we are in a time when such a departure is in the works but not the departure envisioned and advocated by liberals. The departure we're seeing is driven primarily by Radical Evangelical Fundamentalists (which I'll shorten to "REF's").

Liberal activists - even Spong himself - find themselves suddenly defending the conservative "traditional" doctrines and assumptions because someone must do so more overtly and aggressively.

Spong provoking traditionalists who choose to cling to the traditional doctrines is part of one process of evaluation and a possible shift in Christian thinking. Yet most Traditional Conservative Christians are not what created the directional problem in America today. Kristoff is right on the money in recognizing that the majority of Christian service and charity organziations are the creations of Traditional Conservative Christians who supprot maintain them.

In a way, the provocation of Traditional Conservative Christians by Spong and the rest of us is the mirrored provocation to Spong and most liberals by REF's who are primarily responsible for moving Christianity into the political arena.

As we've seen on threads all over this site, liberals/progressives have aroused the ire of the traditionalists and apologists who defend the more traditional fundamentalist views of the faith.

Whether tactful or not, most traditionalist conservative responses have been esssential disagreement and/or outright rejection of liberal/progressive attempts to change thinking or re-examine scriptural content and meaning.

It is not a simple case of mere closed-mindedness when someone who has had a meaningful spiritual habit for most of one's life responds spontaneously with rejection of any new idea that challenges personal conviction - even personal serenity.

Kristoff points out that most liberal/progressives use insults and then "leave the field" which I perceive as throwing rocks and then hiding behind a larger rock so as to avoid retaliation.

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