Thoughts of a Freethinker

There is a march of groups in Christianity away from, rather than toward, each other. The Asbury Seminary graduated preachers and fed them into the pool of the United Methodist denomination for 80 years. Asbury insists gay marriage is a sin and, apparently, teaches this in some of its classes. United Methodist decided it did not need such pastors and took Asbury off of its list of approved seminaries.  A spokesperson from Asbury was baffled as to why United Methodist has blacklisted the old institution. This is not hard to understand. Do any of the large denominations still say interracial marriage is against God's plan and refuse to recognize them? My impression is this is mostly in our country's rear view mirror.   How long will it take for U.S. society to entirely treat gay and trans people as equals? Slavery, perhaps a metaphor, took 400 years. Myths live on for a long time. The myth that the Bible condemns homosexuality is one of these myths.  United Methodists ...

An article on a Christian site tells us many Christians are worried those aboard Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) are liberals and/or atheists.  There is an assurance provided Christians we don't know who is operating the UFO's so until we learn this there is nothing to worry about. My guess is the worry continues. The issue is so important there was a followup . Neither of the links helps us understand what the correct Christian response is. We can only speculate. Is it to have a fresh stack of Trump Bibles ready to hand to the aliens as the exit their space craft? Or, perhaps it is to usher the space creatures to their assigned seats where Franklin Graham can preach a sermon against sin. Meeting are going on as we speak discussing what to do after the aliens land. Another possible twist might happen. A space craft from the heavens might be Jesus returning. Thus, it must be treated with appropriate respect. Some will deny that any of the green people who exist the spacecraft ...

The Church of England recently issued an apology to the women and children it separated in the name of religion. A while back, supported by law, it decided some women were not worthy enough to raise their own children. Approved groups took their children. The church received large sums of money from other couples who took the children. This was not an ancient practice. It was approved until relatively recent times.  The aggressiveness against abortion did not exist before Roe v Wade. There were many thousands of abortions. We know that from hospital records of botched efforts. The chance to get ugly came when there were abortion clinics. Back-alley abortions were not important. When I was a mayor, I mentioned to a deep Christian elected guy that his people had developed recently a cruel and vindictive attitude toward gay people. That was necessary, he said, because so many men had turned gay. That is impossible. Anti-gay happened because parts of Christianity have a cruel streak. C...

An interesting analysis showed up in intellectual-type discussion of Pope Leo. The link notes the large amount of time Pope Leo has spent traveling, meeting with officials and speaking in Spain and Italy. Pope Francis spent almost none of his travel time there.  Reading exerts from Leo's speeches, the message I see is, "We who come from a Jesuit background have a focus on the poor and bedraggled. The old message of cultural wars of Pope Benedict is out. Today, we need to include cultural Catholics as real Catholics or there will be no Catholics. If you don't buy into anti-abortion or birth control that's OK. Focus like the Jesuits on the poor and bedraggled."  The link thinks Leo sees opportunity in Europe. Catholicism's history is so strong there he thinks if that a new version that is Catholic-lite is promoted numbers will improve. Certainly, this is not an approach previous Popes ever considered.  One problem Leo's new approach is the vast number of old...

It's encouraging to read, even if only once in a while, an article by a prolife writer that realistically presents the reason women have abortions. This one writes about men . The author reviews responses of men to questions about pregnancies they admit they caused. Their answers about the obligations they feel are all over the park. Largely, they try to calculate the effect of a child on their own futures, just as women do. Except, men have more ability to walk away from responsibility even if they originally pledged money and time.  The various degrees of responsibility these men felt toward being the father of a child are a window into the circumstances women face. Perhaps a man vacillates between enthusiasm and reluctance. If the couple is not married or even living together, the man, like the woman, wonders how a child will fit into future relationships. The link says it is sponsored by a group which works with young men to persuade them fathering a child is an opportunity and...

Movement toward women priests has slowed because women, and men who support women's rights, are leaving the denomination. One cannot blame them, but it does not help to move the needle. There are not good statistics on this but lots of antidotal testimony. It's very understanding that these women leave. The surprise is that any of them stay. If, as I suspect, Pope Leo wants women first as deacons and later as clergy these leaving women complicate his task. The Pope is a political position and he needs to be able to tell conservatives there is a big group of women in the denomination that demand equal treatment. He wants to be seen as the peacemaker. If those women have left, the peace maker excuse is all but absent. Conservatives, and most male clergy do not care if progressive women leave.   This, of course, is not limited to the Catholic denomination. Southern Baptists and Missouri Synod Lutherans do not allow women clergy.  On conservative Christian sites, there is a l...