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Progressives are anti-Christian? Every progressive I have met in my life has espoused the tenets of Christianity more than the sum total of Christians I have known in my life.
If anything from my experience, Christians hate Christianity. I can think in my 20+ years of living two Christians that met the minimum definition of a Christian, while I can think of plenty of atheist progressives who have gone beyond the minimum.
This is an unflattering paraphrase of what the author purports to be a progressive position. It is not a good example of progressive attitudes toward Christians, because it was not written by a progressive. I find it a useful text to encapsulate what I perceive to be a common attitude among Progressives, but if you want to assert that this attitude really is widespread among progressives, you need to provide actual examples of the behavior, not the mocking paraphrase.
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Do any of these progressives believe in God or go to church?
Because I'd say that's the absolute bare minimum. Someone who doesn't believe in God isn't a Christian, and someone who doesn't go to church isn't a practicing Christian.
Christian isn't a synonym for 'virtuous' or 'progressive'. It's a religion.
No. Most I know were raised Christian, then left the faith.
Progressives loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind means exactly that. Loving God is not following Christian doctrine; notice how when asked what the minimum was Jesus did not say "believe in Jesus", otherwise all of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica were doomed because they missed the Jesus boat. Loving God is loving God; and what is God? Love. And what is love, according to the Bible? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Therefore, to love God is to love those things; kindness, patience, humbleness, honor, tranquility, etc. When love manifests, God manifests, and when that love is loved in return, God is loved as well.
I'm sympathetic to your point here, and certainly deeds tell more than words, cf. Matthew 7:21-23. However, I would be concerned that defining Christianity exclusively in terms of love is too broad. The category 'Christians' doesn't just mean everybody who loves, or everybody who loves the concept of love. That's a criterion that would capture many atheists, as well as practitioners of any number of non-Christian religions. I (though a Christian myself), find, for instance, Santideva to be one of the most eloquent religious exponents of unconditional love, and I would never call Santideva a Christian.
I suppose I think I would define Christianity in the broad, or visible, sense in terms of both doctrine and behaviour. A Christian is one who believes certain propositions (we can roughly summarise those with the Apostles' Creed, I suppose; you might reasonably object to me that the Creed doesn't mention any ethics, but I'd hold that taking the Creed seriously implies some downstream ethical commitments), and then behaves as if those propositions are true. It is necessary to be a Christian to believe that Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of God died for the sins of the world and was raised to fullness of life, but to properly or fully be a Christian, that belief must shape and condition your behaviour. And that is what leads the Christian to do things like listen to what Jesus taught and attempt to behave accordingly (cf. John 14:15), or attempt to follow his example (cf. Philippians 2:5), and so on.
So while I certainly agree that patient, radical, self-sacrificing love is something that Christians are called to, I wouldn't say that it suffices as a definition of Christianity.
For what it's worth, on my understanding there are true Christians who are dyed-in-the-wool progressives and who are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives. I think that much more important than whether a Christian is progressive/conservative is how that Christian goes about being progressive/conservative. But I tend to think that most prudential political judgements properly belong to the conscience of the individual Christian, though, as with all things in life, they ought to be informed and nourished by a properly Christian moral formation. That is much harder than it sounds, but all of us are fallible works in progress, and I suppose there's no Christian alive who can be confident that their politics perfectly match those of the Kingdom.
I think C. S. Lewis had something to say on that....
--The Last Battle
Certainly that represents my hopes.
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What are the tenets of Christianity, as you understand them?
What is the "minimum definition of Christianity", in your view?
The tenets of Christianity include the Ten Commandments and the principles of tranquility, forgiveness, humbleness and charity.
The minimum definition of Christianity, as stated by Christ when asked, is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” and ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
I find it oddly bizarre that you've been down voted here for answering a question sincerely, without rancor.
I, sadly, don't.
A bump of that sweet, smoking gun, as you write in your bio. I sense you're here not exactly as a troll, but that you don't particularly feel you're among like minds.
It's sarcasm. Dry as dust sarcasm. I'd put an /s, but that's not my style of humor. I had a hunch when I made the step from lurker to poster that no matter what I said, and I mean what, I'd be downvoted and called a troll or a man; hence my username. My hunch was proven correct. There is a small fraction of users on here who genuinely want to debate, and the great majority else want to boo outgroup.
One has to wonder, though, if those who do the downvoting are those same users with whom you are debating. As you must realize, having been one, there are many lurkers here. I find that almost any civil reply, even if it is in extreme disagreement, is preferable to the smug dismissal, or the silent downvote.
I really did wonder that was well, and I came to this conclusion; there's downvoting because you disagree with an argument, downvoting because you believe there is a rule violation, and then downvoting because you dislike someone. I consider users who I am debating with in good faith to be in the first two camps and everyone else in the third. I'm pretty sure for a great deal of users if I typed "The sky is blue" I'd be downvoted to the negatives, that is how overwhelming my numbers are sometimes.
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They are not, in my case at least. I try to upvote people I debate with to counteract the downvote swarm, but it is a losing battle.
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The Christian theological virtues are faith, hope, and love. The cardinal virtues are temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice. I see ‘charity’ which is a synonym for love in your list. I don’t see anything, uh, supernatural.
I'm confused what you're trying to say.
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These seem like reasonable definitions.
I know neither the Christians you've met in your life, nor the Progressives. Maybe the Christians were really awful, and the Progressives really saintly. I am curious as to how you see the Progressives "loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind"; what does that mean to a non-Christian observing non-Christians? Likewise "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
My suspicion, perhaps unfounded, is that you are rounding these principles to "is a progressive". Perhaps I'm wrong, and there's more to it.
Do you believe your experience generalizes? Moving beyond Christians and Progressives you've personally met, I presume you'd agree that we can observe Christians and Progressives in society generally, and identify notable examples. When drawing from a reference class that broad, we ought to see extremes both ways. I can certainly find cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Progressives are acting in a significantly more Christian fashion than the Christians. Would you agree that there are identifiable, individual cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Christians do in fact seem more Christian than the Progressives?
Take the cake shop guy versus the trans activist; does it seem to you that Phillips was acting in a more Christian fashion, or Scardina?
Progressives loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind means exactly that. Loving God is not following Christian doctrine; notice how when asked what the minimum was Jesus did not say "believe in Jesus", otherwise all of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica were doomed because they missed the Jesus boat. Loving God is loving God; and what is God? Love. And what is love, according to the Bible? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Therefore, to love God is to love those things; kindness, patience, humbleness, honor, tranquility, etc. When love manifests, God manifests, and when that love is loved in return, God is loved as well. Progressives loving their neighbors as yourself is also...just that.
I do believe my experiences generalize. My anecdotal evidence is just that; anecdotal. On its own it's not good evidence, which is why that isn't my only evidence. Observing Christians and progressives in society in general, it is obvious to me that progressivism is more aligned with the principles I described above; Christians, in general society, promote social conservatism, and God - who is love - is not compatible with social conservatism. I would agree that there are identifiable, individual cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Christians do in fact seem more Christian than the Progressives, but seeing as how Christians are famously homophobic and transphobic and progressives are not, I imagine those cases are rare.
Obviously Scardina; unless Phillips also refused to bake a cake for alcoholics, murderers, adulators, liars, thieves, and all of the other sins, which are seen as equally bad as homosexuality, then he is judging and condemning based on his own preferences and not because of his religion, which is un-Christian. Scardina called on Phillips to be truthful when he said he would serve LGBT customers, and Phillip was caught in his lie, which is also un-Christian.
I can readily agree that under a definition of "Christian" that considers social conservatism disqualifying, most Christians are not actually Christian. Likewise, under the definition of Christianity employed by the Westborough Baptist Church, only themselves and those who agree with them are the true followers of Christ. This is an obvious feature of arbitrary, bespoke definitions, which is why most people who wish to communicate clearly try to avoid them.
I do wonder, though: have you ever interacted with a serious addict? Suppose a meth junkie asks you for help securing more meth so that they can get very high. Under your definition of Christianity, what is the properly Christian response? What is the proper Christian response to a heroin addict asking to use your bathroom to shoot up?
Suppose, hypothetically, that Phillips had not refused to sell a cake to a trans person, but rather had refused to customize a cake to celebrate transition itself, in the same way that he would refuse to customize a cake themed to celebrate acts of alcoholism, murder, adultery, deceit, theft, or any other sin. Suppose designing artwork whose message was celebration of sinful behavior in general was what he was objecting to, and that Scardina's request was not to buy a cake generally, but to commission exactly this sort of sin-celebratory confectionary. In this hypothetical scenario, would your assessment of either Phillips' or Scardina's actions change?
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Being a troll (and using Satanist imagery as part of trolling) does not seem particularly compatible with
I've met a lot of Christians that fail to live up to those things! Myself included, for all have sinned and fall short. But by goodness I find it a tough pill to swallow that you've met so many progressives who aren't impatient, hateful, envious, boastful, prideful, self-seeking, angered at the slightest whim of disagreement, who don't seek to get people fired and depersoned for decades-old offenses, and who don't treat the truth as little more than a tool to be disposed of when it's not in their favor.
Should artists be required to paint anything that someone asks in commission?
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I could see arguments either way, but I lean pretty hard toward "no".
For the same reason that I don't think we should have laws requiring Church attendance. Christianity's first-order ends cannot be achieved by coercion. Christian charity is not enforced by law; charity enforced by law is not meaningfully Christian. See my post here for more elaboration of the argument.
What would the argument in favor be?
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"tranquility, forgiveness, humbleness and charity"
I'm on board with the accusation that many Christians are only nominally so. But it is absolutely laughable that you think Progs have exemplified these values to any significant degree given the last 10-15 years, if not more. I've seen almost none of these things from the Left as of late. Nor do I recall them exemplifying these values any more than the average person on the street from my teen years to early adulthood - a time when the idea of ever voting Republican for any reason was unthinkable to me.
Well, I dunno what to tell you other than that’s not my experience. Progressives I’ve known have demonstrated those things; conservatives I’ve known are so entrenched in their mommy and daddy issues the concepts are hard to reach. Tranquility? More like constantly stressed. Forgiveness? More like gossiping for lack of conversation topics. Humbleness? More like cowardice. And charity? More like “I got mine”.
Awesome. I guess our 'lived experiences' cancel each other out, then? As in, it should have been predictable that unverifiable statements like 'Progs I know are more Christian than actual Christians' was going to be an unproductive dead-end in this discussion, and why did you even bother with it?
Maybe your friends are totally angels. It's rather weightless compared to your vanguards that freak the fuck out when they see a crucifix in a public building, or give themselves the sweats over Pete Hegseth's tattoos. For extra fun, go look up who Bernie Sanders invited to sing at his recent rally. Meanwhile, the Left (coded non-religious) reports more mental health issues and their compassion dries up the moment 'refugees' get bussed to their towns.
Who are my vanguards who are freaking out at crucifixes and tattoos? Last I checked, being discriminatory towards religion wasn't in the progressive handbook.
Bernie Sanders invited a singer who had vulgar lyrics is...what, exactly?
If you're going to pretend you're from another planet, you aren't worth talking to.
Engage politely or don’t engage at all.
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What in the uncharitable???
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I don't like using humor as a reference, but it was a common enough thing to be treated as a joke on Silicon Valley that coming out as Christian would be disastrous for one's business associations.
One should be cautious of gerrymandering definitions to the point of uselessness, or buying into the propaganda. In my experience progressives claim to hate racism, but for some reason that only applies when it targets certain races. Always another layer of rationalization for why that is.
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Being discriminatory against the Muslim faith (and others that are considered 'brown-coded') is against the progressive handbook. It has no problem shitting on Christianity and blaming it for much of the evil in the world. This hatred is often excused because of 'white supremacy', but also 'power differentials' before the former term really took off in the zeitgeist. It was very common for me in the 2000s to hear something to the effect of 'Islam isn't as bad as Christianity because Christianity has more power', which was hard for even me to swallow as a Democrat who posted on /r/atheism.
If you haven't witnessed the hand-wringing over Hegseth's 'Deus Vult' tattoos and how he's a closet Nazi, I can't help you. If you dont know what the Church of Satan is, ditto. And if you haven't noticed that any depiction of the 'evils of religion' in fiction invariably summons up a stand-in for a pope or a priest (never an imam) with the serial numbers occasionally filed off, then you haven't consumed media in the last 20 years.
Here's where I am willing to help out, though!
[Verse 1] Does his D go deep So deep it puts an ass to sleep? Who’s the 6 to his 9 And what are his other kinks? If he grows all the trees Does he taste every peach? Is your god fucking you and fucking me? I know creation must get lonely After all he’s one and only And his son was so well hung I think the big man deserves one
[Chorus] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heaven's keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me
[Verse 2] When he whips out his meat Does your world fall to its knees? Does he shoot wads of honey And cum twice on Easter Sunday? What’s his favourite position? Missionary? Magic bullet? We all give him no lover Just a hand and a mother Can he cum a shotgun blast And shoot salvation up your ass? Does he chew cunt like bubblegum And give blowjobs like a vacuum?
[Chorus] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heavens keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Does your god have a big fat dick? CAUSE HE’S FUCKING YOU AND ME!
Feelin' cute today, felt like droppin' a lil' vulgarity. Teehee!
Very few people would be comfortable if this song made reference to the Quran or something related to Judaism. But it's fair game because we all know who the singer is targeting. I know it, and so do you. And it can be belted out a political rally hosted by a Darling Of The Left - with the speaker entirely comfortable with it and an audience that has no problems accepting it. Frankly, they like it. One would think that if you actually liked or respected Christians enough (or feign such things in an attempt to ply votes from them), one would reconsider the wisdom of letting this kind of thing take center stage at your political event. But they don't care, because Fuck Christianity and its woman-controlling, gay-hating, Sky Daddy nonsense.
But you're familiar with this. You can't not be if you've hung around in liberal circles for any extended time in the last two decades. And I know it exists, because I sang those same songs when I was of that tribe - before progressivism, atheism, and 'intellectualism' bottomed out and I had to concede that they were not bearing the fruits I expected.
Speaking as a current atheist, "Progressives are anti-Christian?" is a profoundly implausible statement. The difference between left- and right-wing atheists is that the latter also dislike everything else.
Though I've never been attracted to performative crucifix dunking or global-warming paint throwing. If that's the best you can do, you aren't capable of building any world I want you to live in.
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