'The collapse of antigay religion'

Well, if churches no longer hate Teh Gay, at least there's still the Boy Scouts.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/boy-scout-accidentally-outed-gay-facebook-denied-coveted-job-article-1.1773141

 

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!"

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2023:23-23:24&version=ESV

 

I'll take that as a yes.

 

Whatever happened to ScribePharisee, anyway?

 

Not Bob, but I'll take a shot.

In so many words: Yes. The church, like any other entity, should be open to altering its positions as we develop deeper understandings about science, morality, human nature - you name it.

 

Would that be like moving the time of year the savior was born to coincide with an already popular pagan holiday? Or is that not a principle?

 

Or changing the rules of what could be eaten, and when, during Lent?

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0527.html

 

You may have a point.

And, while Bob is a Churchgoer, it seems the people most clamoring for Churches to change are folks like yourself who are unlikely to become more Churchgoing, or accepting of organized religion, regardless of the changes.

 

Certainly they glommed on an established holiday, but did they "change" the time of year Jesus was born?

When Christmas first came to be observed, did anyone know the date/season of his birth?

 

I'm not clamoring for anything. I'm telling you what happens. The churches adapt. The churches rationalize. Again and again and again. They can do what they want. No skin off my nose. I'm telling you what they will do. They will adapt. Or they will be marginalized and die.

 

No Gospel states the date -- or year -- of his birth. That made it easy to try to co-opt someone else's holiday. So the War on Christmas is really a reversal of the War on Pagan Feasts. "Happy Holidays? I'll take my business elsewhere if I don't hear a Happy Saturnalia!"

 

Some of the biggest adaptations are not theological, but stylistic. The successful megachurches have combined a cult of personality (in the minister) with a concert-arena like environment that evokes the feeling of attending a performance rather than attending a church.

I went to a relative's megachurch Christmas service, and from what I could tell, the founding minister had made a list of anything deemed churchy and tossed it out. The seats and stage were like an arena. One of the Christmas songs was set to the tune of "Bohemian Rhapsody." The sermon was multimedia. But it still hewed fairly closely to evangelical principles -- though, in further adaptation, it relied a lot on Prosperity Gospel-type, believe-and-you'll-be-rewarded (perhaps with money)-type stuff.