I think honestly these sorts of articles are disingenuous at best. The church has always had a one man one woman understanding of marriage with the man as the head. The people misquoted the verse about obeying, in truth it's not just that the woman should obey the man, but that the man is to love the woman as Christ loved the church, in short to be willing to die for her.
Sure, government employees should follow the law, and frankly not be jerks about it. That I agree with, but I think my problem here is that enemies of Christianity are misrepresenting what it is.
The people misquoted the verse about obeying, in truth it's not just that the woman should obey the man, but that the man is to love the woman as Christ loved the church, in short to be willing to die for her.
That's nice, but the Bible is still filled with verses emphasizing the claim that women should be subordinate to men.
That I agree with, but I think my problem here is that enemies of Christianity are misrepresenting what it is.
Please elaborate. What is being misrepresented here?
The biggest issue is that many people on each side of this debate forget that the Bible was not written in a vacuum and is not meant to be literally applied in its entirety. It's filled with passages which talk about how the original audience should have behaved in their time, but the purpose of these passages was not to dictate how all Christians should live in all contexts. A great example is Romans 16:16 in which Paul says that the Roman Christians are to greet one another with a holy kiss. Obviously Paul does not expect that all Christians should kiss each other all the time throughout all of history in every culture. Kissing was a Roman greeting. Paul was simply implying that they should greet each other as friends.
Many Christians feel the same way about the household codes found within Paul's writings. It was part of the culture of that day being reflected in scripture. Many believe that the purpose of the house hold codes was not to set forth a precedent that all Christians are to always follow, but to take something that was part of the culture of the audience and use it in a Biblical context.
I was just making a comment on how things tend to be misrepresented. I actually feel like Christians have only ourselves to blame. We tend to do a fantastic job misrepresenting what we mean. I can do my part by offering up examples as to why scripture says some of the things odd things it says.
Also, I really enjoyed that article you linked to. I have never heard of same sex unions in church history before.
/u/septimine made the claim that the enemies of Christianity misrepresents what it is. I asked him to clarify what the article misrepresents. We seem to have entered a tangent in which the context argument has become the focus but I would still like to hear from someone how the case against "religious freedom" arguments are misrepresenting Christianity.
Oh, my apologies. It seems that I have gone on a tangent.
To redeem myself I'll try and bring this back on topic. I'll say that I do feel that religious freedom arguments aren't founded in the Bible. I haven't seen one yet that seems to be supported by scripture. My religious rights end when they start taking away the freedoms that others enjoy.
I think honestly these sorts of articles are disingenuous at best. The church has always had a one man one woman understanding of marriage with the man as the head. The people misquoted the verse about obeying, in truth it's not just that the woman should obey the man, but that the man is to love the woman as Christ loved the church, in short to be willing to die for her.
Sure, government employees should follow the law, and frankly not be jerks about it. That I agree with, but I think my problem here is that enemies of Christianity are misrepresenting what it is.
Nope. Try again.
That's nice, but the Bible is still filled with verses emphasizing the claim that women should be subordinate to men.
Please elaborate. What is being misrepresented here?
The biggest issue is that many people on each side of this debate forget that the Bible was not written in a vacuum and is not meant to be literally applied in its entirety. It's filled with passages which talk about how the original audience should have behaved in their time, but the purpose of these passages was not to dictate how all Christians should live in all contexts. A great example is Romans 16:16 in which Paul says that the Roman Christians are to greet one another with a holy kiss. Obviously Paul does not expect that all Christians should kiss each other all the time throughout all of history in every culture. Kissing was a Roman greeting. Paul was simply implying that they should greet each other as friends. Many Christians feel the same way about the household codes found within Paul's writings. It was part of the culture of that day being reflected in scripture. Many believe that the purpose of the house hold codes was not to set forth a precedent that all Christians are to always follow, but to take something that was part of the culture of the audience and use it in a Biblical context.
Cool. One question, though: which comment of mine are you attempting to address?
I was just making a comment on how things tend to be misrepresented. I actually feel like Christians have only ourselves to blame. We tend to do a fantastic job misrepresenting what we mean. I can do my part by offering up examples as to why scripture says some of the things odd things it says.
Also, I really enjoyed that article you linked to. I have never heard of same sex unions in church history before.
/u/septimine made the claim that the enemies of Christianity misrepresents what it is. I asked him to clarify what the article misrepresents. We seem to have entered a tangent in which the context argument has become the focus but I would still like to hear from someone how the case against "religious freedom" arguments are misrepresenting Christianity.
Oh, my apologies. It seems that I have gone on a tangent. To redeem myself I'll try and bring this back on topic. I'll say that I do feel that religious freedom arguments aren't founded in the Bible. I haven't seen one yet that seems to be supported by scripture. My religious rights end when they start taking away the freedoms that others enjoy.