Religion doesn't make people conservative. It does give them a sense of tradition, of being connected to history. Of being part of history. Being conservative is not a bad thing. 

The real distinction is are you a Nice Christian, or a Mean Christian? 

Does your understanding of the gospel bless others, or condemn others?

I think it depends on why one is a christian. Some people desperately want to be respectable - and they see respectability in a very conventional  respect for tradition and they see church membership as a part of that. And they confuse their notion of respectability with conservatism.     

Cnristianity does not make them "conservative". The membership of that sort of person makes some branches of Christianity "conservative". 

The teaching of Jesus has elements that are conservative in the true sense of the word - and some that are liberals in the commonly understood (if wrong) sense of that word.

graeme                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

I guess I could be considered a kind christian, or a mean christian, depending on the indevidual.

My goal is to be kind.

Bolt

Oh indeed.  I can't imagine atheists campaigning strongly for anything.  They are always so passive and don't try to make people think like them.  Oh wait.  What about Richard Dawkins?  And yah, I guess I forgot about the officially atheist former Soviet Union and Communist China.  But maybe I am just nitpicking.  Forget what I said.

The current aggressive ideology of atheism and the popular press would like everyone to believe that not only are all Christians conservative, even hpyer-conservative, but also that any aspect of conservatism is bad by definition.  Furthermore, if you have any social or political opinions at all that do not conform to what is considered to be liberal, then you are automatically a conservative.

Just that one little drop of blood ... lol

Liberals do not, however, consider Obama to be conservative and talk about his rather strong Christian faith as little as possible.  You can't really blame them.  After almost a decade of trashing all Christians, they must be somewhat embarrassed to find a unashamedly liberal Christian in the White House.

I consider myself to be a moderate centrist and a liberal, but I hold some opinions which are considered socially conservative and that is more than enough for most people to assume that I am thoroughly conservative and for some people to think I am a ranting Right Wing nutcase.

Ok, that was a bit of rant.  lol

Hi Kinst,

No, it doesn't.

Appearances can be decieving.  William Wilberforce was a Christian.  He also fought against the slave trade in England's Parliament for 17 years.  He eventually won.  Abolishing the slave trade would not have been considered a "conservative" thing to do. 

Martin Luther King's work for Civil Rights in the United States would not have been considered a "conservative" thing to do either and yet King was a Christian.

Same sex-marriage, where Christianity as a whole is all over the map, sees some Christians in favour and some opposed.  Certainly, both positions wouldn't be considered "conservative."

Resistance to change primarily.  People that like things to stay the way they are "conservative" and people who are eager for things to change are "liberal" (which works as gross characterization and Graeme will jump in and correct me shortly, unless he posts on the subject while I am framing this response.

It is more a human thing than anything else.

Christianity, like many things has warts.  It is made up of people and people, like it or not, are supremely fallible.  Humanity invents new ways to screw things up like no other animal.  Humanity also, from time to time, invents things that can be incredibly beneficial.  Humanity is pretty complex that way.  Like the weather, we are always changing and just because it is raining right where you are it would be a first class mistake to think it must be raining just as hard everywhere else.

That is quite the generalization.  Especially if it only applies to Conservatives.  Liberals have their own brand of tyranny.  Canada's residential schools are a legacy of the then "liberal" belief that with education the savages would be civilized.  If only we had been a bit more "conservative" then we might not be having to repent our folly now.

I don't think you are so much crazy as you are looking at things through a very narrow window.  It is your choice if you want to continue to do that.  Refusing to change would be a tendency to "conservatism."

Grace and peace to you.

John

I always thought conservatism makes people conservative.

I definately agree. Christians sin, just like everyone else, but they have the bible to back them up. Sorry to call you out, Jubilee, but you gave us a great example by using the bible to demean women. People who don't have "the truth" to go to all the time seem to be more willing to adapt to differant people, and lend a hand instead of judging them.

There is a correlation:

http://secularright.org/wordpress/?p=1840

I really wish we had some word other than conservatism for what we are talking about. Conservative does have a real meaning - and it's an eminently Christian principle in its real meaning. The Roman Catholic church is essentially conservative in its view of society while Protestants are essentially Liberal.

But it you want to see a church taking on what most of us would call "liberal" causes, I would suggest you take a look at Catholic groups in Latin America.

We use the words conservative and liberal so sloppily that they cease to have any meaning at all. And i wonder whether all of us in this thread even mean the same thing in our misuse of 'conservative".

graeme

amen, Graeme. And the great liberal/conservative arguement is so Twentieth Century. If Christianity is going to have anything meaningful to say to society, we will have to end this arguement, and move on to work together on the things we can agree on.

What would happen if we stopped delegitimizing each other, and instead legitimized, affirmed and encouraged each other?

revjames, that would be a very good thing, but the current state of the UCC is that if one is even slightly off political centre on certain issues, one pretty much has to keep one's mouth shut.  It is neither a healthy nor a Christian environment. Silencing those who disagree should not be the goal.  We should recognize our differences, no matter how profound, and discuss them as much as we need to, but within the bonds of civility and mutual respect, as brothers and sisters in Christ.

I agree. I am currently serving a congregation which was for twenty years one of the  most conservative congregations in the UCC. The fact I am serving as their minister shows the changes I posted about above are possible. For the past thirty years there has been a tryanny of political correct liberalism in the UCC. Our membership is much more diverse than just politically correct liberals. This is why we need to engage this better way to talk about our faith, so we can all share our faith together.

RevJames

And here I thought we had the most conservative UCC in Ottawa.

IT

Russ

I can accept people from across the poliltical spectrum.  My origins are in the Left but I left the Left (gee, I love to say that) because I found it to be far too intolerant of difference and oddly self-punitive and guilt-ridden.  This is, of course, a generalization but such ideas are behind many of the positions that both the Left and the UCC take on a wide range of political and social issues. I think that the leadership of the UCC is completely out of step with the membership.  Not having any hard stats on UCC demographics and opinions, I can't be sure of that.  It is just a gut feeling which means my sample is pretty small, lol.

My vision for the UCC is that it would be a Christian community where people who hold different views could still come together in common worship of God and seek the guidance of God through even the thorniest of issues.  I know that many of you think that this is already the case but my personal experience is that I no longer talk about certain issues because I know that I will either be dismissed as a rightwing nut,. shouted down, or shamed into silence, or all three.  This is NOT healthy.  This is NOT Christian.

You guys are sensitive as always .

"Belief is an obsolote aristotlean category."

-- Dr Jack Sarfatti

And two by my personal Jesus, Robert Anton Wilson:

"My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended."

"It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea. In an evolving universe, who stands still moves backwards."

And to those who still need WC replies and such: I am dealing with a flare-up of gout (but I'm not RICH) right now (you should hear the conversations/rants I am having with the Cosmic Muffin aboot art, meaning and pain). I will get back in the harness, so to speak, when my moments of painlessness get much longer.

Softcore hardcore,
Inannawhimsey

Hi Inanna:

Get better soon, will ya! Try faith healing, it works wonders! Easter is an excellent time for healing by death and rebirth: death of the old jaundiced self, and re-birth of a new and divine self.

Belief is relative. You don't have to believe in anything in order to have absolute faith.

Absolute faith is spirituality beyond belief (both literally and figuratively).

To launch off with absolute faith, to jump through the ceaseless rings, and  never be quiet again.

-Walt Whitman

Have a happy and healthy Easter!

Arminius

Over the last several decades a most remarkable thing has happened in the Christian religious life of the both Canada and theUSA. One group has been singled out for vilification and contempt. Whether this was a deliberate campaign or not, it has been both widely and wildly successful. It has been so successful that a great many people who should know better do not even question its conclusions. Even nonchristian institutions like the media have uncritically accepted this movement. Sadly, it has been dead wrong since the beginning. It has been so wrong that it is evil and yet it remains largely unchallenged. It is the language of fascism and we all should know how that worked out. I am a member of that vilified group and no, I am not a Jew, I am a liberal Christian. It both distresses and angers me that my fellow Christians have allowed this to happen. I am not ashamed of what I am even in the least. I say that because for me it is the only way I can be true to my Christian faith and my moral convictions. I will not tolerate being abused by fellow Christians who blindly accept incendiary rhetoric and even outright lies. This evil campaign is a blot on Christianity and we must all find a way to end it or it will end us.

This is something that goes back to the earliest experiences of childhood, the astonishing hatreds we feel coming from people who hate us simply because their is some respect in which we are not what they are. I guess it's an instinctive defence for weak people - to feel that if you differ from them it must be something desperately wrong with you. As we age, we extends for trivialities to the worst forms of racism.

The best thing to do is to go on being what you are. The worst is to try to fight the intellectually stunted on their own ground.

Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk.

graeme

I fully agree with JRT!

For far too long, we liberal Christians have permitted Christianity to be defined by the poisonous fundamentalist rhetoric of the extreme Right. So much so that the bigoted, right wing, absolutist and fundamentalist Christian has become THE Christian stereotype.

Wondercafe and Emerging Spirit are attempting to change this. I hope it is not too little, too late.

well, no objection to that. But there is a fine line here. We will not prevail against such people by acting as unChristian as they do.  I should think  that would rather defeat our purpose.

graeme

I couldn't disagree more.  The media and aggresively anti-Christian secularists have portrayed all Christians as right-wing nutcases, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

I must agree with JRT, Arminius and Graeme.  It is dangerous and evil. 

Flit, I think perhaps we are being attacked from both sides.  Many secularists paint us all with the same brush while at the same time the far right, the fundamentalist literalists think were are the anti-christ.

And I had to play Judas and Pilate in church over the past few days.  Maybe I am the a/c.  LOL

Shalom

Mate

lord, flitcraft, what drivel  you talk. vague, broad brush strokes of pure prejudice.

I haven't quite figure it out yet.

Either you deliberately look for incoherent and pointless argument or...

well...I think over your analysis of your move from NDP to Liberals..and then I think you may be seriously delusionary so that anybody who disagrees with you is intolerant, and those who agree with you are tolerant.

graeme

and so to bed.

graeme

Hmm, lets think.  Principles of Christ - feed the hungry, heal the sick, care for the children, love one another, find peace....

Modern day political conservatives - Reganomics, two tier health care, slash education grants, gated communites, the War on Everything....

Umm, no I don't think Christianity leads to Conservatism at least not how it was envisioned by the man who gave up his name.

LB

The world forgets the vital word Christ taught;
The only word the world has need to know:
The answer to creation’s problem—Love.
  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919), The Radiant Christ

Without reading all the way through the tread, my gut reaction is:  Hell No!

Was Jesus conservative?  From what I read about his life and his teachings he was anything but conservative.  He stood up for what he considered right.  He challenged the religious leaders and the government of his day.  He identified with the powerless peasants.  He worked for change.

Christians follow the example of Jesus.  We protest the establishment - especially when it appears to be running roughshod over the least powerful among us.   We work to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth and that requires change, not conservative support.

So true. I have become sort of used to the anti-christ label but my all time favourite is "spawn of Satan".

I think I love you, LB.

RevMatt, I only share the redhead gene

Red-hot-blooded as well, I'm sure

Why I do declare Mr. Arminius, if I was not so embroiled with the Tax Man, your charm would make me post Tennesse Williams' poetry...

LB - channelling Maggie the Cat

You know what I feel like? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Tennesse Williams

JRT

"Spawn of Satan"!  That is hilarious.  LOL.

Out here we speak of the salmon spawning. LOL

Shalom

Mate

Arm,

I'd try faith healing, but the closest Timmy's is outside my hobbling range.

Though I picked up a new drug yesterday from a Walk-In clinic that reminded me of a 3rd world country. Now I can hobble around the rooms without much difficulty.

And if belief is relative, you should meet some of my relatives *waggles eyebrows*

Sometimes I think that certain Christian Authorities are the spawn of Satan. Good thing we have some G_d cleanser among us...apply, repeat, rinse.

If every act is an initation, then what Masonic rank would Hamlet have,

Inannawhimsey

Only the third degree. In the Masonic third degree you experience death. You have to go to the Shriners to get to resurrection. (James gives secret masonic wave and heads off to bed.)

Ah, so that explains it. I was knocking about one day in a back room of the Masonic Temple, and I found some curious items. One was a coffin which, apparently,  was used for some ceremony.

I don't know what was used for resurrection - though that might explain the case of viagra.

graeme

Hi graeme and Inanna:

The Knights Templar—whose secret rituals the Masonic Order took over—had a death-and-resurrection initiation ritual.

Via a powerful meditation exercise (perhaps the Yogic Breakthrough Excercise) the novice meditated himself into a state of "death" (suspended animation), was put into a sarcophagus, and, after a period of suspended animation, raised from the "dead" and thus initiated into the inner circle of the order.

I can give you the motions of the Breakthrough Exercise, but it is a very powerful excercise, and not without its dangers (one can really die!). One actually has to be willing to risk death in order to be spiritually reborn. Any takers? Inanna? RevJames? graeme? Anyone?

Just the thing for Easter, eh?

no thanks. I plan to die of an OD of chocolate bunnies.

graeme

Hi graeme:

I wouldn't dare to undertake the Breakthrough Exercise any more, either, except, perhaps, in a dire emergency. But when I was in my early forties, I was so eager for some form of enlightenment that I was willing to risk death in order to  be spiritually reborn.

REBORN

Into a world of circles and spheres

I felt compelled

To return to the world of lines

To bring to those

Suffering from hard linearity

The blessings

Of soft circularity.

Alas

Not knowing where to draw the line

I offended the expectations

Of the straight world.

The hardliners pursued me

Sued me and sentenced me

To a lifetime of hard line.

Not knowning where to draw the line

Was my crime;

Toeing the rigid line

Became my fine.

But I

Empowered by

The power of roundness

Softened the rigid lines.

How submissively they bent

Into perfect circles

When I connected beginning with end!

Now I really must get ready for church; big Easter service with communion today.

Wishing everyone a Happy and Transformative Easter,

Arminius

Somehow the image of my fellow Masons doing yogic breathing to get into the state of death is too funny to ponder. In our lodge that state of death was usually achieved by a swift blow to the back of the head. Seriously.

According to polls there are just as many liberal and moderate Christians as there are conservative (about an even three way split). The conservatives make more noise and loudly claim to represent Christianity which is a bald faced lie but when lies are repeated often enough many people believe them. Don't worry, there are a lot of us liberal Christians around and hopefully we'll start making ourselves heard better.

On the premise of the thread.... uummm, let's see....

An old book as a guide,

Rituals played out for hundreds of years,

Morality choices based on unchanging principles,

Yes... I'd say Christians have a pretty solid lock on 'conserv'ative thought.

LL&P

SPock

*lissens to the rim shots*

Arm,

its tempting, Oh Great Adept, to take your offer of Initiation...(or Assisted Spiritual Suicide)...

But do we really want to take the chance that I'd be reborn as "Festschrift, the aggro biker guy"?

Ohhmmm...will no one help the Widow's So--OWWWW,

Inannawhimsey

On the premise of the thread.... uummm, let's see....

An old book as a guide,

Rituals played out for hundreds of years,

Morality choices based on unchanging principles,

Yes... I'd say Christians have a pretty solid lock on 'conserv'ative thought.

Spock:  I don't agree with your premises.  We Christians serve a living God.  We follow the example of a radical young man who challanged the authority of his day - just as we often challange the authority of our day.  We make morality choices based on love and respect for one another and the world we live in.  Yes, we read an old book - we also read new, challanging, exciting books on religion, science, politics, philosophy, economics, world affairs, and even fiction.  The UCC is sometimes referred to as the NDP at prayer - although you will find members of the UCC supporting all parties (a lot of the ones I know are quite Green - but I prefer to put my support in the green policies of the left leaning parties). 

Ah, spock, as I suspected. You actually don't know what the word conservative means. that's the trouble with these debate over liberal and conservative. People make up meanings for the words. Liberal becomes whatever people who call themselves conservative don't like.And vice versa.

Even if were true, for example, that conservative meant following tradtional ways, there is nothing traditional about what people call economic conservatism. It largely dates from what was called liberalism in the nineteenth century.

Nor do Christians simply follow a traditional morality. If you read the Bible, you will learn that the ancients were instructed to practice slavery, polygamy, and the stoning of disobedient children, few of which are practiced in your average United church.

Sloppy, sloppy use of language leads to sloppy logic.

graeme

Looks like those modern day Masons have lost the Templar touch, eh?

The modern day Masons are as capable of effecting a secret banking system as the American banks are able to argue that sub prime mortgages was good for business. The modern Masons couldn't organize a spiritual revival unless someone dropped a hot poker down their pants. The Templars are 800 years lost in the past, both for us and for the Masons. So when the Vatican recently decried the "Angels & Demons" movie as a masonic plot, I thought they really don't know who their enemies are.

G',

1) Look up the definition of "scare quote".

2) Look at how I wrote,  'conserv'ative.

3) Think before posting.

LL&P

Spock

Does your "living God" change?

...or is he conserved for all time?

Either way you answer the question, you are presuming to know something you cannot.

LL&P

Spock

I saw what you wrote. Think before you write. The purpose of writing is to communicate. And I still don't know what you mean by conservative. To hint at conserving the values of the past is meaningless since those values have been continually changing - and have only rarely been what we think they were at any time. Victorian England, for example, was a sinkhole of perversion and crime.

graeme