Another Christian Being Offered On The PC Alter?

[Zymologist]

So if someone is doing something harmful to themselves the loving response is to affirm them in their self-harm?

[fm93]

So if someone is doing something harmful to themselves the loving response is to affirm them in their self-harm?

There's nothing wrong in principle with this question. But problems arise when one actually gets to know a person, sees no evidence of self-harm and does see evidence of positive traits, but then still firmly insists that the person is doing something harmful because of one's interpretation of a few passages. Is it loving if one distrusts one's senses and views someone more as a literary description than as a flesh-and-blood human being?

[Adrift]

When "Go forth and sin no more" doesn't work, then yes. Shunning them is the biblical thing to do.




So they think that you are accepting their harmful behavior. Basically, you lie to them. Is your "compassionate and loving response" to a child playing in the street in oncoming traffic also "extra-affirming"?



No, you are a whole lot more enabling. You have ZERO interest in actually loving them, because REAL love does what is BEST for them, not what they desire to do. Real love and caring runs into the street and forces them out of it whether they like it or not. And that's what you progressive touchy feely types just don't get. You have no clue what real love looks like.

Agreed.

It looks like Jesus dying on the cross unconditionally. You have your scripture all mixed up. 1 Corinthians 5:12. And the law says it is prejudice and anyone else can see this. Romans 14

Kinda agreed.

[jordanriver]

It looks like Jesus dying on the cross unconditionally.

almost ...but
...not exactly.
It's still 'love Me or burn'

[Starlight]

When "Go forth and sin no more" doesn't work, then yes. Shunning them is the biblical thing to do.

On biblical grounds that's rather debatable. The bible has lots of passages encouraging Christians not to judge people, and to be loving and kind to them. It also has lots of passages saying judge people, and reject them. I'll let you and The1islooking cite and counter-cite the various conflicting passages on the issue.

So they think that you are accepting their harmful behavior. Basically, you lie to them.

Showing love, compassion and kindness to someone, and treating them as a human being, doesn't mean you're endorsing everything they've ever done in their entire lives. Nobody thinks it is.

I doubt many gay people would wrongly think that conservative Christians approved of homosexuality just because someone treated them nicely for five minutes.

Is your "compassionate and loving response" to a child playing in the street in oncoming traffic also "extra-affirming"?

No, you are a whole lot more enabling. You have ZERO interest in actually loving them, because REAL love does what is BEST for them, not what they desire to do.

And what's BEST for them is hating on them at every possible opportunity to best ensure their life has maximal shame and suffering? Because if we make them suffer enough then they might just kill themselves, and therefore not sin any further?

[Bill the Cat]

There's nothing wrong in principle with this question. But problems arise when one actually gets to know a person, sees no evidence of self-harm and does see evidence of positive traits, but then still firmly insists that the person is doing something harmful because of one's interpretation of a few passages. Is it loving if one distrusts one's senses and views someone more as a literary description than as a flesh-and-blood human being?

Yes. It is loving to see with "spirit-eyes" instead of fleshly ones.

[Bill the Cat]

On biblical grounds that's rather debatable. The bible has lots of passages encouraging Christians not to judge people, and to be loving and kind to them. It also has lots of passages saying judge people, and reject them. I'll let you and The1islooking cite and counter-cite the various conflicting passages on the issue.

When proper exegesis is utilized, we see harmony in not judging those who you first encounter, then judging them should they refuse to hear us. The1 is simply stopping at step1.

Showing love, compassion and kindness to someone, and treating them as a human being, doesn't mean you're endorsing everything they've ever done in their entire lives. Nobody thinks it is.

Exactly! And making them see that what they are doing is harmful to them spiritually is showing love. And if they refuse to repent, and then expect you to not only ignore what you believe is right, but to go so far as expect you to approve as if it is not sinful, then you are to leave them to their sin and have no part of them.

I doubt many gay people would wrongly think that conservative Christians approved of homosexuality just because someone treated them nicely for five minutes.

Depends on what you consider "treating them nice". If you mean saying hi to them on the bus, or maybe working on a project with them at work, then yes, that is treating them nice. But when you cross over into expecting a Christian to acquiesce and approve of their sin socially and politically, you have gone too far.

Dodge ball much? My example is an example of behaving in a loving manner that does not "affirm" a risky behavior.

And what's BEST for them is hating on them at every possible opportunity to best ensure their life has maximal shame and suffering?

No one outside of Westboro thinks that...

Because if we make them suffer enough then they might just kill themselves, and therefore not sin any further?

Everything in life is a choice. Behaviors are chosen. We speak truth in love, not hate. How they take it is entirely up to them. We can not sacrifice the truth of their sinful behavior over fear of how they will respond. Again, you don't even have a frame of reference to understand that.

[Starlight]

So if someone is doing something harmful to themselves the loving response is to affirm them in their self-harm?

Let's take it for granted that I was convinced that someone is doing a certain self-harmful thing.

I would certainly want to affirm them, as a person. That means treat them with love, kindness, respect, compassion. It means going to their birthday. It means doing business with them. It means not using every single interaction I ever have with them as an opportunity to discriminate against them and express prejudice against them.

In considering what I could do about their self-harm, I would take a practical approach. What's their motivation for the self-harm? What are their options? What are the likely outcomes? What works, what doesn't? What is the effect on them going to be of my expressing any particular stance on the issue? The whole method of "I'm going to shame them, stigmatize them, discriminate against them, until they do exactly what I want on the issue" would be a method of last resort, and I'd have to think very hard before doing as to whether that negative progress might not itself inflict more harm on them than their self-harm itself is doing, and whether the probability of the process actually having the desired outcome is high enough to warrant using it.

So the issues I have with the conservative-Christians' approach to homosexuality are:
1. Please actually love and affirm the person. Your interactions with them don't need to focus 100% on the fact that they are gay. Just try actually being nice to them because they are a person.

2. Any serious attempt to use shame and discrimination as a social weapon to promote change should always be a last resort, not a first resort.

3. Such a method involves serious negativity and has very harmful effects on the person being subjected to it. It is always important to consider whether the harms done by such methods might actually be exceeding the harms done by the problem they try to fix. This is pretty clearly the case with homosexuality. Medical associations around the world have extensively documented a massively higher rate of suicide for gay people caused by societal discrimination and prejudice. Whereas they have been unable to identify any significant harms associated with homosexuality itself.

4. Such a method generally seems to achieve very little. The proportion of gay people who refrain from relationships, or who put themselves through ex-gay therapy, as a result of this discrimination and stigma, is a pretty small proportion of total gay people. Most, by and large, just walk away from Christianity due to the discrimination they experience at the hands of Christians. If you're going to commit to this sort of method, it's worth thinking about the pros and cons. For starters: Is losing ten gay people from Christianity worth it for every one gay Christian un-gayed? Is this method actually likely to work on someone who is not a Christian, or are they just going to be instilled with a strong dislike of Christians because they regularly experience Christians being nasty to them? Is that what you want to accomplish?

So to answer the original question directly: The loving response is to be loving to them, not to jump straight to being nasty to them. And to actually think about their well-being and how your actions might affect them.

[Adrift]

When proper exegesis is utilized, we see harmony in not judging those who you first encounter, then judging them should they refuse to hear us. The1 is simply stopping at step1.




Exactly! And making them see that what they are doing is harmful to them spiritually is showing love. And if they refuse to repent, and then expect you to not only ignore what you believe is right, but to go so far as expect you to approve as if it is not sinful, then you are to leave them to their sin and have no part of them.



Depends on what you consider "treating them nice". If you mean saying hi to them on the bus, or maybe working on a project with them at work, then yes, that is treating them nice. But when you cross over into expecting a Christian to acquiesce and approve of their sin socially and politically, you have gone too far.



Dodge ball much? My example is an example of behaving in a loving manner that does not "affirm" a risky behavior.



No one outside of Westboro thinks that...



Everything in life is a choice. Behaviors are chosen. We speak truth in love, not hate. How they take it is entirely up to them. We can not sacrifice the truth of their sinful behavior over fear of how they will respond. Again, you don't even have a frame of reference to understand that.

I so agree with so much you have to say here. But I can't help but think that there is a point where, if we agree that 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 is in play, God judges those outside of Christ. We judge those who claim to be in Christ. That isn't to say that we can't recognize sin outside of the body. And in the same book we are taught to avoid evil communications. What say you?

[Starlight]

Everything in life is a choice. Behaviors are chosen. We speak truth in love, not hate. How they take it is entirely up to them.

Or you could actually think about their well-being and consider how your actions might affect them. I call it "being loving": It's where you actually stop and consider the well-being of other people.

We can not sacrifice the truth of their sinful behavior over fear of how they will respond. Again, you don't even have a frame of reference to understand that.

In my frame of reference I call it "blind rules following" and "lacking empathy" and "not thinking about others". I consider it immoral.

[Bill the Cat]

Or you could actually think about their well-being and consider how your actions might affect them. I call it "being loving": It's where you actually stop and consider the well-being of other people.

And I call it enabling.

In my frame of reference I call it "blind rules following" and "lacking empathy" and "not thinking about others". I consider it immoral.

And I consider your tacit enabling immoral. At least I can point to an objective standard for my reasons.

[Starlight]

And I call it enabling.

And I consider your tacit enabling immoral. At least I can point to an objective standard for my reasons.

I would hope that we can agree that the process itself of actually thinking about others and thinking about how your actions might impact on them, is not itself 'enabling'. Having thought through the pros and cons of possible courses of action and thought about how those actions might impact on others, it is quite possible you might come to the view that it's important not to act in a way that's 'enabling'. But that's not a reason to avoid the thought process in the first place.

My concern is that a lot of conservative don't seem to engage in that thought process. There's a lack of serious actual thought given to the outcomes of actions that will affect others, no actual attempt to put yourself in their shoes and think about how they are likely to respond to possible things you might say or do. I see this lack of thought about others consistently in conservative responses on moral issues, and I find it quite concerning.

[fm93]

Yes. It is loving to see with "spirit-eyes" instead of fleshly ones.

That...really isn't what I was referring to at all. Observe seer's behavior in the "Fairness?" thread. (Or just about any thread of his in Apologetics 301, really.) He's dead-set on insisting that atheists can't make judgments on certain things because he believes their morality is totally subjective. When atheists specifically tell him that they do believe in objective morality, he refuses to accept this and continues arguing as if they're holding to a subjective framework. He apparently is incapable of interacting with people as people, and instead more as a caricature that he has in his mind.

[Adrift]

That...really isn't what I was referring to at all. Observe seer's behavior in the "Fairness?" thread. (Or just about any thread of his in Apologetics 301, really.) He's dead-set on insisting that atheists can't make judgments on certain things because he believes their morality is totally subjective. When atheists specifically tell him that they do believe in objective morality, he refuses to accept this and continues arguing as if they're holding to a subjective framework. He apparently is incapable of interacting with people as people, and instead more as a caricature that he has in his mind.

This seems like a non-sequitur. What does seer's opinion about what atheists believe have to do with anything? And I'm certain that seer understands that an atheist honestly believes their own view is objective, even if he considers it ultimately subjective.

[MaxVel]

That...really isn't what I was referring to at all. Observe seer's behavior in the "Fairness?" thread. <snip> He apparently is incapable of interacting with people as people, and instead more as a caricature that he has in his mind.

Are you saying that he's become the Christian version of Tassman or Shunyadragon?

That's harsh, man, just harsh.