[Peace-discuss] can Christianity be part of a pluralistic society?

[janine giordano]

It seems like some of us are tired of arguing 
with "fanatics," and I respect that. But, others are tired of 
being called "fanatics" when we have multifaceted ideas that 
we are willing to discuss within the language of logic about 
justice, plurality and humanity. We are tired of having to 
closet our spiritual beliefs/ worldly motivation when 
discussing our opinions on matters of progressive political 
strategy. Of course, we have always known that coalition 
building is hard work. To me, it's not about compromise but 
alignment on a couple key points for a greater cause. If the 
cause is better political enfranchisement for minorities, 
women, people with disabilities and disadvantaged economic 
status, US withdrawal from Iraq, and better opportunities for 
education, jobs, judiciary representation and power sharing 
for people from groups historically underrepresented, can we 
not have different religious identities? 

I believe that we need to have conversations on our 
differences, but we also need to have conversations on what 
we have in common. Someone just noted many frustrations non-
born again Progressives have with Christians who carry their 
spiritual beliefs into their political motivations. I think 
each point he enumerates is worth serious discussion. But, I 
do not agree that simply because many of us are frustrated 
with these fundamentalist beliefs, ALL born-again Christians 
ought not to be taken seriously politically. In my opinion, 
we need to engage in conversation with these fundamentalist 
beliefs. We might need to severely limit the rights of some 
of them in the court of law, and others might be human 
rights. Here are some of my responses, speaking ONLY for 
myself.  

The original question was "What is so threatening about 
Christianity?" Some further questions...

 Because it leads to calls to overthrow the US government in 
favor of 
>Biblical law.

So, are we saying that biblical law fundamentally opposes to 
that of our Constitution? Or, we desire our government to 
oppose that of the Bible? Or, is this idea that the Bible has 
no place in our worldly government simply a matter of the way 
we would like to think of our country's identity?

>  Because it leads to calls to stone homosexuals in the 
streets.

Just people some people have certain attitudes towards how 
holy homosexuality is does not mean they have the 
constitutional right to stone homosexuals in the streets. Can 
we divide the belief from the criminal behavior?

>  Because it leads to calls to allow women to die in 
delivery wards.

Can you explain this a bit more?

>  Because it leads to calls to withhold funding for academic 
institutions 
>based on religious tests.

I think the issue of funding for academic institutions is far 
greater than faith-based tests. We have huge issues of social 
justice in education that we hardly discuss these days-- 
segregation seems to be getting more and more rigid 
regionally and racially. Isn't this issue a tiny part of the 
huge inequalities we end up ignoring by worrying about this 
problem? (I do agree this is worth discussing too, though... 
I'm just concerned that we waste our time fighting the 
wrong "beast.")

>  Because it leads to eviscerating our crucial science 
curricula in favor of 
>fairy stories.

What are we really fighting over here? By now, most kids know 
the two sides of the evolution/creation debate. Most of us 
did when we were growing up, too. (right?) What's wrong with 
accepting that science is based on axiomatic truths at some 
point, if not at many points, of the puzzle of academic 
scholarship? Do we NEED agreement here?

>  Because it leads to withholding antiimplantation drugs in 
emergencies like 
>rape and forcible incest.

Who is to blame for rape and forcible incest? Can't we come 
to a whole lot more common ground than we recognize? Why do 
we blame Christians for trying to protect life---and realize 
we have some common enemies in this horrible problem of rape 
and incest?

>  Because it leads to real and fake Anthrax attacks and 
murder of health 
>workers.

What does this have to do with Christians again?

>  Because it leads to sectarian violence all over the world.

How?

>  And, last but not least, because it's false.  Jews and 
Muslims worship the 
>same God, despite current rampant religious propaganda to 
the contrary, most 
>of it produced by 'christians' (note small C).

OK, so that's your opinion. I respect it, though I don't 
share it. I acknowledge that my faith is personal. I think 
more of us need to discsus the boundaries between our faith 
and political beliefs how to build a society of plurality and 
justice. Must Christians closet their real life motivations 
for their engagement in politics, or can we engage with 
people of faith in making a more egalitarian, power-sharing 
oriented, pluralistic democracy?