Progressive Religion, Orthodox Religion
Here is the plain and dangerous truth facing the cosmopolitan world: In the opinion of many millions of Jews and Christians and Muslims, the Abrahamic God of the desert is a homophobe.
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The desert religions of Abraham — Judaism, Christianity, Islam — were shaped by an encounter with a God who revealed himself within an ecology of almost lunar desolation. In such a place, the call to belief was tribal, not individualistic. Sexuality was an expression of faith to increase the tribe. Allegiance to God and to one’s ancestors was fulfilled by giving birth.
.. What doesn’t happen, though, is that one gets to decide on the attributes of divinity based on what one wishes God were like. Otherwise it’s self-worship.
.. To oversimplify, progressives believe religion primarily (but not exclusively) concerns what man says about God, while conservatives believe religion primarily (but not exclusively) concerns what God says about man.
.. He obviously believes that the Christian prohibition against homosexuality is a relic of a primitive stage of religious development, and says nothing about the nature of God. Me, I would genuinely like to believe that Christians are free to decide what they like about homosexuality. It would make my gay friends think better of me, and it would make my professional life easier in many ways. But as a matter of intellectual integrity, I can’t rationalize away the prohibition within Christianity (nor can I rationalize away Biblical ethics binding heterosexual conduct).