Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

“For the Bible Tells Me So” – a preview

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For those out there who managed to escape christian indoctrination as a child, the movie title is a line from the very popular christian hymn “Jesus Loves Me“.  I think we sang it every week in sunday school.  I loved it.  It was one of the few purely joyous lessons we learned; no cautionary tale, no kowtowing to god, just happiness about the love jesus is said to have had for kids.  Well, the first verse is sweetness and light, anyway.  It get’s a bit bloody after that, as hymns tend to do*.  But we never sang those other verses.  Here is the 1st verse and chorus

Jesus loves me! This I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong;

They are weak, but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

The Bible tells me so.

Too bad we never got to sing it in the creepy way the little girl does in the film credits.  That would have been fun.

*Here’s a gory bit of a particular fave of my very religious granny.

On Him [faith] safely leans,

In times of deep distress,

Flies to the fountain of His blood,

And trusts His rightousness.

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  1. …as a child that I discovered how hypocritical it was.

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    Two incidents.

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    One.  In 1960, I was walking with my AmBap paster from the sunday school building to the chapel when he made a comment that absolutely horrified me.  It was an anti-catholic comment regarding JFK’s candidacy for president.  I was 10 years old at the time, and I didn’t like the comment one bit–some of my close friends in our neighborhood were Catholic.

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    Two.  In 1965 or so, I was currious about evangelical Baptist churches, and I induced my parents to take us to one of them just north of Cincinnati (Landmark Baptist Temple).  It became obvious that they trucked in a load of itinerant ministers, who had different acting styles to preach to the rubes. 

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    But the icing on the cake was the following.  They wanted to buy a bus to truck in people from northern Kentucky.  With that explanation, they passed around the offering plates.  While we were enjoying another lockhead preacher, they counted the money, announced that not enough money had been collected and passed the offering plates around again.  That was the first time I had ever seen that happen.

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    That, and the fact that they had a “christian” gift shop made it clear to me that they were nothing more than a business.  And I never went to church again.

      • and have many memories hanging out in the rectory, watching CYO basketball games, ski trips…when the sex scandal broke out, I remember how upset I was that people were going to look at our priest differetly over it, because he was one of the guys I admired most growing up.

          • …

            “I had a happy and spiritual childhood in my church,grew up to be a lay minister, and have received more blessings than I can count from the friendship and support of my church family.”

            It became insulting at:  ”  I guess we just attract what we give off.”… implying that the problem is with Raj.

          • it is just sad that in a diary about pseudo christians attacking gays, you chose to blindly defend all that call themselves christian.  have you once considered acknowledging that not every person who says they are christian are christians?

      • …but I’ve noticed through many years of observations that women seem to need more of things like you describe than men.  That’s one reason why you would find more women than men at Catholic bingo events.

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        Blessed are the women, for they are more willing give us their meager money.

    • that is a problem of course with independent films.  i think this movie has the potential to really hit home with some knee-jerk religious semi-conservatives.  you know, the sort of people who just plain have never taken the time to think this through.  (we all qualify as that, btw.  if not on this issue, than on others.)  it would be a pit if the locations this is screened at amount to “preaching to the choir”.  see my comment below about where you think it could have the most beneficial impact if seen there.

  3. I was looking over the list of towns and dates where this movie is scheduled to show.  On first glance, it looks to me like the states most in need of seeing this film are not on the list.  My gut says that NJ, NY, OR, WA, IA and NH could benefit immediately and in a measurable way from this movie becoming part of the ongoing political football game of denial of civil rights to gay people.  Anyone have other thoughts?

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    DISCLAIMER:  I don’t need one.  I’m not at all associated with this film.  However, if I think it’s powerful enough, I might work to get it shown to a wider audience.

      • It sounds as if the film is made by someone of faith, whose faith in the scriptures leads him/her to conclusions that are not typical of the evangelical movement, and whose film explores why that is so.

         This isn't the usual atheism-only in the public square “attack” on people of faith, or the usual “Wholly Babble” bile typically spewed by the left.

        Rather, it seems like an attempt to appeal to politically moderate religious people, who, despite everything, are most of us religious people. 

         Are you suggesting that the Republican base is motivated by absolutely nothing other than sheer bigotry?

         

        • …by the review talking about escaping 'christian indoctrination' (small 'c').  Imagine if I were to make a 'typo' like that about being gay, or some other favored cause.  Christian bashing is the last entirely protected form of hate speech.

          As it happens, I am not evangelical myself but I respect their fervor and devotion.

          I was always blissfully happy in Sunday School, in church, and in my faith.  But there's a line somewhere about all happy families being alike.

          • … a bad idea with the “christian” descriptor all you want.  If its bad I will bash it.  If the bad idea is so intertwined with the very meaning of “christian” then yeah,… you can call it christian bashing too if you want.  Otherwise these “christians” would do well to separate their ideology from these bad ideas lest their “christianity” get bruised from the bashing.  Taboos against critisizing religion not withstanding.

            From what I can tell this film is much more about the separating christianity from bigotry than criticizing the religion outright.

            If even the attempt to separate christianity from bigotry is tantamount to “christian bashing” then there really is something wrong, isn't there.

          • the diary title, which ends in “a preview”.  I gave no review of the film.  I merely announced it, and said I thought it might be interesting.  If you take a deep breath and re-read what i wrote about in the section with little ‘c’ christian, you will understand that i enjoyed some aspects of sunday school and am not shy of saying so, although i am an atheist/agnistic.

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            haven’t you noticed that i rarely bother to capitalize anything except for the names of people i am responding to?  please, do feel free to use lower case for “gay” or whatever you like in my presence. 

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            btw, we are STILL waiting to read your tribute to jerry falwell.  you promised it on the day his death was announced.  when can we expect to see that?

          • that the phrase you mention was the poster's, who does not display a nuanced view of religion.  Looks loike the film might.

          • People CAN indoctrinate others regarding religion, ideology, political affiliations.

            However, if you had made the mistake of saying that one could indoctrinate another into being “gay” then I would have had to say that yours was a typically ignorant statement all too often promoted by those who by their own choice or that of “indoctrination” follow the mindset of your particular political affiliation.

        • i doubt she would have posted such a snark if she didn’t see this movie as a potentially potent threat to the kind of fake christian moralizing that her myth romney has fashioned himself to appeal to.

      • YOU aren’t making a judgment on a movie before seeing it, are you?  seems I recall you accusing others for perpetrating such a crime in threads about Keller’s book.  tisk tisk!

      • Why? Cause John Gibson on Fox News says that there is some war on Xmas?

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        Is there anyone that isn’t under attack according to conservatives?

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        Who is attacking the voters with faith? Are they being attacked the same way Matthew Shepherd was attacked?

  4. The oversimplification and polarization that’s taken place because of the fundamentalists’ homophobic crusade has allowed the story of tolerant, mainstream moderate-to-liberal Christians fall through the cracks.  Each of the mainstream Protestant denominations has had to deal with the rise of this homophobia within its ranks, and there is ample evidence that its origin is essentially political, and from outside these denominations.

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    It sounds like the film addresses the misinterpretation of the Bible to bolster ancient secular hatreds, through practices such as “proof-texting” (narrowly selecting passages and presenting them out of context to make a quasi-theological argument). 

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    As both a United Methodist and a liberal, it’s been sad to see the term Christian equated with politically-conservative fundamentalism in the public discourse.  In the sound-bite world, it’s gays vs. Christians.  That’s unfair to the millions of Christians whose politics is informed by their faith — using the messages of tolerance, unconditional love, and compassion drawn from the example of Christ’s life, not arcane passages from the Old Testament — while the in-your-face, thinly-veiled bigotry of the Bible-thumpers gets all the attention and gives the rest of us a bad name.  I hope the film will help the understanding that they don’t speak for all of us.

    • the churches advertise a more explicit call to gays and lesbians than the coffee shops.

       many have on their signboards self-descriptions of being 'open', 'welcoming', or 'affirming' congregations. (and folks, if you didn't know; that doesn't just mean that they're hospitableand nice) or put little rainbow stickers under the service schedule. what other collection of organizations can you name that does that?

      the implication that christianity (as defined by the teachings of the gospels, not what any yahoo chooses to call themselves) is mainifestly hostile towards homosexuality is flat out ignorance. and it's insulting and unproductive to paint every christian as a latent bigot.

        

       

      • it is indeed unproductive to paint every christian as a latent bigot.  the problem lies in the fact that in many (most?) areas the real christians are silent about their love for their LGBT bretheren.  in the eyes of some, this amounts to tacit approval of the outright bigotry coming from other congregations, and makes it difficult to discern the true christians from the posers.  it is my belief that this is what leads to the lumping together of all christins into one unsavory category.  if only the situation you describe in your neighborhood were commonplace!  bravo to those churches you describe!  i hope they continue to reach out to both their LGBT neighbors, and to the christians who have lost sight of Christ.

        • How do you describe the “love the sinner, hate the sin” Christians?  One of the most hurtful types of people that I have come across in my and my husband's advocacy are those who would dare say that to us.  Moreso than any other group, LGBT are somehow the receptacles for that sort of unwelcomed rhetorical nonsense.

          I mean think about it…who told them they had permission to say this to us?   

           

          • people who use that line of thinking run the gamut.  the ones who are not latent haters are ignorant hater enablers.  the outright haters wear this phrase as their velvet glove.  the others are hater enablers in that by using this line in a sincerely humble way, they nevertheless effectively give support to those who use it offensively.  they don’t take the time to understand the context in which they are using the line.  context is everything.

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            what i find disgusting about the phrase, even when used by genuine loving christians, is that it implies that that individual has the power or authority to determine what is sin and who is a sinner.  in other words, they appoint themselves judge and jury.  i thought that was god’s gig.  to me it is similar to the mormon habit of converting other people’s ancestors, unasked, long after their death, to mormonism.  what presumption!

            • “it implies that that individual has the power or authority to determine what is sin and who is a sinner”This is what happens when you're willing to be spoon-fed dogma in your religious life.  If one has absolute faith in their particular brand of creator, and has near absolute faith in the dogmas whose indoctrination are associated with that creator, then it follows that one would have absolute faith in pronouncing those dogmas to the world.If anti-homosexualism is a tenant of your religious beliefs then it follows that one can consider oneself near infallible in pronouncements of anti-homosexualism. This is congruent with the pheonmenon of one becoming more tolerant the more one is exposed to other viewpoints.  This is one of the reasons I cringe when I hear certain christians complain about exposing their kids to “the world”.  For more on this see Dr. Altemeyer's “The Authoritarians”.  (Free for download).

                • …

                  When asked about why treat homosexuals this way or that many invoke their religion by bringing the bible into it.

                  That means they are coming to this conclusion based on religious tenants.  At least thats what they say.  If it is otherwise then it is the duty of other christians to set the record straight, lest they let these people define the bigotry into the religion.

                  When the conversation comes up, I don't bring up the bible… they do.

              • Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment that you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
                —Matthew 7:1-5

        • …individual congregations are deciding to openly welcome the LGBT community as an overt act, as described in the comment above, because otherwise it does look like tacit approval.  The church where I am a member just went through a year-long process of deciding to go there, joining several UMC congregations in the Lexington/Arlington/Cambridge/Somerville area that not only welcome all, but are committed to community outreach and social justice, not coincidentally.

  5. (a very dear friend), will tell of how even recently a college in the midwest withdrew its invitation that it extended to him to speak after it found out that he was gay. 

    • Great. Just go around advertising it why dontcha? Now bin Laden and his lackeys are going to penetrate America and hold a bevy of gay orgies in the heartland. I predict Gay bin Laden will be more destructive than 9/11.

  7. The two incidents I experienced as related above as a child were true.  No fiction, no enhancement, true.  Actually, I could relate more.

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    One of the objections that I have with “Christians” who consider themselve moderate or liberal is that they do little or nothing to distance their religion from the insane rants of the people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, D. James Kenney, or Dobson or those other religious nutcases. 

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    That is why I don’t believe anything that these self-described “moderate or liberal” christians say.  If they want to oppose the nut-cases, they should get on the barricades and defend their religion.  But they don’t.  And that’s why I don’t believe any of them.

    •  

      who are not 'dead or alive' anti-terror hawks?

      maybe they, like moderate and liberal christians, are often too busy tending to their own faith and practices to feel the responsibility or obligation to clean up after every fanatic and yahoo who happens to say something stupid supposedly in the name of their faith?

      raj, do you like it when you have to answer for nazi germany? do you think that's fair?

       

       

      • … tending their own faith to object to the moral outrage of someone hijacking their religion by tying it to immoral tennants?

        Is that what Wilberforce should have done instead of railing aginst slavery that so many were quoting the bible to justify.  Ok… maybe,.. just maybe if it is a fringe minority that doesn't get any press and is culturally isolated, but we are talking about a group of people that allegedly used the issue to carry an election.  Sorry… no sympathy here.

         

      • … be culpable about nazis if, when asked about them, he stayed silent on the issue preferring to be busy tending to his own practices rather than speak up.

        Your question actually makes the point.

        • about the hypocrites on the american right. and i just told you that i think that they're yahoos that don't truly speak for the values of my faith.

          sorry if i don't have the money to hire a sky-writing plane.

          maybe you should ask some more. it's funny the things we can learn when we do that.

           

          • … a criticism of Raj.  I just pointed out how it doesn't apply.  I didn't say anything about you. Please comment on what I wrote, not on what I didn't

      • do you also dimiss moderate muslims

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        My point was that moderate and liberal christians often defend their religion by saying things to the effect that “not all christians are like Falwell, Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Dobson, et al,” but they do virtually nothing to reclaim their religion.  The let the Falwells, etc, be the face of it to the general public.

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        Would I dismiss moderate muslims who do the same, letting the conservatives be the face of Islam to the general public?  Yes.  But muslims are not an important part of my life; christians and their bible-thumping political practices in the US are.

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        I’m not exactly sure what

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        raj, do you like it when you have to answer for nazi germany?

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        is supposed to mean.  I believe I have made it clear that I am not German.  The house in Germany is owned by (by inheritance) my spouse.  And I have criticized the Nazis quite often, as well as the Neo-Nazi NPD, which are primarily in the East (Sachsen), not here in Bavaria.  The Nazi regime was deposed before I was born.

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          so i wonder why some people expect me to have some answer for any deranged form of christianity that exists in the world, and that i have absolutely no connection to. whatever jackass thing that pat robertson says is irrelevant to me or my faith. i'll denounce him as a citizen, but i feel no more responsilibity to do that than anyone else.

           

          • “so i wonder why some people expect me to have some answer for any deranged form of christianity that exists in the world, and that i have absolutely no connection to.”For my part I am just happy if people like you would say…”that iss a deranged form of christianity that I have absolutely no connection to”.  That'd be enough.  By pointing out the differences in interpretation, I think that is why they are saying in this movie. 

            “I'll denounce him as a citizen, but i feel no more responsibility to do that than anyone else.”

            Personally when a deranged christian (with media clout to boot) spouts deranged lunacy in the name of christianity, I'd think that less deranged christians would have more of a reason to denounce these views beyond reasons of good citizenship precisely because it speaks to their faith, not just their country.  

  8.  – hope we'll get to see it.  Although I'm not myself religious, we have some family members who are Catholics and some who are “born again” Christians – and we often have to contend with their homophobia. 

    I may have written about this on BMG before, but PFLAG sponsored a great forum last year with two ministers, the authors of a book called The Children Are Free, which reexamines of what the bible really says about whether two people of the same sex can live in a committed, loving relationship with God's blessing.  They present textual evidence of acceptance of same-sex relationships in the Bible, including the story of Jonathan and David and Jesus' healing of the Roman centurion's servant, who based on the word the centurion uses to describe him (entimos doulos), would have been understood by Jesus to be the centurion's sexual companion.  They also dissect and discount some of the “clobber” passages – the biblical verses often quoted out of context to condemn same sex relationships.

    I don't feel like I need religious affirmation personally – I'd be satisfied with equal civil rights – but the reality is that people who believe their religion condemns g/l relationships are currently a political force.  I have to believe that through dialog fostered by films and books like these, conservative christian churches can reexamine and hopefully begin to move away from their homophobia, just as over time they have abandoned the once commonplace biblical justifications for slavery and racism. 

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