re christian meta ethics russell turpin as is his wont has raised some interesting issues in his struggle with the christian texts and the christians unfortunately he seems to be hoping for simplicity where it is not available the lukewarm stew he detects may well be an inevitable result of the divine mixing himself up with a bunch of losers such as humanity also unfortunately perhaps i have a deadline in two weeks the responsibility for which prevents me in good conscience from writing a more considered response and fully entering the fray as it were let me then say what i can briefly the two commandments are rules they are merely rules that are so vague that they are practically devoid of meaning this point for the net browsers who also still read books is pursued throughly in kaufmann critique of religion and philosophy the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself can be viewed in part as reminding man that he is not god and cannot act as if he has ultimate responsibility this is a theological statement worthy of barth dr turpin dd may wear the black robe of geneva yet indeed many traditions present an interpretation where believers are supposed to interpret loving one s neighbor as following various other rules and relying on their god to make things come out right precisely because it would be wrong for man to assume such ultimate responsibility once again we are confronted with good sounding goo that means whatever the reader wants it to mean this requires the assumption that all interpretations are equally valid that there is no way of reasonably distinguishing among them i wouldn t make that assumption i don t think it is a reasonable assumption and who is to say that this interpretation is twisted there are many passages in the bible that in their most straightforward reading show the christian god behaving in just this way michael and i and others read the bible with christian glasses among the things that this should imply is that the nt informs the ot even to the point of dominanting it some points in the ot ceremonial dietary laws are explicitly abrogated by the nt texts to drive russell turpin s point with adequacy one needs to begin with nt texts probably from matthew and probably about damnation just trying to help this part is i discover what most moves me to post mls i am a radical christian only in that i take the gospel seriously no michael the conservative christians also take the gospel seriously what differentiates you is the way you interpret the gospel russell turpin s no here is misplaced not to say inappropriate michael s self description much govern the equation of radical liberal which seems implied by russell turpin is wrong radical conservatives are possible if sadly lacking in numbers at present thomas merton was a radical even though conservative in some ways st francis was a radical similarly how many examples are needed mls why don t i and the myriads of other christians like me mls tell you something about christianity michael s question gets to a heart of the matter klingons have two hearts so my metaphor is not mixed just extraterrestrial russell turpin in an earlier post had said that michael michael s theological positions actually didn t tell him much about christianity dean simeon responds this time gently what do you mean more direct perhaps would have been what could you possibly mean the implied rhetorical effort to separate michael from the tradition is a failure michael is in the tradition if your idea of the tradition doesn t include him change your idea of the tradition the irony here is that there is nothing in christianity per se that michael can use to support the cause of lesbians and gays how can one answer this while staying on the more general issue i m on the other side of the interpretive fence from michael on this issue yet nothing is a hideous overstatement one verse is enough to refute it i ll offer two from paul of all people in jesus christ there is neither male nor female galatians i don t quote single verses as a rule and i don t carry them in my head and nothing shall separate us from the glory of god roughly from romans if russell would promise to convert based on these or any other verses i d promise to get the full context for any that he requires in short it is the extra christian principles that make michael s christianity beneficial and i suspect they would be as beneficial perhaps moreso without being filtered by christian interpretation this conclusion does not follow even in short from the argument that goes before a surprising logical ellipsis dave davis ddavis ma bull com these are my opinions activities alone qotd wild beasts trapped in their cages are not so fierce as are the christians to each other julian the apostate c
