Why do revisionists not understand beauty? Their anthropology is off. They agree with Pope Francis that the human heart is basically good. This type of understanding then undercuts the gospel. Mark Mattes sums this up in his book Martin Luther’s Theology of Beauty “God loves sinners not because they are beautiful but they are beautiful because they are loved in Christ” Until we are repented by the accusing law, Christ and his gospel will be foreign and hated by us. People who hate God produce ugliness. Pride month is precisely ugly because it is a rejection of God and His Word.
Yes. It is what I call "God is good and love, and Jesus came to help us be better people" theology. That may be fine for a small child, but there's more than that.
The only difference between it and late Cultural Christian Evangelical America is that while on the whole, the latter pretty much communicated the same message, it still uttered the word sin, and not because it is in some rubric. I can't tell you the last time at a certain PCUSA church that I am familiar with that I heard the pastors utter in a sermon the word sin, and the prior senior pastor was evangelical.
It’s tricky though, isn’t it? I mean, the whole propaganda vs. Art dilemma. Overall, I’m on the side that propaganda usurps art, but the lines can be slightly blurred. Was Richard III good art. Was it simply “Tudor propaganda?” Is it both because the artist was able to pull both things off simultaneously, giving us a more fully formed human in his play than simply a 2 dimensional punching bag for the Tudors, while giving the Tudors a villain to show to their detractors? I know, super unfair to go to Shakespeare, and yes, most propaganda subsumes art in its demand to serve a single message without any sort of sense of irony or subtlety. As of now, the propaganda art for my fellow liberals does not tolerate any sort of irony or self reflection and is indeed mostly anemic at best. But I imagine that in 5 years or so, even the most ardent believers in Pride Month will get a little punchy, perhaps realizing that a month is just a really long time to be so self aware and self congratulatory, and we might see some more fun and punchy things brought into the equation. But for now. It’s a fundamentalist snooze fest.
The thing that saddens me the most are those that participate and consume Christian pop cultural stuff and assume that’s what the Christian life looks like. This is the atmosphere of church culture I grew up in, decorating your house with all the Christian things all the while your foundation is rotten and unattended to.
No doubt, you have already gotten a load of this: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/publicaffairs/episcopal-church-unveils-new-pride-shield-in-celebration-of-lgbtq-inclusion/.
Why do revisionists not understand beauty? Their anthropology is off. They agree with Pope Francis that the human heart is basically good. This type of understanding then undercuts the gospel. Mark Mattes sums this up in his book Martin Luther’s Theology of Beauty “God loves sinners not because they are beautiful but they are beautiful because they are loved in Christ” Until we are repented by the accusing law, Christ and his gospel will be foreign and hated by us. People who hate God produce ugliness. Pride month is precisely ugly because it is a rejection of God and His Word.
Yes. It is what I call "God is good and love, and Jesus came to help us be better people" theology. That may be fine for a small child, but there's more than that.
The only difference between it and late Cultural Christian Evangelical America is that while on the whole, the latter pretty much communicated the same message, it still uttered the word sin, and not because it is in some rubric. I can't tell you the last time at a certain PCUSA church that I am familiar with that I heard the pastors utter in a sermon the word sin, and the prior senior pastor was evangelical.
It’s tricky though, isn’t it? I mean, the whole propaganda vs. Art dilemma. Overall, I’m on the side that propaganda usurps art, but the lines can be slightly blurred. Was Richard III good art. Was it simply “Tudor propaganda?” Is it both because the artist was able to pull both things off simultaneously, giving us a more fully formed human in his play than simply a 2 dimensional punching bag for the Tudors, while giving the Tudors a villain to show to their detractors? I know, super unfair to go to Shakespeare, and yes, most propaganda subsumes art in its demand to serve a single message without any sort of sense of irony or subtlety. As of now, the propaganda art for my fellow liberals does not tolerate any sort of irony or self reflection and is indeed mostly anemic at best. But I imagine that in 5 years or so, even the most ardent believers in Pride Month will get a little punchy, perhaps realizing that a month is just a really long time to be so self aware and self congratulatory, and we might see some more fun and punchy things brought into the equation. But for now. It’s a fundamentalist snooze fest.
The thing that saddens me the most are those that participate and consume Christian pop cultural stuff and assume that’s what the Christian life looks like. This is the atmosphere of church culture I grew up in, decorating your house with all the Christian things all the while your foundation is rotten and unattended to.