A response to Newsweek & Andrew Sullivan

Newsweek's latest cover story, written by popular author Andrew Sullivan, encourages Americans to "forget the church" and just "follow Jesus."

Sullivan sees the problem of a politicized faith, one that focuses relentlessly on gaining power, changing laws, and regulating the morality of others. He sees contemporary Christianity as a faith obsessed with getting doctrines about Jesus right to the exclusion of what He actually taught us to do and be. This leads him to ask some piercing questions:

"What does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand? What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself?"

From the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality to evangelical Christian support of torture, Sullivan makes his way through a long list of perceived threats to the centrality of Christ among believing people.

So what's the solution? Sullivan points us toward Francis of Assisi and Thomas Jefferson. Francis — for the simplicity of his vision for following Jesus. Jefferson — for the way he stripped away all the miracles of incarnation and resurrection and got to the greatest miracle of all: Jesus' message of love.

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Evermyrtle

I believe the first step into becoming a dedicated Christian, is to get rid of our self righteousness. and deep set ideas which can destroy our relationship with GOD, if they are not what HE would have us to have. We need to study HIS WORD, try to understand what it is saying to us, and realize that our interpretation could be wrong. Discuss it with others, especially those who have studied "IT" all of their lives. Find demeaning others for their understanding, belittling and don't do it. AGREE TO DISAGREE. Usually basic Bible laws are very simple. and have few ways of difference ways to go.
- daves
  
  I think this paragraph describes bobseeks.
  
  Likewise, we should admit that we have too often been known more for our denunciations of those outside our walls than for our passion to uproot our own self-righteous hypocrisy, something Jesus was always confronting in His day. Sullivan sees many of the problems within contemporary Christianity with a perception that should give us pause and bring us back to our knees.
  - Bobseeks
    
    Dave, to be insulted by lieberal scum such as yourself is great praise indeed. Jesus told us the world would hate us because it hated Him and your hatred of the true Jesus shows through every lie you post.
http://twitter.com/lambsev11 @lambsev11

We are all going to die. I would rather die following Jesus than die being politically correct, or religiously correct. Which is not to say that I can't be like Jesus to some greater or lesser degree. We are called to be perfect (mature) and holy (more like God than like sin). I will not be flawless until heaven except in the eyes of Jesus who sees me flawless under His blood. TY Jesus !!! Hallelu Yah !!!
Bobseeks

The fact that this liar praises jefferson for his blasphemous act of reducing the Word of GOD indicates that he is a heretic. There is more to the Bible than Jesus loves you and that you should love Him. Those who have never been taught to repent of their sin will because of heretics like Sullivan will end up in hell even though they "loved" Jesus and Sullivan will earn a double dose of damnation for his false teaching.
aceituna

If you value your salvation won for us by our precious redeemer, Jesus, you will desire to live a godly life. You will realize that on many occasions you will slip and do wrong, but praise be to God that there is forgiveness for backsliding also. The law (commandments) have a threefold purpose, 1) curb (our nation's laws concerning our conduct is a curb to keep us in line, most of the people in this world accept the law as a curb) 2) mirror (when we really study what the commandments mean, we see what kind of a person we really are and recognize the need for repentance and forgiveness, and many do repent and are forgiven) and 3) guide – ruler ( Those who are repentant and forgiven need a guideline on how to live a Christian life – that is provided by the commandments) We need to study to be fully equipped to live the christian life and share the news of forgiveness with others. We need to apply all three purposes of the law when we witness.
bighoss

As a matter of full and honest disclosure, the article should have identified Sullivan as a homosexual. He has indeed "come out of the closet," as to both his sexual preference and his HIV-positive status, but many readers of this Time article will not be aware of that. In his article.

Sullivan claims that, "Jesus never spoke of homosexuality or abortion, and his only remarks on marriage were a condemnation of divorce (now commonplace among American Christians) and forgiveness for adultery."
That little summary is deficient in both truth and scholarship. To Sullivan's abridged version of what Jesus said about marriage, one must add His instruction in Mark 10:6-9, which seems to me pretty essential to any summary of the Lord's statements on this subject:

"6But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.

7For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;

8And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

9What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

Jesus defined sexuality ("they twain shall be one flesh") in terms of a marital relationship between a MAN and a WOMAN, and He declared that to be in accordance with the plan of God "[f]rom the beginning". It is, of course, inconvenient to a homosexual apologist to find in this, or anywhere else in the Gospels, any coherent rationalization for any other kind of sexual/marital arrangement as having approval from Jesus. Thus, it appears, Sullivan simply, in effect, took his own pen knife and, like Jefferson, removed from his consideration this fundamental teaching of Jesus that did not sit comfortably with his own "theology" on homosexuality.

As to Sullivan's reference to Jesus's teaching on forgiveness of adultery, one would have to suppose that he refers to the incident of the woman taken in adultery, as set forth in John 8:3-11. After dealing with her accusers, Jesus instructs the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more.” Note that Jesus, in this statement, is confirming that her adultery was indeed a sin.

This passage is one of the very few in the New Testament of any significant length–and probably the longest one–that has been in substantial suspicion among textual scholars.* It is absent from many ancient manuscripts, and is likely not a part of John’s original Gospel. It is ironic, then, that the same Andrew Sullivan who casts so much doubt on the authenticity of the New Testament scriptures (“written decades after Jesus’ ministry…copies of copies of stories told by those with fallible memory”) selects as a proof text a passage that is perhaps the most suspect of any among New Testament scholars. This is dishonest, cafeteria-style apologetics!

*In the very fine English Revised Bible translation (Oxford Cambridge 1989 –a later version of the “New English Bible”), these verses are printed following Chapter 21, with an explanatory note concerning their probable non-Johannine origin.
- Eric
  
  It is also Sullivan on the Newsweek cover wearing the wig and the crown of thorns. Nice touch Newsweek. Way to take your politicized religion to the next level (i.e. Andrew Sullivan=modern day Jesus).
- Bobseeks
  
  So, bigfarce, why do you support the number 1 proponent of homosexuality in the world – the satanic democrat party? Never mind, I know why, because you are a union thug who puts aside the Word of GOD in order to get a few more bucks on his paycheck. Money trumps GOD's Word, right? Are you really stupid enough to believe that your pious posturing in going to save you after you spit on GOD's Word by supporting satanic evil like unions and the democrat party?
  - bighoss
    
    Go pound sand, you blithering buffoon. You know practically nothing about me. I have never belonged to any union; how, then, can I be a union thug? I have told you elsewhere that my primary source of income is a defined benefits pension that is not connected in any way with any union and will not change until I die. I do some part-time work for an international non-union company that uses my services for purposes totally unrelated to union activity. Your characterization of the Democratic Party as No. 1 supporter of homosexuality is a ludicrous over-reach. In a word, Boobscreeches, you are a JERK!
    
    Believe it or not, Boobscreeches, within the last 6 months, I have preached about a dozen sermons at a church that even you would regard as conservative. The members there know me and they know my affiliations, but unlike JERKS like you, they are intelligent enough not to jump to unwarranted conclusions.
    
    Your unmitigated, ignorant anger makes you look precisely like what you are, namely a JERK!
    
    P.S. You are a JERK!
Bill Kother

the Bible is absolute or obsolete. The Lord Jesus, in speaking of the Bible said: Thy word is truth. Christ taught in the most strict and severe terms about sin and marriage and divorce. when it comes to the Bible, the Word of GOD, the world knows next to nothing and care even less. GOD said: I have magnified my word above all my name; Psalm 138:2
keyboardshark

We either take the whole Bible as it is, or we might as well chuck it in the trash. The Bible is not a cafeteria-style book where we can pick and choose which parts we like, and ignore the parts we don't. Jefferson's "stripping away all the miracles of incarnation and resurrection" is one example of this attitude mentioned by Sullivan.

Without the miracles of the Bible, it is just another historical book written by men. There would be no creation, no perfection followed by the fall into sin, no flood, no Egyptian plagues, no crossing of the Red Sea, no destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, no Ten Commandments written by the finger of God, no conquest of nations mightier than themselves by Israel, no fulfilled prophecies, no virgin birth, no resurrection, and no hope for mankind. In other words, it would completely strip the Bible of all credibility.