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Doctrinal Correctness
Sep. 21st, 2008 03:09 pmMy car is now working, thanks to Freon. As he is a wiseacre, he arranged the car radio so that when I turned the ignition, there would be preaching.
According to the preacher, Christians don't need to get involved in politics, because if they convert people, those people will control their fellow Americans' lifestyles with the voting decisions that the preacher thinks God wants them to make. They will become Doctrinally Correct. This will come as news to the millions of Americans who say they're Christian. Apparently according to this preacher, they inaccurately believe they are in a salvation relationship with Jesus. (Otherwise, Jesus would speak to their hearts and tell them the error of their ways. After all, is God going to hand out a thousand inconsistent messages to his followers and tell them all to correct each other on these points?)
I have to give the devil his due here. If someone claims to be Christian, but bases this on some vague popularized notion floating around the culture, involving whatever they happen to personally think is goodness and love, and ignoring most of the truly awful teachings of Jesus, then it's just a nominal label. (They should really call themselves "loveists". I recall at PCC when my friend Jason said he thought the school was "Communist", and I said no, it's "totalitarian", because Communism is an economic system. Words are not very useful without meanings.)
On the other hand, the preacher is wrong, because "getting people saved" doesn't result in getting people Dominionist saved. God doesn't respond to the Sinner's Prayer by magically making you believe that you deserve eternal torment for casual drinking, rock music, and premarital sex. In order for conversion to work the way Dominionists want it to, where they go off the deep end and become insufferably doctrinal, the convert must already be pathetic and desperate enough to sincerely believe the Sinner's Prayer. They can't just casually experiment. There has to be at least some dependency, maladaptation, loneliness, irrational anxiety, or self-loathing. In that case salvation is not changing much, it's just fitting into where one already belonged.
Supernatural intervention is not necessary for that to happen. Anyone who is paying attention to Christians can tell that they are so seldom transformed by the salvation experience, that when they seem to be transformed into a soldier of the Lord, it can be explained as someone who was already messed up in the head.
According to the preacher, Christians don't need to get involved in politics, because if they convert people, those people will control their fellow Americans' lifestyles with the voting decisions that the preacher thinks God wants them to make. They will become Doctrinally Correct. This will come as news to the millions of Americans who say they're Christian. Apparently according to this preacher, they inaccurately believe they are in a salvation relationship with Jesus. (Otherwise, Jesus would speak to their hearts and tell them the error of their ways. After all, is God going to hand out a thousand inconsistent messages to his followers and tell them all to correct each other on these points?)
I have to give the devil his due here. If someone claims to be Christian, but bases this on some vague popularized notion floating around the culture, involving whatever they happen to personally think is goodness and love, and ignoring most of the truly awful teachings of Jesus, then it's just a nominal label. (They should really call themselves "loveists". I recall at PCC when my friend Jason said he thought the school was "Communist", and I said no, it's "totalitarian", because Communism is an economic system. Words are not very useful without meanings.)
On the other hand, the preacher is wrong, because "getting people saved" doesn't result in getting people Dominionist saved. God doesn't respond to the Sinner's Prayer by magically making you believe that you deserve eternal torment for casual drinking, rock music, and premarital sex. In order for conversion to work the way Dominionists want it to, where they go off the deep end and become insufferably doctrinal, the convert must already be pathetic and desperate enough to sincerely believe the Sinner's Prayer. They can't just casually experiment. There has to be at least some dependency, maladaptation, loneliness, irrational anxiety, or self-loathing. In that case salvation is not changing much, it's just fitting into where one already belonged.
Supernatural intervention is not necessary for that to happen. Anyone who is paying attention to Christians can tell that they are so seldom transformed by the salvation experience, that when they seem to be transformed into a soldier of the Lord, it can be explained as someone who was already messed up in the head.
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