So there’s this kerfluffle surrounding a Christian school that decided to ban from the school’s graduation ceremony a teen who by all accounts, was a model student, positive leader, active church and community participant and role-model, and countless other accolades, but who apparently was “immoral” and got pregnant.
My question is, what is the point of God (or really any god) to people who feel they need to act on behalf of said God and punish people for acts that are immoral by said supposed God’s standards? Note, we’re not talking about punishing someone for a legal infraction; the principal in the case has been quite clear that the teen is being punished for being immoral. So I’m curious as to what such folks believe God’s role is or whether such folks believe God even has a role or does anything?
Well shoot. Not sure where my boo boo is, but apparently my link code didn’t work. *Le sigh…*
ETA: Oops…apparently it didn’t take any of my HTML coding. Is HTML not recognized in posts?
fixed
If you want to use html tags directly, you must use the “Text” tab rather than the “Visual” tab when editing. Best is to use the visual table, select the text you want to be in a link, click on the chain link icon, and then enter the URL when prompted.
You make the point that I am aiming for, when I say that “omnipotent” is just a spelling mistake for “impotent”.
As to what this is all about:
The “right to life” people have been lying all along. There opposition to abortion never had anything to do with concern about life. It was always about punishing the woman for having sex. She must carry the baby to birth as punishment. Abortion is seen as bad, because it escapes this punishment.
The particular student made the mistake of believing the lies. And, because she believed the lies, she thought she could be a hero by not having an abortion. But making herself a hero is another way of avoiding the punishment for her sexual act. So they still punished her.
The point of all organized religion is to give priests the power to manipulate other people. There have probably been times when this was useful, just as there are times when obeying political leaders is useful.
The trick, of course, is knowing when the leaders need to be disobeyed.
In this case, the leader is disobeying the founding prophet of his religion by casting the first stone. This one is a no-brainer.
Robin, this same question has occurred to me many times. Most recently, a Conservative Christian writer stated on social media that if God was worried about Climate Change, he would take care of it himself. Difficult to square that sort of hands-off faith with bakeries not serving cakes to same-sex weddings.
Thanks Neil!
W O W! I have never heard that explanation before! In a bizarrely twisted way, it makes sense.
Unbelievable. What is the point of banning anyone from TSZ?
What was the point of Patrick banning Frankenjoe for something that was hardly even immoral. TSZ is worse than Christians!
Yeah.
People are punished all the time for things not a legal infraction. Any opposition to homosexuality, feminism, immigration, any ethnic identity issue. etc etc etc is easily punished in my country or america by those with power.
So the moment some obscure cHristian school punishes someone the establishment cries IMMORAL.
naw. its the establishment, a left wing one, using these cases to impose thier views.
They are not opposing punishment about conclusions on issues which we all call moral concepts.
I’m sure they are not punishing on behalf of God but deciding who does/get what where a whole school is represented.
Its just a graduation ceremony and not the school year.
The grad ceremony is representing the values of the school.
I understand the right to control these things. Thats why the school exists. it ruins the fun to have immoral people laughing at your morals.
I don’t see the point of being a tool for ignorance. What does Robin think would happen to this girl in, say, Saudi Arabia.
I probably missed all the OPs about how immoral women are treated in other countries. Because I think we all know that Robin doesn’t have ‘Allah’ in mind.
You don’t seem immune from this apparently common tendency for folks to sit in judgement over others? Judge not…?
What does Mung think?
Joe isn’t banned. His account is suspended pending an undertaking from him as to future conduct. If you want to lobby for the lifting of his suspension, please do it in the appropriate thread – Moderation Issues!
If her fellow students decided to attend the graduation, in her absence, I guess that tells us all we need to know about the school.
You did notice that the right-to-life people are supporting the student, not the school, right?
Exactly. Look at the way those Quaker priests flaunt their power.
Fox hated organized religion. That’s why he started Quakerism. Bringing up Quakerism in defense of organized religion will surely make him turn over in his grave.
Is that supposed to be inconsistent with Neil’s point?
Byers writes,
Any opposition to homosexuality, feminism, immigration, any ethnic identity issue. etc etc etc is easily punished in my country or america by those with power.
Hahaha, it’s OPPOSITION to things like homosexuality that has been punished, never the homosexualty itself. It’s not like homosexuality has uh ever been a crime punishable by imprisonment anywhere. It’s not like Oscar Wilde was….uh….
Someone beat me to a reply, but I will add something. I am not Quaker, but I graduated from a Quaker college.
Quakers have a very sophisticated system of social manipulation. There are no beatings and beheadings, but there are consequences for misbehaving.
But as far as I can tell, there are no consequences for dissent or for speaking your mind. Disagreements get hashed out in public meetings. Not everyone goes away happy, but no one is prevented from speaking. And from a theological point of view, there are no punishments enforced or implied for having private, unorthodox views.
Write one if the subject interests you.
The administration of the school is right to life.
I think you’ve never done an actually study of what the Bible says on the subject of judging. So I think you cherry-picked a passage you like and ignored everything else on the topic that you don’t like.
What does Alan think?
I have to say that Neil’s claim that the right to life movement is all about controlling women’s sexuality is a load of nonsense. I’ve been pro-life for many years, and I receive Life News in my mailbox every day. I’ve never received any articles expressing a desire to controlling women’s sexuality. Instead, the concern is always directed at the protection of unborn human life. Why? Because civilized societies don’t allow the killing of children at any age.
By the way, Life News has taken the side of the girl who was banned from her graduation for getting pregnant. See here.
To see how paranoid the pro-choice movement is, have a look at Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg’s hate-filled rant on The View: Joy Behar: Pro-Lifers “Want to Keep Women Barefoot and Pregnant. How is That Different Than the Taliban?”. Just nuts.
I guess it’s guilt by association with churches that want to control sexuality.
Yes.
And yet they are an organized religion. Who’da thunk it?
You’ve never heard anyone say, “I’m not a member of any organized religion; I’m a Quaker”?
Seriously, you are playing word games. And not very well.
You cite a small splinter group that was formed specifically as a revolt against priesthoods as evidence against the motives of priests?
In the article she claims she sinned and should confess and seek forgiveness for her “crimes”… which she did.
I say: F*ck off school. How many d*cks penetrate my vagina is none of your business. Why are you so interested in what I’m doing in my bedroom?
Vjt:
By the way, Life News has taken the side of the girl who was banned from her graduation for getting pregnant. See here.
“When girls like me who go to pro-life schools make a brave pro-life decision, we shouldn’t be hidden away in shame. The sin that got us into this situation is not worth celebrating, but after confession and forgiveness take place, we should be supported and treated like any other student. What we are going through is tough enough. Having to deal with the added shame of being treated like an outcast is nothing that any girl should have to go through.
Many of the people in my town and at my school who had supported me and my family have turned on us since I went public, feeling that all the scrutiny was hurting Heritage Academy’s reputation. We started getting nasty emails, angry posts on social media and rude remarks in person. People who had been supportive before are now telling me to shut up, suck it up and grow up. Because of the volume of anger from the community, my parents have decided to keep my brother and me at home for the rest of the school year.”
Sounds like a lot of shame coming from the prolife side. What is the purpose of shame if not to control behaviors?
I have never been part of catholic culture. My comment had to do with evangelical culture, and I was part of that for around 12 years.
The “right to life” slogan became important politically, after evangelicals stole it from catholics. Prior to that, it was never a central idea for evangelicals.
You’re right that I’ve never bothered with any hermeneutics – is that the right term? I dislike displays of hypocrisy, including when folks use the Bible as justification for that hypocrisy.
Sex is a normal activity. Kids become sexually mature in their teens. They need information, support and advice to cope with the pressures and confusions. European countries manage this much better than the US seems to.
Babies are wonderful. But having a child, for a woman, is a costly (both in time and money) and risky (possibly life-threatening) business. European countries seem to offer a higher and broader support system than the US. And isn’t President Trump inclined to pare away at what support remains?
What does Mung think?
Actually, no. Not surprising, since it’s much less common than the more familiar version, “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” You don’t take line that as evidence that Democrats aren’t an organized political party, do you?
No, I cited a small splinter group as evidence against your claim about all organized religion, which is a widespread, complex and quite variable aspect of human behavior. The idea that the only point of organized religion is to augment the power of priests is a slogan, not an analysis. Did you really expect it to be taken seriously as a factual claim? Why even bring it up here, in a case that involves a school principal, not a priest or other religious authority figure, and that takes place in a another small splinter group that also formed in rejection of priests and hierarchies?
It’s unfortunate you thought those were inconsistent, because they weren’t.
Byers: “The grad ceremony is representing the values of the school.”
Since this is a Christian school, wouldn’t one of those values be forgiveness?
Why is it Christians talk so much about how their God forgives, but utterly fail in practicing forgiveness themselves? The hypocrisy is astounding.
Please forgive us. 😀
I will not retract the claim. There are personal religions which are mostly methods of contemplation, and there are organizations that promote conformity of thought and behavior. Even Quakers are pretty good at promoting conformity. Their rules of thought and behavior are just more subtle than most.
But you do not have to go very far back in history to find religions baring their teeth.
Mung,
Maybe you need to start forgiving each other?
But will you support it?
Take the kind of religious organization that’s most relevant to this story: the independent evangelical American church. Such churches form the heart of the Protestant right-to-life movement. They can start in a variety of ways, but one common one is for a group of laypeople to start meeting regularly, decide they want to form a church, and then find a pastor to lead them. If they decide they don’t like the pastor, they fire him and look for another. Now exactly who, in your understanding, is setting up this organization for the purpose of giving power to the “priest”?
Look, I have no doubt at all that a desire for power is one motivation for lots of religious leaders. That’s so banal an observation that it’s not worth making; I likewise have no doubt that the same desire is one motivation for lots of political leaders, lots of military leaders, lots of corporate leaders and lots of scientific leaders. Lots of people like being leaders, and lots of people like having leaders. Your claim, though, is that in the case of religious organizations, the organization exists for the purpose of giving power to the leaders, which seems to fly in the face of the fact that people spontaneously organize themselves into religious organizations prior to the presence of any leaders. Do you have any evidence to offer in support of your claim?
Of course there are religious organizations that promote conformity of thought and behavior. There are also a wide range of other organizations (and unorganized networks) that promote conformity of thought and behavior, ranging from political parties to neighborhood associations to fraternities to hunter gatherer bands. This again is a common human trait. But it’s a trait that’s only tangentially related to power-seeking, and the claim you’re advancing here is only tangentially related to the one we’re supposed to be discussing. If it’s conformity you want, it’s best achieved through peer pressure, not leaders.
And of course, the only sin they think important enough to warrant public shaming and exclusion is sexual sin. (Now, what was the name of that religious figure who used to hang out with prostitutes and other sinners . . . it’s on the tip of my tongue.)
I think I was too cryptic there, Steve. What I meant was that Neil said that according to right-to-lifers, pregnant girls must bring the pregnancy to term as a punishment.
Then you replied that right to lifers were supporting the girl rather than the school. But I take it that’s because she has said she’s bringing the pregnancy to term. So my point was that, since she’s doing what they insist upon, it’s consistent with Neil’s claim that they make this a punishment. The fact that she’s accepting it is not inconsistent with Neil’s assertion.
Do you see?
I will say that you have made a good point that Quakerism could be an organized religion in spite of not being….let’s say….pushy. You’re right that it’s unfair to make that part and parcel of “organization” and your remark about Dems being a party whether they’re particularly “organized” or not was a good one.
Let’s see. Neil’s point was that the anti-abortion people wanted to see her punished for having sex, even though she chose not to have an abortion. Reporting shows that anti-abortion groups don’t want to see her punished, because that would stigmatize those who choose not to have an abortion. That sure sounds like a contradiction to me. (Now if he had argued that many people who claim to be “pro-life” — like the school principal, and those attacking the girl — demonstrate that they care more about punishing sex than they do about abortion, we would have no disagreement.)
Ah, but what Neil said was that bringing the pregnancy to term IS the punishment according to some groups. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it does not seem to me inconsistent with what’s happening in this case. {ETA: that is, with the celebratory treatment of the girl by these groups.}
But you’re trying to have it both ways: asking for her to be excluded from graduation and asking for her not to be excluded from graduation both count as evidence that opposition to abortion was always about punishing sex. I see no reason to accept the latter here. The statements of the anti-abortion group are fully consistent with their stated goal of preventing abortion, while the actions of the school aren’t.
I
As I said, I don’t know whether or not Neil’s position is right. I’ve claimed only that it’s consistent with the anti-abortion groups’ behavior.
I wonder if people aren’t over-thinking this incident. Seems to me that the basic problem is that girls in high school are not supposed to be sexually active yet. So just, you know, hide it. The school administrators don’t want to admit that their charges aren’t exercising basic decent celibacy, so they must not be teaching sex education very well.
I’ll also add that, while I don’t agree with the pro-life movement, I certainly know pro-life people who would be violently opposed to punishing unmarried kids for having sex.
As with the power-hungry priests, what I find troubling here is the sweeping imputation of malign motives to an entire class of people that somebody doesn’t agree with. It’s too easy, and it inhibits real understanding and any possibility of dialogue.
Thats true for the past. That was done by the law., the right of a people to govern themselves by laws. Homosexuality being illegal is okay.
Active homosexuality should be illegal in a moral and healthy civilization.
however everybody agrees not to make it illegal under ideas of not imposing these things.
However then they impose that opposition to homosexuality is immoral and punish it. Yet without using the law and so the government process.
So it is not that they don’t want her punished ,it just at cross purposes to the immediate goal of encouraging the sinner to carry the baby to term.
The pro-life administration running the school disagreed. Their rules were broken and she deserved to be punished.
Or being Jewish.
Because it makes you uncomfortable?
Not everybody, there are countries where it is punished severely
Not exactly. You are not required to be homosexual and homosexuals are not required to be straight. If you want to do business in the public sphere there are rules against discrimination. The problem is some people claim it is discrimination not have the right to discriminate.
Have an example?