Christians

Trans people tend to lump all religion together, but they are not homogeneous each is unique we cannot bundle them together.

Why a Group of Christians Is Fighting the Growing Threat of Christian Nationalism
USA Today
By Vera Bergengruen
December 30, 2022


On Jan. 6, 2021, Amanda Tyler watched the attack on the U.S. Capitol unfold with a growing sense of dread—and recognition.

Like many Christian leaders, Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, immediately noticed the presence of religious symbols in the crowd. Large crosses were everywhere, carried by protestors marching to the Capitol and depicted on flags, clothing, and necklaces. Demonstrators held up Bibles and banners reading, “In God We Trust,” “An Appeal to Heaven,” and “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my President.”

Many of the people there that day cast the attack on the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 election as a biblical battle of good versus evil. Christian nationalism, a resurgent ideology that views the U.S. as a Christian country and whose proponents largely define American identity as exclusively white and Christian “helped fuel the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, uniting disparate actors and infusing their political cause with religious fervor,” Tyler testified on Dec. 13 at a House Oversight subcommittee hearing.

[…]

“I’m really grateful that members of Congress are paying attention to how Christian nationalism overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy, and how some of these extremists are being fueled by Christian nationalism, using it to try to justify their violence as being done in God’s name,” Tyler told TIME in a Dec. 15 interview.

Rep. Greene said, “I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists,” and “Zionist supremacists were conspiring to wipe out white people,” while Gov. Santis said, “put on the full armor of God,” and “You will face flaming arrows, but if you have the shield of faith, you will overcome them, and in Florida we walk the line here.”

But not all religious leaders are against us. Last month at a committee meeting I sat between an Imam and a Muslim woman, I would have never dreamed that I would be making small talk with an Iman and also at the table were two Rabbis. We were there to discuss bias crimes.

I know of a couple trans priests one who is the head of a parish.

There are many religions that have our back.

---

You know I am not a religious person but one thing that I remember going to Catechism Classes one thing that stuck with me was the New Testament and Jesus said I bring you, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Somehow I can’t figure how that command has been twisted hating LGBQT+ people?

Homophobic and transphobic agendas are not supported by the Bible: Opinion
Courier-Journal
Claire T. Ackleow Opinion Contributor
December 28, 2022

In light of the Department of Homeland Security’s most recent statement warning against domestic terrorism to the LGBTQIA+ community, I would like to briefly address homosexuality in the Bible in an effort to further this community’s Biblical literacy and reduce the hate in people’s hearts.

The Bible is often used to condemn the LGBTQIA+ community. The specific verses used to further homophobic and transphobic agendas have come to be known as the “Clobber Verses.”  However, these verses aren’t actually saying what many people think they are saying.

For example, when people condemn same-sex marriage in favor of “Biblical marriage,” they are ignoring the many and diverse examples of marriage that are found in the Bible. In actuality, the Bible endorses monogamous marriages between one male and one female in addition to polygamy, sexual slavery, incest, and forced marriage to virgins…and God even blesses all these varieties of marriage.

The Bible was written by a bunch of old men.

The King James Bible was written in 1611 by mainly Richard Bancroft, the archbishop of Canterbury and now new version are coming out. NPR wrote,

RAZ: Next year, as part of, I guess, the marking of the 400 years since the King James version came out, two new versions of the English Bible are set to be released. One is the New International Version. The other is the Common English Bible. How much of a departure do we expect these versions to be? Will they be earth-shattering, or will they be fairly conservative revisions?

The Rev. CROSS: The New International Version will likely be a fairly conservative revision of the already-existing New International Version. The CEB is a totally new translation done by a broad team of scholars.

Wait! What? A new version? How can that be either the Bible is the Bible or not! How can you have a new version?

The Courier-Journal article goes on to say,

In addition to losing the original authors’ intentions over time, we have forgotten to look at the historical, cultural and linguistic context that the Bible exists in. Instead of translating it and understanding it according to the time, place and language it originally existed in, we try to translate and understand it in our own current contexts.

This is like taking instructions written by a Renaissance woodworker on how to build a desk - instructions that detailed how to hew the wood from trees, lathe and carve all the appropriate pieces, and hand-fitting everything with an iron chisel and mallet - and using those 1,000 year old instructions to put together your IKEA desk today. It’s talking about the same basic idea, but it’s saying very different things.

I have always thought it is how you live your life that is important.

The one thing that the Bible does talk about in nearly every verse is the importance of living in right relationship with God, with each other and with all of creation. That is, creating, strengthening and maintaining relationships and communities that are supportive, life-giving and lived in love. This also includes reconciling damaged relationships and communities wherever right relationship is possible.

How you care and treat others, not the building you go to one a week… how you love your neighbor.