Dr. Faustus and his Comrades

Note: I am writing as to the present “street preaching” going on here on campus at the University of Tennessee.  They carry around signs saying “Homos are a threat to national security!” and “All homos go to Hell!” while parading outside of the Hodges Library.  

It represents the return to Puritanical values and methods by fundamentalist Christianity.  This grievously harms/diminishes mainline Protestant denominations and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.  The “street preachers,” as they have come to be known, are eerily reminiscent of Jonathan Edwards bellowing “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  This view of Christianity as a repressive, damning religion is entirely false.  We believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church headed by Christ – a figure of the triune, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God.  This is the deity revealed in Scripture and in Creation – not the Puritan fabrication of these fundamentalists.

Let us not forget that “fundamentalism” is not only prevalent in the sermons of “homo hating heretics” but also in many Protestant and non-denominational churches.  How did we get to this point?  If one remembers properly, a similar hate-filled movement swept through the Roman Catholic Church during the 11th and 12th centuries.  The Crusades were precipitated in large part due to an overreaching, corrupt papacy and fueled by a predisposed loathing of the Muslim world.  But, I digress.

Protestantism is largely based on 5 pillars or “5 solas.”

Of these, I wholeheartedly subscribe to 4 of the 5.  (Keep in mind that as an Anglican, I am – literally – a Protestant Catholic.  The Episcopal Catechism supports all “solas” save Sola scriptura, as we believe in a balance of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.  For the record, Roman Catholics balance Tradition and Scripture, the latter being a sub-set of the former.)

It is Sola scriptura that supposedly “allows” street preachers and conservative evangelicals to perpetuate their personal sociopolitical views as “Biblical truth.”  They huddle under the banner of “Biblical literalism” – which, for the record, Martin Luther did not promote – while blatantly disregarding the whole of Christ’s teaching.

Other early Christian leaders affirm His “revolutionary” command:

As one can see, there is obviously some misguided teaching going on here.  I praise the “street preachers” and Christian fundamentalists for their faith in Jesus Christ; we are indeed brothers and sisters in Christ.  I love them, though I disagree with them.  I only wish that they would cease presenting Christianity as religion of blind hate with a political agenda.  Our true agenda is ethereal, and our core disposition is compassionate. 

To return to my earlier parallel, The Roman Catholic Church perpetrated the Crusades by abusing Tradition to the detriment of Scripture.  Evangelicals are fighting their war against homosexuals by abusing Scripture to the detriment of Christ’s own teachings.  Will all of Protestantism be blighted by our own little “crusade”?  I hope and pray not.  They act, I believe, with the best of intentions.  Often they do more harm than good, however.

American Protestantism may be closer to being "Dr. Faustuses" than we first conjectured.  Literary parallels notwithstanding, the Church in the twenty-first century will be judged (oh the irony) by history based upon the way we handle homosexuality.  One of the last things I said in Deborah’s Sunday School class at First Baptist of Seymour before going to college was that “homosexuality is the foremost danger facing the Church today – not in the sense of gay men and women throwing pipe bombs into cathedrals but of Christians stabbing homosexuals with hate.”

It is my greatest desire that all of Christ’s servants will come together as one and accept that while we do not – and will not – ever wholly agree on doctrine and theology, we can act as a powerful good in this world.  We should be focusing on fighting AIDS in Africa, the crisis in Darfur, and alleviating hunger.

Just to clarify: I don’t consider myself to be a “moderate Christian.”  On the contrary, I am an “extreme Christian”; I just happen to believe in extreme love instead of extreme hate.

The Lord bless you and keep you –

Justin