posted
Basic idea of what happened, a group of christians went to a gay pride parade in Chicago with message bearing t-shirts and signs.... of love and compassion.
I know, kind of a plot twist right? This group of various christians came together under the umbrella of the Marin Foundation to make a presence along the parade route with signs saying "I'm sorry for what the church did" and other apologetic messages. They all wore shirts that said "I'm Sorry" and offered condolences to anyone had ever been hurt by the christian religion for being gay, while I'm sure no one was expecting to see caring christians when they went out to see glitter covered bears on main street they got a ton of positive and happy feedback from the revelers. Including one man in little more than his undies who was so grateful for the non-judgmental love that he got down from the float he was dancing on and hugged the leader of the "I'm Sorry" group like he was a trusted friend.
It is rare that we see things like this, and I would like to see more of it.
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posted
I don't agree with doing this, not a hundred percent, and not because of the reasons you might think.
Being a Christian, to me, shouldn't require you to apologize for something you didn't necessarily do. If you weren't the person who went out and did something hateful, then you shouldn't need to apologize for it. These people are basically apologizing for the Church, which doesn't really mean anything since the apology isn't actually coming from the Church itself. The Church has its own stance on homosexuality, and that's unlikely to change (except in certain sects where it is OK to be gay), so saying they're sorry about it doesn't ultimately mean much. It just shows that they feel bad about something that other people in their same religion said or did at some other point. It's like saying "That white guy's a racist. I'm sorry about that."
Why feel bad about it? Most of them aren't homophobes. They aren't going around mocking gay people. Why should they apologize for something they aren't doing?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with how they feel, but I don't think they need to apologize for something they didn't do. Do individual white people go around saying they're sorry about slavery and the oppression of the 50s, simply because they're white? No, because those white people weren't the ones doing the oppressing. The same is true here. An apology needs to come from the Church, not individuals who don't share the views of the Church.
Think of this another way. If you were a kid and you saw another kid getting beat up all the time by one of your "friends", would you just go up to the kid and apologize for what the other guy did? Hopefully not. Hopefully you would go and try to convince your friends not to beat that kid up anymore. You know, take some action. Otherwise, if you don't, that kid is just going to keep getting beat up, despite whether or not you tell him you're sorry about what your friends are doing to him.
I'm a Christian and I don't go to church, I think gay people are just fine, and I have no issues with any other religion (except Scientology). But just because I'm a Christian, does that mean I have to go around saying I'm sorry for what the church does? Does every Muslim in the world who isn't a terrorist need to apologize for the ones who are? Should they?
I noticed in the article that they mention the "God hates fags" posters and signs that are often times at the gay pride rallies. Those are from the same people who protest soldiers' funerals. The church that does this is a very small church in Alabama (I think) made up of mostly family members. They aren't the actual Church, just a crazy fanatical group that happens to be pretty vocal and hateful. And they don't just hate gay people; they hate everyone, all Americans. These were the people who said that the Iraq war, along with Hurricane Katrina, was God smiting the country because of how evil we'd become. Does this mean we need to start apologizing to the military families who have to deal with these people at their dead kids' funerals? Should we apologize to New Orleans?
At the end of the article, it closes up with saying, "How is your church communicating to the gay community? Maybe we need to start with a humble apology." Why? There are plenty of churches in American that fully support homosexuality. There are even gay priests and pastors. Look at Stephen King's daughter, if you need a famous example of one.
The problem isn't Christianity; the problem is people.
My issue isn't that these guys went out and tried to do something nice for these other people. I'm certainly not against showing support for a cause. However, when you start apologizing for your religion, you run the risk of making people think that the whole religion is distorted, that every Christian has hate and needs to say they're sorry. This just isn't the case.
Another thing I'd point out here is that Christians, especially Protestants (i.e. non-Catholics), don't necessarily subscribe to a single Church. In fact, most Churches are different, and can be pro-homosexual or anti-homosexual, pro-female pastors or anti-female pastors; they can be different in any numbers of ways. I bring this up because saying that they're sorry for what the "Church" has done doesn't actually mean anything, since there are thousands of different churches, one for each kind of belief structure. Lumping them all together, which is essentially what they are doing, is not only wrong, it's downright insulting to the Churches who have actually made strides to help and welcome in gay Christians.
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posted
I think it's funny how so many folks don't get that apology is not always used as an admission of guilt and regret. It's also a way of expressing sympathy or empathy.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I found the apology angle to be off-putting. If only because they were, in a way, claiming to represent their church, rather than themselves, and they were spending their time not supporting gay rights, exactly, but instead doing a kind of PR activity for their church. That rang a little false for me, where shirts saying: "Christian who supports gay rights" would be more appropriate.
After all, apologizing for your church's treatment of gays is not exactly the same as denouncing your church's *beliefs* about gays. If at the end of the day, you still teach your kids that homos go to hell, then what good is reaching out? I couldn't tell from the article how these people actually feel about this.
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quote:Originally posted by rollainm: I think it's funny how so many folks don't get that apology is not always used as an admission of guilt and regret. It's also a way of expressing sympathy or empathy.
Apologies don't indicate regret? Saying your sorry, I understand, doesn't always constitute an apology, but I think an apology does necessarily indicate some degree of regret.
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The way I see it, it has to be a little rough for the non-anti-gay Christian crowd. Everywhere they go they see two things: 1. Christians being nasty and 2. People on TV talking about how nasty Christians are. And that's because hate always seems to rise to the top with the media. Kumbaya circles just don't get the same coverage.
So can you really blame them for being sick and tired of seeing negative images with their affiliation attached to it being splashed all over the airwaves? If it was me, I'd want to do something to change that perception as well, and create a counternarrative that at least suggested that Christians weren't monolithic and had minds of their own. It's self-serving, but I don't particularly fault them for it, and it has to feel kind of nice to the marchers as well to know that the forces aligned against them aren't perhaps as black and white as they might have thought.
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The way I see it, it has to be a little rough for the non-anti-gay Christian crowd. Everywhere they go they see two things: 1. Christians being nasty and 2. People on TV talking about how nasty Christians are. And that's because hate always seems to rise to the top with the media. Kumbaya circles just don't get the same coverage.
So can you really blame them for being sick and tired of seeing negative images with their affiliation attached to it being splashed all over the airwaves? If it was me, I'd want to do something to change that perception as well, and create a counternarrative that at least suggested that Christians weren't monolithic and had minds of their own. It's self-serving, but I don't particularly fault them for it, and it has to feel kind of nice to the marchers as well to know that the forces aligned against them aren't perhaps as black and white as they might have thought.
You're right, I can't blame them, necessarily. Their hearts are in a good place. I'm also one of those Christians who support homosexual rights.
However, as I said before, while I agree with what they are trying to do, I don't agree with the way they are doing it. Maybe if they were wearing shirts that said "Pro-gay Christians", I could understand. But apologizing is a tricky thing to do and it can be misunderstood. The end of the article was especially insulting, because it didn't bother to suggest that any other churches were doing their part to further gay rights; it simply suggested that we should all go out and apologize. To me, it diminishes what many different churches and groups have already been trying to do, lumping them all together under a single banner of hate.
As I said, I agree with the love and acceptance, but I disagree with apologizing for what other people have done. After all, apologizing implies that by simply choosing to be Christians, we've done something wrong. That's the message it's sending out. Maybe that's not what everyone will get from it, but some people certainly might.
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posted
Jeff, I will respond more completely on Monday when I have a computer but I disagree. As a Catholic, I believe that the Church absolutely is the individuals. We despite our differences are one Body. It is right that we should feel responsible and important that we apologize even as we try to correct the wrong. Just as all Americans, for example, bear the responsibility for the Iraq invasion even though some tried to stop it.
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posted
I think this is a wonderful thing. Too often, those who have been wounded by churches or Christianity in general find their hurt being minimized. "Oh we're not all like that! Don't judge us by what the others did, those are the bad ones!" and suddenly it's all about gays having to reassure the Christians who aren't screaming about fags burning in hell that they are good, instead of trying to heal the damage done to gay folk by the "bad" ones. This is a healing gesture.
Posts: 262 | Registered: May 2004
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Jeff, I will respond more completely on Monday when I have a computer but I disagree. As a Catholic, I believe that the Church absolutely is the individuals. We despite our differences are one Body. It is right that we should feel responsible and important that we apologize even as we try to correct the wrong. Just as all Americans, for example, bear the responsibility for the Iraq invasion even though some tried to stop it.
Just keep in mind that despite being dubbed Christians, every denomination (or church, if you will) is different. With Protestants, there's no "one body" like there is with Catholics, led by a single church (I know there are different sects of Catholicism, but Protestants don't have a Pope and the structure is much, much different). You've got Babtists, Calvinists, Lutherans, Mormons, pentacostals, puritans, methodists, and so on, each one being slightly different from the last. Then you have people like me who are non-denominational Christians. You've also got denominations that already accept homosexuals as equal members, but not all denominations are like that. Some accept women as pastors, some don't. Some believe that the end of the world is nigh, while others say it can't be predicted. The views are drastically different at times, so trying to lump them all together under the single banner of "Church" is extremely presumptuously and highly misleading. In case you're curious, I don't think that the term Christian accurate portrays any of these religions. It mostly seems to act as a generalization for a single belief, which goes to underline all of them, which is that they all believe in Christ. Other than that single distinction, anything else goes.
The point I'm trying to make with that previous paragraph is that these people don't really have the right to go and apologize for each of these denominations, or churches, because they, frankly, are not members of that denomination. But by saying that they are apologizing for the "Church", it is implying that every one of these denominations is the same, that they all need to apologize. It implies that Christianity is a single, unified religion, and it's not. Catholics have different laws than most Protestants, just like most Protestants are different from Mormons. It is simply impossible to throw all of those belief structures into a single group and then give an apology about how they all have mistreated homosexuals, especially when some of them include a strong homosexual presence already.
I'm not saying these people didn't do a good thing here. I understand why they did it and I completely agree with their motivations. I'm just saying I don't agree with having to apologize for something that you didn't do.
There will always be Christians who refuse to accept homosexuals as equals. There are still churches today that say that black people are the descendants of Cain. The rest of the religion shouldn't have to apologize for the actions of these people.
Think of it this way. Jesus said that you shouldn't judge anyone, lest you be judged yourself. Do you think that just applies to non-Christians, or do you think it applies to people that might also call themselves a Christian? If you apologize for something that somebody else has done, aren't you deeming their actions to be wrong, thereby judging them in the process?
Telling somebody else that what they believe in is wrong and that they need to apologize for it is the same as judging them. I just can't get behind that, no matter how much I empathize with their motivations.
Everyone in this country, even the people that say the "God hates fags" stuff has a right to do it and still call themselves Christian (or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist). We don't necessarily have a right to apologize on their behalf. In doing that, we begin to judge another group of people, despite our good intentions.
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posted
The thing you might want to keep in mind Jeff is that all their signs say "I'm" not "the church" is sorry. The three signs in the pic in the article say:
quote: I'm sorry for how the church has hurt you.
quote: I'm sorry for how the church has treated you.
quote: I used to be a bible banging homophobe. Sorry.
I totally get your point about that Christianity is a diverse group and not in any way shape or form one church. But I think you are over analyzing one specific part, "the church" and letting it get in the way of the point.
If I did apologize to an Iraqi citizen for my country invading theirs it would be just the same, that is, a personal apology from one member of a larger group that had nearly zero blame and possibly tried to stop the hurtful action.
These people feel they need to apologize, since some members of the group they belong to caused harm.
Would it have been better if their sign said "God loves fags!" or "God love everyone!" or "God loves you!" or "We are Christians and pro gay rights!" or whatever? Maybe.
But if a southern white decided to apologize to a black that is their choice and there is nothing wrong with that or does that in any way obligate all with a creamy complexion to do so.
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If one takes pride in (problematic that word for Christians) or identifies as part of a group...why wouldn't they, just as they might be proud of someone for living a saintly life of compassionate hard work for others, also feel bad if many, calling themselves by the same name, did some real crappy stuff?
Bottom line is, until recently Christianity in general has a pretty awful record with respect to homosexuality, and almost universally the more specific and organized you get the worse that record becomes. As for specific Christians, well one only has to examine the history of support (lack of support, really) for things like gay marriage, gay scout leaders, gays in the military, gays in church offices of all denominations, to see that, in fact, there probably are a helluva lot more Christians alive right this minute who do have some things to regret with respect to homosexuals than who do not.
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If you have no obligation or can't be sorry for the actions of members of a group you belong that were done in the past, then you similarly can't take pride in analogous actions either. For instance, if we can't be sorry for American slavery, we can't take pride in the American revolution. How can we take pride in the history and traditions of our country, of our religion, of our families, if we also don't feel shame and regret for related wrong doings?
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posted
This could develop into a fascinating conversation on the American concept of "responsibility." I'd love to see where that goes.
Part of me wants to say that I refuse to take responsibility for any aspect of slavery for a lot of reasons. Most of my ancestors weren't even here, and the ones that were were farmers in Michigan (the cradle of the slavery-ending Republican Party!). And even so, I wasn't alive hundreds of years ago, so what do I have to feel responsible for? But on the other hand, how can I take pride in a great many things that those same restrictions apply to? So is there some naturally American thing about the issue of wanting to compartmentalize our history, claiming the good and disowning the bad, or is that what any citizen would do, or is that would any HUMAN would do? Some people are more focused on blame than others.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: These people feel they need to apologize, since some members of the group they belong to caused harm.
The problem here is that the group is so large it literally makes up a sixth of the human race. The religion spans nations and influences wars. People have used it as an excuse to wage these wars and other enterprises all throughout history. Should individual Christians go apologize to the Muslims for invading their holy land back in the Crusades? As a Protestant, should I fly to Ireland and apologize to the Irish Catholics there for the mini-war they've had going on between the two sides for the past however many years?
quote:But if a southern white decided to apologize to a black that is their choice and there is nothing wrong with that or does that in any way obligate all with a creamy complexion to do so.
It depends. Was this southern white directly involved with being a slave owner? Did he own slaves? Because if his only crime was being white and from the south, then I have to question the justification. Simply being a part of a religion or from a certain place, doesn't make you wrong. You should be free to live your life without feeling guilty for something you didn't do.
At the end of the article, the author suggests that every Christian should encourage their church to apologize. But why? What if you already attend a church that has integrated homosexuals into its ranks? Does that mean you should tell them to apologize, anyway? Haven't they already shown that they're part of the solution, not the problem? Are you going to tell them they're wrong if they decide not to apologize?
I'm probably over-analyzing the whole thing, but when I read the article, that's what I got from it. As I said before, I completely understand what they are doing, and I respect their perspective, but I don't think I should feel guilty for simply being part of a religion. It's like being told you're a bad person because you were born.
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quote:It depends. Was this southern white directly involved with being a slave owner? Did he own slaves? Because if his only crime was being white and from the south, then I have to question the justification. Simply being a part of a religion or from a certain place, doesn't make you wrong. You should be free to live your life without feeling guilty for something you didn't do.
...has this southern white benefited from the legacies left behind by slavery and legalized racism? Note that while the answer to that question is undoubtedly 'yes', it doesn't require that a given white person engage in any racism themselves or approve of the past.
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quote:Should individual Christians go apologize to the Muslims for invading their holy land back in the Crusades?
Woah there, how much Crusades history have you read? I think they came out at least equal, if not tilting toward the side of just.
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posted
I agree the end of the article was too much, but those people who actually did the stuff in the article are not out of line. You are not obligated to apologise to gays for believing in Christ.
I don't believe but have apologised to a gay for the crap they went through, on behalf of my fellow humans.
The point isn't an obligation. I see the point as people going out of their way to voice outrage at injustice and big enough of character to take up a mantle of responsibility for the group they choose to belong to.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Jeff, responsibility is not the same as blame or guilt.
Isn't guilt simply the act of feeling responsible for something? I think you'll probably have be a bit more specific on what you mean before I can respond appropriately.
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