Christians Behaving Badly

Well, I'm a pretty diplomatic kind of guy ... reluctant to defend anyone with my words or views. Okay, maybe I'm not. But this is my blog, so I can be anything I want! Anyway, the topic today is sadly once again Christians Behaving Badly. Today, in the news, there are two groups that really disturb me with their non-Biblical behavior. They are the Baptists and the Catholics. Let's take a look.

Baptists
According to the Associated Baptist Press this week, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has filed a motion in federal court to dismiss the gender-discrimination lawsuit that former professor Sheri Klouda brought against the school.

The motion argues the suit should be dismissed because seminary officials’ decision to dismiss Klouda is protected by the First Amendment. “The seminary’s relationship with its professors has been held by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to be the same relationship as a church with its ministers,” the motion said. “Any decision the seminary may take regarding the employment of one of its professors is an ecclesiastical decision, which this court is bound to accept out of deference for the free exercise of religion, protected by the First Amendment.”

Klouda, who was hired in 2002 to teach Hebrew in a tenure-track position at the Fort Worth school, lost her job last year, allegedly because of her gender. She sued the school March 8.

Public outcry at the dismissal, reported not only in Baptist news outlets but also in the Dallas and Fort Worth daily newspapers, the Associated Press and Religion News Service, has given the issue unexpected national prominence.

So the seminary somehow realized their interpretation of the Bible prohibits women from teaching men. Or maybe they just finally realized that Klouda was a women. Whatever the case, if they really had this belief, they shouldn't have hired her in the first place. And now they are trying to hide under the blanket of religion and First Amendment rights. If a business made such a hiring "mistake" and realized it years later --- after the employee had performed admirably in the position --- that business would pay the nose. Because what that business would have done would be wrong. WWJD? Do you really think Jesus would have fired a women language teacher who had performed admirably in her job? I'm disappointed. The Baptists are giving we Christians a bad name with such bad behavior.

The Catholics
Now the Catholics have long had some behaviors ... beliefs even, which I find to not be at all Biblical. Praying to the virgin Mary, declaring someone a saint years after their death and other such behaviors are really quite disturbing --- and have absolutely no Biblical basis. In fact, I fear that these practices keep people away from the real God that they could know.

So today, the Catholics took a step to right a wrong. I have to give them credit for that. But the wrong should never have existed in the first place. It simply points to the problem of Catholic theology overall. And unfortunately they didn't go far enough. They didn't base the new "policy" on Biblical truth. Let me explain.

For centuries the Catholic church has taught the concept of "limbo." It's not heaven. It's not hell. It's this God-forsaken no-man's land where infants that haven't been baptized and good people who lived before Jesus' time were supposed to be. There, they were deprived of the eternal happiness that heaven offers. (Read the entire article at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070420/ts_nm/pope_limbo_dc).

Today, Pope Benedict authorized the cancellation of "limbo." That's the good news. It needed to be "cancelled" since it was a figment of the Catholic imagination in the first place. But the horror is perpetuated but perhaps something even worse. They've only offered firm belief --- in the way of another Catholic statement --- in what doesn't exist. But they did not offer a firm belief grounded in Biblical truth about what is. Listen to this excerpt from the report. I've highlighted the words that make it a dangerous statement for Catholic followers who may not be grounded in Biblical truth on their own.

"The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation," it said. "There are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible (to baptize them)."

Oh puleeze! So we can only hope that God will save infants from burning in hell because of course, God realizes that the Catholic church hadn't had the opportunity to baptize them (before they died). People this is absolutely not Biblical. This is heresy. How can sane, rational people in today's modern world --- where truth is so readily available --- spew such crap? I pray for the poor Catholic followers to see the light. God is a much better God than the Pope makes Him out to be.

There may be Catholics in heaven, but I'm convinced it will be in spite of the Catholic church!