there for Christians. We aren't monolithic in practise.

Y'know.......REAL Christian things

I want religion off TV. Keep it in churches, mosques, temples, etc. Keep religion our of schools and politics too. Have prayer groups and Bible study in your homes if needed, just keep it away from me.

I think an agnostic examining religion from a different perspective and faith every week would be an awesome show.

One week talk to a Catholic Bishop and others about Catholicism, next week in India talking looking at Sikhism.

It would be far more valuable for an objective reporter to examine religion than to have most of the reality TV bullshit that has begun to fill up even The Discovery Channel.

I took 2 semesters of Comparative Religion to add to my liberal arts credits.

The cool part of it, was that it included history amd philosophy of both the religion and culture. The class met twice a week, then on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (depending upon the religion) we would go to a service to see it with our own eyes.

Finally, we would go (when applicable) to a restaurant that served the cuisine that fit the culture. (OK, there was no mormon or presbyterian cuisine.)

It was very enlightening, and i enjoyed it a lot. It did nothing to change my distaste for religion, but it was interesting.

A free society must be such a burden on you!

However generally speaking and on prime time regular tv it should be removed.

There are lots of liberal christians... the mainstream Protestant churches are constantly under attack from evangelicals for being too liberal.

On Edit: I'm somewhat religious "but" I'm probably far to the left of most people on some issues. I'm not a "leftist" per se and I'd consider my religious upbringing to have informed my political beliefs. Of course, I grew up in an ultra-liberal (politically) church. Most "liberal" churches are only liberal on doctrine, social issues, i.e. pocketbook progressives. I'm not very active though.

I've been listening to 'religious' radio since at least the 70's, in California and my home in NYC, and now in Virginia.

'Liberal Christians" ?, don't make me laugh, if you exist, in America you're out-numbered by at least 1 to 1,000.

As a black american I realize that we had christianity raped into us from the start, not a one of us were xtians when we came (were brought) here, and now 'we' are among the most fanatical of x's. We also seem to be among the fanatical muslims, too, another fantasy raped into us, even though both xtianity and islam have their roots in Africa.

If you want to prove your existence then you'd better get your voice out there, it's been what, a coupla thousand years and just now you're whining ?

B.L.A.C.

5-1 to keep that. Keep it classy, DU.

But they are still arguing about what call numbers they should use...

It's only been thirty or forty years of discussion.

to "leave it alone".

First of all...take your paragraph starting "As a black American..." . I've read it over and over and I don't think I really understand, except perhaps there should have been a question mark after, "most fanatical of x's" as in "now we <are thought to be?> . I just couldn't parse that. Anyway, I could find nothing wrong on that score. Maybe you could clarify. Keep in mind that one has limited time in which to render a decision.

On the other hand, your 2nd and 4th paragraphs were spot-on. On reading them I immediately thought of what Chris Hedges said in his book, "Death of the Liberal Class" that liberal Christians and the liberal Christian churches have been MIA for so long, engaged in navel-gazing when they should have been out there as a force for change when the RWers were spewing their nonsense. That needed to be said.

I don't think liberal Christians are necessarily outnumbered. They're just too busy being concerned with 'how is it with me' as Hedges says.

But they are hamstrung by the conservatism of upper-class "liberals" in general, who toe the local Party line which is center-right. (why, because that is what the media feeds everyone) And most of those folks are nonreligious so the churches are simply following the general pattern of (lack of) liberalism in the "progressive" community. For instance, our local interfaith coalition is part of a non-religious ACORN-like mainstream progressive organization that advocates for tearing down public housing and building credit-tested owner occupied housing (the Clinton plan) in order to "help inner city residents". So they're incapable of advocating for not tearing down public housing even if the member churches want to. For another example, I attended an "assembly" of suburban left-oriented activists (all prosperous homeowners) who were interested in Occupy. They place themselves on the left of the Democrats and the tone of the whole thing was "I'm not sure we have to call ourselves Occupy, people have bad opinions of Occupy." These were not religious folks... I asked someone involved locally who is definitely not religious and they said the religious committee was definitely on the left end of the spectrum. Which means that the faith based folks are to the left of the vast majority of local Democrats in our local activist scene.

I think it's odd that people would expect churches to go well out on a limb with us, to the left of the secular Democratic and Republican business class who dominate the American political debate.

Would it be appropriate to ask B.L.A.C. why he does not like jazz instead of hip-hop, since he is black and should "set an example" for the black community because hip-hop is "misogynist"? Same thing. There's a local activist (a wealthy member of the gay community) who went around protesting black churches in his neighborhood using the sorta-fair argument that the black churches were homophobic (but his way of handling it was to cause division) and the more racist argument that he was not opposed to black culture in his (formerly black) neighborhood but that black people did not deserve to live there any more because they had not preserved the "good parts" of their culture. "How many black kids listen to jazz?" he would ask people.

Really. Like that it did? Nice.

So liberal Christian churches, who do not have the money or media to outshout the RR, can be insulted along with them because somehow it's their problem. What's funny is that you're criticizing liberal Christians for doing what every fucking DU thread about Christians tells Christians to do: shut up about their religion, don't "force it down people's throats". Now all of a sudden that's "navel gazing" and they have to cry out their liberal theology from the mountains. It's a completely unwinnable position.

I'd also point out that it's a distressingly conservative idea that the whole group should be responsible for the actions of a part of that group. They condemn all Muslims for what fundamentalists do, and this comes pretty close to that.

I know that's not what you're talking about but you might want to check it out if you haven't already. They post some interesting things.

Seem to be attacking Christians.

Here's a link to their Facebook page... http://www.facebook.com/TheChristianLeft. They post some good stuff.

Too mean? Sorry

You let a preacher tell you you are a sinner? And they don't even know you? They rant about how sinful we all are. Guess what?

Original sin is a LIE in a fairy tale called Adam and Eve. Substitutionary atonement is unnecessary. You were born OK the first time. We all make mistakes but most of us are not nearly as bad as preachers tell people they are.

God is a crooked prosecutor. He files a criminal charge against you and you didn't even do the crime. I wouldn't worship a god like that.

I eventually got enough strength to walk away. I had to walk away or else. I am glad I developed enough self-esteem to leave the church. I got no help from Christians in that development of self-esteem. I did not expect them to help me.

Fuck a channel, how about a forum where liberal Christians are welcome?

It's so often the atheists and non-religious and not the "liberal Christians"..

Do you suppose there are any liberal Christians in Bastrop LA?

Well, there's at least one atheist student who stood up and spoke out against the graduation prayer at the high school there, the reaction was so awful to him that he ended up moving out of the state.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=263x44505

Destructive and soul-destroying, especially to children, but also to adults.

[font face="Impact" size="5" color="lightblue"]MANIFESTOR ❤ CHRISTIANS[/font]


Don't try to deny it.

What's with the My Little Pony cartoons?

I am only stating facts--original sin is the starting point of Christian doctrine.

If they wear lots of cross earrings, cross charm bracelets, cross necklaces, purses with crosses on them, I think, "ya got a vampire problem?"

Vampires, that is.

First of all, I haven't told you what "my doctrine" is. Maybe you should stifle your instinct to assume. Second, the kids are all right. You don't own truth any more than any zealot, and to presume that children are being "detroyed" by their parents because you disagree with their religion is an astonishingly stupid comment.

If you are a Christian you believe in two things: 1) Original sin; and 2) Substitutionary atonement by Jesus' suffering and death as the son of god.

You must believe those two things to be a Christian, by definition.

From HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU by John Bradshaw, Ph.D., and former Jesuit priest:

Max's religious upbringing was rigid and authoritarian. He was taught at an early age that he was born with the stain of sin on his soul, and that he was a miserable sinner. He was also taught that God knew his innermost thoughts and was watching everything he did.

Many religious denominations teach a concept of man as wretched and stained with original sin. Original sin as taught by some religious bodies means you are bad from the moment you are born. The teaching of original sin accounts for a lot of the child-rearing practices which are geared toward breaking a child's unruly will and natural propensity toward evil.

God as Punitive
Max often told me he hoped God would forgive him for the evils he had done. And although he had a rather brilliant intellect, he still clung to some rather childish religious beliefs. God somehow kept score, and Max could never catch up. With original sin you're beat before you start. His shame was greatly intensified by his belief that god knew all his inner thoughts and would punish him for his sins.

Denial of Secondary Causality
One of the most insidious and toxically shaming distortions of many religions is the denial of secondary causality. This means the human will is inept. There is nothing man can do that is of any value. Of himself, man is a worm. Man is shame-based to the core.

Denial of emotions. Apollonian type religion, outpouring of emotions are not acceptable. Sexual feelings are not allowed either.

Perfectionism - the religious script. Religion has been a major source of shaming through perfectionism.

Religious addiction - Religious addiction is rooted in toxic shame, which can be readily mood altered through various religious behaviors. Righteousness is also a form of shameless behavior.

=============

You mentioned TBA, there's a lot of other "inspirational" programming of that sort that's Christianity based and liberal-ish. It tends to be geared toward women of a certain age so you'd find a lot of it on Lifetime, Hallmark and Oprah's channel, I'd bet.

If you want something that's not that sort of soft focus inspirational programming, Oz was the most liberal Catholic oriented show ever. It had a priest, a nun, conflicts with the church hierarchy and a lot of the story lines dealt with liberal Catholic concerns like the death penalty, the desire for redemption, forgiveness, the uneasy relationship between Catholics and evangelicals, the role of the church in ethnic enclaves....

I bet a bunch of folks here might object to that being on PBS, though.

I don't mind showing programming about religious perspectives as long as it's not preaching and as long as everybody's perspectives get consideration.

I thought that PBS special on the Mormons was one of the most interesting things they've shown in ages, but I'm super interested in religions even though I'm a flaming atheist. Admittedly I'm interested in them for the same reason anthropologists adore cargo cults, but they are endlessly fascinating from that perspective.

I used to sell TV advertising. Who would buy advertising on that?

I used to volunteer for a non-profit classical music radio station. They had a horrible time finding underwriters because all the local businesses assumed that classical music fans were either starving musicians or elderly.

Then the station hired a market researcher who found out that the average age of listeners was 37, that their average income was above the median, and that they ate out, traveled, and bought books and recorded music at a higher rate than the average person.

It's not that there are no liberals. It's just that the corporations don't think it's in their interest to promote left-of-center ideas.

Look at the backlash Clint Eastwood (a conservative) got for doing that 50s-era, we're-all-in-this-together Chrysler Ad.

No advertisers complained or threatened to pull out over the (poorly filmed) anti-union ad that came on before it...

And yet those who promote it are considered to be politically liberal.

I was lucky. When I was a kid in junior high orchestra, we had season tickets to the symphony and we went every two weeks faithfully. I saw a bunch of great artists.

Conductors Leonard Bernstein and Lorin Maazel are two examples.

people to warrant a liberal Christian non-Jewish station.

Maybe because liberal vs. conservative Christian all falls under the same umbrella, depending on how you view things?

We have churches here in Dallas that cater to the gay community, so those are liberal Christian churches.

But as far as radio stations go, liberals are not big on talk radio at all, it seems.

Well, it's a show, really, and not an entire station. So I misspoke there. There is a faction of Jewish people who believe that Jesus was the Messiah. So they are Christians and identify themselves as such. They do not give up their Jewish status/heritage or whatever. There's a name for the group or category, but I forget what it is. I don't know how large the faction is, but they are all over the country. I mean, if they have a TV show, you know they have some followers. I've seen some of the group talking on TV in New York. I'm in Dallas, TX. Believe it or not, there's a sizeable Jewish population here.

I don't know the remaining features of their religion as they practice it. Non-Christian Jews, as you know, do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah; they believe the Messiah is yet to come.

I've watched the program a couple of times. The guy dresses typically Jewish, with the headgear beenie thing (I don't mean disrespect, but I don't know the name of that), the beard, etc. He talked on and on about Jesus, just like a Christian pastor would, but he also made a lot of references to Israel, the Jewish people, and such.

According to this website they are a front for the Southern Baptists:
www.jewsforjudaism.org

Quote from "Cult or Cult-Like?" at the above website:
One can well understand the widespread reluctance to refer to the Hebrew-Christians as a cult. After all, these groups are bankrolled by well-known Christian denominations and churches, and their theology is basically fundamentalist Christianity. Nevertheless, if we look at the definition of a destructive cult as set forth in virtually every study of cultism, it becomes clear that these groups fit the bill.

For example: Deception in recruitment - Few Hebrew-Christians tell you up front that that their belief is identical to that of the Baptist Church. The use of the term "Messianic Jew" for example is nothing more than "Newspeak" and an attempt to make their beliefs appear Jewish. Even fewer will tell you that they believe Jesus is G-d and not just Messiah.

They encourage rigid submission to an elite leadership as opposed to encouraging individual choice, thought and initiative. The leaders of this movement, for example have forbidden their followers from talking to people from Jews for Judaism. They claim that they are shepherd trying to protect their flock. However, these are the same people who would complain bitterly if someone in the Jewish community told Jews not to talk to them.

==================

I'm agnostic, but really like listening to him. He's been a guest on Rachel's show. A good guy.

It's worth pursuing. I'm not saying you should organize it, but at the very least start a conversation that would pull in the right people. Maybe start a brainstorming discussion forum on google and yahoo. Or a facebook page. I think public figures like Thom Hartmann and Bill Moyers would be interested in it as well. And of course, there's my fav. preacher, Rev. Al Sharpton! Another interesting thing would be to have scientists who are also Christians to discuss why science and religion are complementary, and not in conflict.

Seriously ... start a dialog with others who feel the same as you.

It was tried once in England, an hour of silent meditation creates alot of dead air and little in the way of ratings.