Ironically, my discipleship group's most recent study centered on a short passage about humility from Philippians 2.
My pastor recently ended a sermon with an exhortation for the Church to focus on spreading the Gospel, and to not be fighting political battles and culture wars.
I agree. The problem is that these political battles and culture wars are at my doorstep, and the underlying issues are very pertinent to how we live our lives with or without faith in, and fear of, God these days.
I had a discussion with a rather liberal Christian about Pride Month, and was able to give some good answers in real time for once:
"God makes gay people, so what's the problem?"
God also makes ugly people. [Or allows them to be born.] Not everyone can get married or even find someone willing to have sex with them.
"The word Paul uses in Romans that is being interpreted as condemning gay sex is so obscure that there are no examples of it anywhere else at all, so we can't be sure what it really means."
The Bible is clear about the nature of marriage being between one man and one or more women, preferably one [as in "the two become one"], and that sex should be within the context of marriage.
"The gay people I know just want to be left alone to live their lives."
Then why are there Pride Month rainbows everywhere?
"That is just corporations pandering to gays, and they think it is ridiculous."
They pander to gays, because gays have [relatively high, by a lot] disposable income. [Liberals in general do also, although not by as much.]
"Although when Target started having a Pride section, I thought it was a good thing because I wanted to buy something to show support for my gay family member. Target would put in a big section with crosses if they thought they could make money off it."
[Unlikely. Large Christian families don't have nearly as much disposable income as gays do.]
Gay marriage didn't work out well for your family member. [Who was married for only one year before getting a gay divorce.]
"That was because of their poor choice of partner."
...
"Most of what I see in the Bible are commandments to be nice to poor people."
True.
"In Romans 2, right after that passage that Christians use to condemn gays, it says not to judge, because you yourselves are doing the same things."
[I don't remember what I answered to this one, but if you keep reading on in Romans, it talks about God's judgment that is coming, and about everyone's need for repentance. Certainly we need to be discerning for ourselves what is good and what is bad.]
This song is haunting, although not directly applicable to my personal experience.
There's an interesting semi-parallel in Revelation 7:17 and 8:1:
"...and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes. And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour."
Some years back there were some public comments from famous authors about the Susan in the Narnia books not being present for the Final Battle and what followed. It was framed as bigotry against women and people of average morals.
Neil Gaiman's came in the form of a short story, "The Problem of Susan," which from an excerpt I found is apparently quite vile.
Gaiman has fallen out of public favor as allegations against him have begun to surface.
Two other authors were J. K. Rowling, who ought to know better, and Phillip Pullman, who also writes vile stories, I've been told.
Pastor Douglas Wilson has a lucid, sensitive, and rather long rebuttal to the Problem of Susan; link below.
My own, lesser contribution here, is that C. S. Lewis was a fan of George MacDonald, and MacDonald wrote some vivid portrayals of spiritual devolution. In The Princess and Curdie, Curdie was given the ability to discern which beast a person's moral character was descending into by holding their hand. In ...
