You mean, like, after school? After the scheduled school day? Outside of school hours? Perhaps even off school property?

Since it is school-sponsored and school-staffed, most people think it is appropriate to hold regular games in school facilities which are better equipped to deal with handicapped people, insurance, parking, etc.

You really can't suggest a better venue than the school itself. Preferably during school hours but directly after school hours otherwise.

Other than this girl, who was complaining? 800 schools in the WIAA and she was the only one? Say 50 kids from each school involved in the WIAA program. That's 40,000 kids. ONE complained?

How much more hatred and contempt can even you muster against these children who just want to honor their commitment to keep the sabbath holy? It's like you really resent them venomously.

As surprising as it may be, did you know that at one time, schools did not have intramural sports at all? Schools were provided to educate the public, not provide sports venues. You know, back when we achieved 98% adult literacy by eighth grade even among the most rural uneducated people.

She wants her cake and to eat it, too.

I'll send you cash if you post, "Let them eat cake." followed by "Off with their heads."

It would be a dream come true.

to demand her God-given right to worship as she pleases

Who took away her God-given right to worship as she pleases?

How much more hatred and contempt can even you muster against these children

One child. Out of 40,000.

you'll deprive (some) Christians, Jews and Muslims from participation in those sports if they refuse to stop observing their religious holidays and obligations?

You can believe whatever you want, just don't force your belief on me.

Who took away her God-given right to worship as she pleases?

The weekend tennis Nazis, that's who.

You can believe whatever you want, just don't force your belief on me.

But aren't you trying to force your belief that it's fine to schedule school events on a Saturday (or Sunday) even if it conflicts with a student athlete's solemn commitment to their faith?

Are these sports about you and other adults or are they about youth having a chance to participate in their high school sports programs on an equal footing without being singled out because of their professed religious beliefs?

I'm for The Children on this.

I'm for The Children on this.

Which children? The other children have rights, too...to be free from religious beliefs/obligations that they do not hold.

Which children? The other children have rights, too...to be free from religious beliefs/obligations that they do not hold.

And they are free. As long as they don't insist on forcing other children to participate in sports on days that school is not in session. These are school sports here. Therefore they are subject to equal opportunity and non-discrimination laws.

Maybe if you want your kids to play sports on Saturday or Sunday, you'd better just send them to a private school where you are not subject to all the same laws that the public schools are subjected to. I'm sure the Adventists would be sad to see you do that but they are not going to back down. And they have winning lawyers. And you have no standing with the court.

You've got an opinion but they got a win in court and one that may set precedent across the nation.

And they are free.

They WERE free. Now they must observe, by force of law, the Adventist Sabbath.

They WERE free. Now they must observe, by force of law, the Adventist Sabbath.

Not at all.

They are free to observe or not observe anything they like on the weekends.

Because the school is closed on the weekend and there will be no school sports events while the school is closed for business on the weekend.

there will be no school sports events while the school is closed for business on the weekend

Mission accomplished.

here is no Sabbath.

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

I'd like to see it go all the way to the Supreme Court and set national precedents.

Supreme Court, I expect, will uphold freedom of sport over against enforced respect for anybody's "Sabbath".

Supreme Court, I expect, will uphold freedom of sport over against enforced respect for anybody's "Sabbath".

I would have to agree with Vic on this one.

The weekend tennis Nazis, that's who.

For the third (fourth?) time, no one is forcing her to play. She's free to worship any time she wants.

As long as they don't insist on forcing other children to participate in sports

There you go again.

There is no Sabbath. That was the Mosaic covenant, exclusively for Jews in Israel, which we are not. End of subject.

I kinda thought you'd say so.

And what about Jesus teaching those same commandments repeatedly?

So there is that, written in red letters which you like. Notice how often Jesus said, "You know the commandments..." in everyday conversation. Nor did He ever say anything like, "You know the commandments but those will only count against you until after I'm crucified." Nothing that Jesus said indicated that there would soon be an end to keeping the commandments, either for Jews or anyone else.

I still think these two Adventist youth are the greatest thing among Christian youth in decades. They're inspiring, very spiritual litigants.

Supreme Court, I expect, will uphold freedom of sport over against enforced respect for anybody's "Sabbath".

You can't be serious.

Schools are closed on Saturdays and Sundays. They have no curricular activities on either Saturday or Sunday in this country. They may assign homework but that could be done in school, riding a schoolbus, on the non-sabbath weekend day for sabbatarians and on either or both days for kids who aren't religious.

The schools have no right to intrude upon students' lives and their religious practice on the weekend when the schools are officially and legally closed.

The Court would rule for the Adventists decisively on the basis that the school made no attempt to accommodate their schedule of extracurricular sports toward the schedule of sabbath observance on weekends when the schools are officially closed to all students. And they are discriminating against Saturday sabbath keepers like Adventists and Jews (there are still a few Jews on the Court) but not discriminating against Sunday sabbath keepers. Nor did they discriminate against both types of sabbath keepers equally.

Any good lawyer could drive a truck bomb through the school's legal defense. I think it would lead to a unanimous Court verdict in favor of the Adventists.

Unfortunately, the sports leagues now have a heads-up on this issue and have seen the result of the first court case and so they may try to tiptoe around it a bit, fearing litigation and attracting some plaintiffs who will take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Maybe you just don't like treating all students equally, regardless of religion. Or maybe you think the current system of discriminating against Saturday sabbatarians works for you and others like you so you don't want any changes.

I can't stop laughing at all the hijinks and weird dodges my own alma mater came up with in recent years, trying to deny that they'd run out of having enough boys to play 11-man football. In the end, it's been an utter humiliation for them. And they've discovered what the other small towns around them actually think of them. It's a comedy gold mine there in Hooterville.

For the third (fourth?) time, no one is forcing her to play. She's free to worship any time she wants.

Then, since the idea of keeping a sabbath is so repugnant to you, you would have no objection at all if the school sports leagues decided to schedule all their weekend sports activities and tournament play on Sunday mornings instead of Saturday mornings?

Since you obviously don't care, why not accommodate the Jews and the Adventists and others who do take the ancient Saturday sabbath seriously as a defining practice of their religion?

Put all these school events on Sunday, spread them around throughout the day. Leave Saturday as the true sabbath established since ancient times, the only real sabbath worth observing.

Then, since the idea of keeping a sabbath is so repugnant to you,

I believe I said I respected her decision to keep the sabbath.

"you would have no objection at all if the school sports leagues decided to schedule all their weekend sports activities and tournament play on Sunday mornings instead of Saturday mornings?"

Only if it were done vindictively.

Any good lawyer could drive a truck bomb through the school's legal defense. I think it would lead to a unanimous Court verdict in favor of the Adventists.

Saturday sports have been a part of the American scene for a very, very long time. A Supreme Court composed entirely of Catholics and secular Jews, is not going alter American life to that extent in order to serve the religious hobbyhorses of some fringe nuts.

Saturday sports have been a part of the American scene for a very, very long time. A Supreme Court composed entirely of Catholics and secular Jews, is not going alter American life to that extent in order to serve the religious hobbyhorses of some fringe nuts.

Actually, they've done that more times than you could count, most recently in their radical sodomy marriage decision. The Court, over a period of decades, changed sodomy from illegal in almost all 50 states to an institution of marriage with all the attendant legal protections in all 50 states.

It makes me wonder if you're really a lawyer if you can say that with a straight face and expect someone to take you seriously.

The Court is not particularly afraid of upending civic institutions, even those whose origins reach back thousands of years to the founding of the first civilizations.

since the idea of keeping a sabbath is so repugnant to you

The Sabbath isn't repugnant to me...but snowflakes who demand special treatment...yeah, they are a little repugnant to me.

Are they going to shut down the ski team, the golf team, the track and field team, the debate team, the basketball team, the marching band, the Junior and Senior Prom, the foreign student exchange program, the Senior Trip...most of which meet and compete on weekends.

Scroll up to the top and take another look at their special snowflake grin now that they've screwed everybody out of extra curricular activity...now that's repugnant!

Are they going to shut down the ski team, the golf team, the track and field team, the debate team, the basketball team, the marching band, the Junior and Senior Prom, the foreign student exchange program, the Senior Trip...most of which meet and compete on weekends.

Extend the school year by a week or two. That would make plenty of time for all these extra sports events.

The teens now hardly ever work summer jobs anyway. And most farmers I know are mechanized enough that they aren't relying on their kids for summer labor. That usually involves more mundane stuff like painting buildings or cleaning barns and such anyway.

Again, why not make reasonable accommodation? Why is a shorter school year (by a week or two) more important than excluding Saturday sabbatarians from those same taxpayer-funded sports?

If you want the freedom to schedule school events any time, night or day, then send your kids to private schools.

And would you mind if they just moved all the Saturday sports events to Sundays? Since you don't value a sabbath to begin with, why would you object if Saturday were sports-free and all weekend sports were conducted only on Sundays?

Or are you just content to deprive Jews and Adventists of their Sabbath while you know that your (nominal) sabbath (which you've said you don't actually care about) is respected when the schedules are set up for the season?

You should address all the questions TC asked. They are good questions. You cherry picked one and ignored the rest. Does that mean he is right on his other points?

Vic will have a more unique take, as we should know from his posts on OT scripture.

In addition, the church of Rome changed the Saturday sabbath to a Sunday sabbath to displace the worship habits of the pagans of the Roman empire. They did this in conjunction with the emperor so it could be enforced by state power. The original great conjunction of state power and religious doctrine.

However, Rome also instituted over time a greater spiritual value on having Mass daily. And since they have Mass daily, then Saturday night is just as good for a worship service as Sunday, isn't it? And just as many Catholics attend Saturday evening Mass as attend Mass on Sunday mornings. The key doctrine being protected here is the Eucharist, as being of far greater importance than any particular sabbath day tradition, even their own sabbath tradition, weak as it is. It is somewhat un-Catholic to insist on a particular Sabbath day. Because Rome said so a long time ago when they were attempting to suppress the worship of pagan idols and make Rome's empire into a Roman Catholic Empire with the emperor's blessing.

Of course, Vic knows this and knows what a bunch of mouthy Prots we are. And we all would still have a Saturday sabbath were it not for the church of Rome being the official religion of the Roman empire which is why we Prots still call it the Roman Catholic church, even when Catholics keep telling us "We're just the Catholic church, period!". More ecumenical fun for everyone. So Vic isn't all that likely to post at length on this particular topic. I did flag him just to see if he had some dark humor or a unique take on the topic.

Vic can get a Eucharist any day of the week, a couple times a day if he really wants to. So what is a sabbath to Vic? Nothing.

And would you mind if they just moved all the Saturday sports events to Sundays?

If they did move sports to Sunday, I would not sue them, and demand they bend to my religion...never.

I love freedom of religion and I love freedom from religion.

Let them move their sports to Sunday...the pros play on Sunday anyway.

Let them make Sunday a school day, a work day. Let them make laws that prohibit me from assembling (as already happens around the world).

I do not need blue laws or sharia laws or any other man made laws to help me assemble and worship.

I am not a snow flake...

...your (nominal) sabbath (which you've said you don't actually care about) is respected when the schedules are set up for the season?

Colossians 2:15-17

And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:

Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

If they did move sports to Sunday, I would not sue them, and demand they bend to my religion...never.

Too bad really. This is one reason Christians in America keep losing so steadily. Because the other side and the courts know you're happy to take it on the chin, no matter what they do.

Let them make Sunday a school day, a work day. Let them make laws that prohibit me from assembling (as already happens around the world).

Then why not accommodate these two Adventists since you don't care what days these amateur bush-league events are held on to begin with?

I am not a snow flake...

No. You're a doormat. And when doormats finally get popular in America, you've got it made.

Colossians 2:15-17

And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Well, Paul is pretty good at having his cake (and idol-sacrificed meat) and eating it too.

That is, at best, a very mixed message from the good Apostle. Maybe he changed his mind in the middle of writing this rather personal spiritual advice to that Corinthian but couldn't erase the ink from his earlier passage of advice that you quoted.

Or maybe we should follow Trump's lead and only rely the book where Paul wrote to the two Corinthians. Anyway, Trump doesn't even know John 3:16 (in my estimation) but he does know the 2 Corinthians. I still chuckle over that and wonder if any of his flunkies ever explained to him just how ignorant of the Bible his little remark had revealed him to be. That wasn't the #FakeNews media making him do it; he stepped on his own dick in public with that one. Not that I can tell that it cost him a single vote.

No. You're a doormat.

I'd rather be a doormat, than a snowflake.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

I'm still not sure what, on balance, Paul intended to convey to that Corinthian.

Then he had to go and write to the Two Corinthians after that.

The church at Corinth required a lot of apostolic supervision, it seems.

I was hoping you'd help resolve those contradictions in 1 Corinthians.

I'm not sure why you posted the Corinthian passage.

I posted the Colossians passage...

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days

...because you were judging me in respect to how I kept, or regarded, the Sabbath.

You said...

since the idea of keeping a sabbath is so repugnant to you

and also...

your (nominal) sabbath

Colossians 2:16 was given for just such an occasion as this.

In all the years I had read that passage I never dreamt I'd need to quote it.

(There's plenty of good commentary on it ;)

You seem to mind more that these Adventists are demanding that their sabbath be respected as much as anyone else's sabbath. Because we both know that regular Sunday high school sports aren't on the schedule anywhere. At least, I never see any games listed on Sundays, not even makeup games or playoffs or tournaments where scheduling would be expected to be tighter.

...because you were judging me in respect to how I kept, or regarded, the Sabbath.

You might be surprised. I know when I was young, there was discussion in the local church of which daily work could be considered routine and which was essential or emergency work. The consensus was that it was an emergency and excusable if you were hard up to finish a harvest or hay crop. Or if you were pulling a calf or feeding cows or checking cows. Other than that, you would be treating the sabbath like an ordinary day of the week. You shouldn't be too surprised if your neighbors might observe the same sort of things. Because rural areas are boring and everyone does know too much about their neighbors.

I always went with that standard. I found I could check/feed cattle on Sunday morning early and do another check after church, then an evening check. But I didn't do things like fix fence or do summer fallow or things like that on Sunday. I would try to avoid cutting down hay on Friday or Saturday so I was less likely to need to stack/bale hay on a Sunday. If you don't have too much of a full-time haying schedule, it can be made to work.

I'm not sure if anyone even has any regard for sabbaths and farm work any more. Perhaps what I recall and what I did (as a regular churchgoer back then) are just a relic of the old days and no one today pays any attention to sabbath keeping of any sort. Maybe it is now just another day of the week on America's farms and nothing else.

We don't grow olives and figs and grapes as they did in the Bible. They didn't have cattle that needed help birthing or crops like wheat or alfalfa that are very time-critical to harvest. We have a different kind of agriculture, often more time-sensitive. So at least some differences do apply IMO. I always thought it was important not to erase the sabbath, to set aside the day if at all possible.

why do you care if the Adventists do take their sabbath seriously?

For the millionth time...I don't care if they take it serious or not. I do care that they are using their Sabbath observance to take away American freedom.

Others, I think, are trying to tell you the same thing...don't take away someone's freedom to play a sport, when and where they want to, just because you believe a certain way! It's wrong!

Let the Adventists go and start a private school. How hard is that!

Now, as for your farming work/Sabbath discussions in your old church...

How one keeps the Sabbath or any holy day for that matter just ends up as something to boast about: "I keep the Sabbath better than you" "I go to church more than you" "I'm a better Christian than you because I piled up a bunch of hay for my cows the day before Sabbath. See, I didn't do a ANY work on Sabbath". The Bible calls it being "vainly puffed up" by one's fleshly mind.

TC, the Sabbath and all the holy days were just a "shadow" of things to come...namely Christ. Read it...it's right there in the Bible.

The Sabbath is there to TEACH you about Christ, how He lay in the tomb "resting" after He finished His work on the cross. That's what Sabbath (Shabbat)means, "to rest from labor" It's Christ resting from HIS labor!

Please! Try to understand. Christ...fulfilled...Sabbath...already. All you have to do is trust in Him and it is accredited to you as well. And maybe this is why Christians have been instructed to move to a new day, the first day of the week, the Lord's Day. The "rest" is over, it's time to praise and rejoice!

Hey, this repetitive stuff is wearisome. I'm old and I've been cutting firewood all day:-)

Others, I think, are trying to tell you the same thing...don't take away someone's freedom to play a sport, when and where they want to, just because you believe a certain way! It's wrong!

So you think that schools are free, for instance, to play games and tournaments at 3am. On Thanksgiving or Christmas. That would be fine with you?

I think you're not telling the truth. I think you're satisfied with a system that favors the Sunday sabbath and which excludes Jews and Adventists and others even if the game/tournament schedule could be changed to accommodate these religious minorities. And that is exactly why the Adventists won.

And that is exactly why I think they would prevail if the WIAA was foolish enough to keep appealing all the way to the Supreme Court. I expect they have lawyers smart enough to tell them to just suck it up before the courts make it worse for them.

In the meantime, the news of this precedent is no doubt spreading around the various youth sports leagues and school boards will be considering how willing they are to get sued if they don't make every effort to accommodate religious minorities and to schedule around their sabbaths.

TC, the Sabbath and all the holy days were just a "shadow" of things to come...namely Christ. Read it...it's right there in the Bible.

The Sabbath is there to TEACH you about Christ, how He lay in the tomb "resting" after He finished His work on the cross. That's what Sabbath (Shabbat)means, "to rest from labor" It's Christ resting from HIS labor!

Please! Try to understand. Christ...fulfilled...Sabbath...already.

But was He "just resting", like a parrot in a Monty Python skit? What point is there in resting for the dead whose bodies don't become weary?

Then we have a few passages in scripture to deal with.

But we have another explanation as well.

So Jesus was "resting" in another tiresome too-easy explanation about some OT "foreshadowing". Or he was partying in Paradise with the thief. Or he was preaching in hell. Or maybe he partied for one day with the thief in Paradise then spent 2 days in hell preaching to the semi-righteous who had been burning in hell ever since Noah's flood drowned them all. One of those things. Or something else entirely.

he went and preached unto the spirits in prison

Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

another tiresome too-easy explanation about some OT "foreshadowing".

Jesus, being God, can certainly be where ever and whenever He wants, no problem there.

As for as OT foreshadowing, that's what the OT is all about. The OT uses historical events to help us understand spiritual truths. For instance, circumcision in the OT helps us understand the spiritual circumcision of the heart. In the same way, Antiochus Epiphanes is a "type" of the Anti-christ, a foreshadowing.

Why do you say "foreshadowing" is tiresome? Just curious.

Why do you say "foreshadowing" is tiresome? Just curious.

It becomes an excuse to pretend the OT is still relevant, even in its most obscure and inapplicable passages.

The greatest sources of heresy, after the gnostics, was a constant series of attempts to apply OT Jewish scripture to the Christians. When, for instance, Paul or other NT writers refer in quotes back to OT scriptures, they were most certainly not telling us that those elements of Judaism are authentical Christian doctrine. Yet every flimflam preacher and theologian in the last two thousand years dips their brush in the OT inkwell, to make it say what they want it to say and to make that applicable to their own favored theology.

So you have, for instance, the defenses of American slavery using passages from the Old Testament, not the New Testament. Or defense of public morals laws using the OT when no such condemnation can be found in the NT. The examples are endless and they do blight people's lives, often over centuries. All in the name of Jesus supposedly but actually just in the name of those who promulgate these anti-Christian doctrines that they can support only by trying to pretend that the Old Testament is applicable to Christianity and that "Judeo-Christian morality" is the reason for it. (Another lie: there is no Judeo-Christian anything and any Jew can tell you that if anyone ever bothered to ask them. But they make sure they don't ask the Jews about those things, don't they?)

Actually, they've done that more times than you could count, most recently in their radical sodomy marriage decision. The Court, over a period of decades, changed sodomy from illegal in almost all 50 states to an institution of marriage with all the attendant legal protections in all 50 states.

It makes me wonder if you're really a lawyer if you can say that with a straight face and expect someone to take you seriously.

The Court is not particularly afraid of upending civic institutions, even those whose origins reach back thousands of years to the founding of the first civilizations.

Each court is different.

(You're right that I don't give a fig about "sabbath days". The Sabbath was given to the Hebrews at Sinai. I'm not Jewish. Sunday is not the Catholic Sabbath, it is, rather, a Holy Day of Obligation (as are certain other days during the year, such as Ash Wednesday, Good Friday). The obligation to attend Mass on Sunday can be satisfied by attending the Saturday evening Vigil mass.)(Oh, and one is supposed to take the eucharist only once per day, according to the present rule.)(I don't care much about the "rules" - that's true.)

If you don't take me seriously, that is not my problem. You have very peculiar, strong but marginal religious and political ideas and ideals. You're not accustomed to getting what you want out of the country's politics. I'm a status quo centrist type, insofar as "the way things are" - including their slow evolution from what they were to what they are becoming - generally suit me just fine. Issues involving gay rights - on those the court is likely to move goalposts in favor of something in line with "progress", as most people would see it. The Court is unlikely to impose religious restrictions that burden free private activity generally, on behalf of a marginal sect that is not progressive.

I'm happy to place a wager on this one.

The Court, over a period of decades, changed sodomy from illegal in almost all 50 states to an institution of marriage with all the attendant legal protections in all 50 states.

Because homosexual sex should never have been illegal in the first place, and as the movement to liberate people picked up steam, the religious tried to hold the line, and built up quite a political following, that had to be shoved aside, and was.

(Oh, and one is supposed to take the eucharist only once per day, according to the present rule.)

But you could float from church to church, gobbling all the Eucharists you like. So there is that.

You have very peculiar, strong but marginal religious and political ideas and ideals.

That is true enough. But policy never changes as the result of "status quo centrist" types until disaster forces change upon them.

Naturally, I don't expect to change the world by posting on LP. I am always interested in how much currency certain issues have with the right wing. I consider the Left to be an entirely lost cause on the issues I care about.

Like any scoundrel, I'll always take refuge with Sam Adams.

Status quo centrists have never achieved anything in history. They just don't. It's foreign to their nature.

Those of us who are are an "irate, tireless minority" may wait decades or a lifetime for our chance but every so often, history ineffably calls out our cause. And the world suddenly changes, no longer the plaything of the elites and the various "status quo centrists".

The Court is unlikely to impose religious restrictions that burden free private activity generally, on behalf of a marginal sect that is not progressive.

It's taxpayer-funded with funds from federal sources and considerable existing regulation and court precedent. It is subject to Title IX and to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is not, by definition, a "free private activity" in any sense. It is a voluntary exercise of opportunity provided equally and without encumbrance to all enrolled youth in American public schools. And it is an activity that is not essential to education and graduation but is instead extracurricular.

I really don't think you've thought it through. Trying to dismiss it as "free private activity" is a joke when you consider how many court cases have been decided that explicitly deny such justifications for various types of discrimination, even on far weaker grounds than the ones in this case. The list of cases where similar plaintiffs have prevailed is too extensive to start listing here.

What we really need is a transsexual Adventist Asian tennis player to bring a lawsuit. Then we could go all the way to the Supremes and get an answer.

My guess is that the WIAA is smart enough not to appeal this loss and risk setting further binding precedent and that the other youth leagues will tiptoe around the scheduling of sports if there's any Adventists (or Jews) on their horizon.

Nice list. Indeed, what Jesus said there is the reason I worship YHWH as God.

I knew you'd like it. You're a big fan of that red text.     : )

Because homosexual sex should never have been illegal in the first place, and as the movement to liberate people picked up steam, the religious tried to hold the line, and built up quite a political following, that had to be shoved aside, and was.

I've begun to think that the current strong downturn in church attendance was a result of young people holding a grudge against the various organized tax-free religious outlets with their laws favoring slavery, outlawing miscegenation or the freeing of slaves, against sodomy, against tattoos, etc. In fact, I've considered whether the big craze for tattoos among Christians is a rebellion against its virtual prohibition in Christian circles before 25 years ago. Nowadays, Christian young people are a lot more likely to go to a tattoo shop than a Christian bookstore. And you see Christian family men, mainstays in their church, who drink Scotch and smoke cigars. My landlord is a guy like that, 3 nice kids and a pretty wife, a veteran and a go-getter. I helped him do some repair work to a porch and when he got done, I pulled out an old bottle of Scotch (that I inherited) and we took a few small shots, sitting on the front porch. Just then, his wife and 3 kids turned the corner down the block and I saw them and quickly said, "Maybe I should take these inside." He just said, "It's no problem." I guess it's good that we drank up the Scotch that day because the next day he was doing a little finish work on the porch and his minister came by to talk church business with him privately. Believe me, a generation ago, none of that would have been happening. Hell, I think the Baptists actually speak to each other in liquor stores now and even make love standing up (to remind you of a few old-time jokes on the subject).

The churches are paying the price for their past excesses as enacted into public laws. It may finish off the churches in America, just as it largely did in Europe.

I've considered that this might be a temporary anti-religious cultural turn, something seen in many centuries though not often well-known even in Christian circles. But sometimes a religion becomes thoroughly discredited by its own record and by its own standards. And so I suspect that American Christianity is in a long downward spiral. It will get much worse for the churches before it gets any better.

If it's any comfort, I notice that Judaism and other religions have the same problem. Hindus and Muslims are the next who will have to deal with it, largely among their native-born offspring.

It becomes an excuse to pretend the OT is still relevant, even in its most obscure and inapplicable passages.

The greatest sources of heresy, after the gnostics, was a constant series of attempts to apply OT Jewish scripture to the Christians. When, for instance, Paul or other NT writers refer in quotes back to OT scriptures, they were most certainly not telling us that those elements of Judaism are authentical Christian doctrine. Yet every flimflam preacher and theologian in the last two thousand years dips their brush in the OT inkwell, to make it say what they want it to say and to make that applicable to their own favored theology.

So you have, for instance, the defenses of American slavery using passages from the Old Testament, not the New Testament. Or defense of public morals laws using the OT when no such condemnation can be found in the NT. The examples are endless and they do blight people's lives, often over centuries. All in the name of Jesus supposedly but actually just in the name of those who promulgate these anti-Christian doctrines that they can support only by trying to pretend that the Old Testament is applicable to Christianity and that "Judeo-Christian morality" is the reason for it. (Another lie: there is no Judeo-Christian anything and any Jew can tell you that if anyone ever bothered to ask them. But they make sure they don't ask the Jews about those things, don't they?)

Nailed it.

Bingo.

Bullseye.

Target achieved.

Exactly right.

Perfect.

What he said.

I knew you'd like it. You're a big fan of that red text. : )

What Jesus said, properly translated and taken as a whole (he contradicts himself in places), filtered through my own conscience, is the only aspect of the Bible I accept as binding authority. The opinions of the various Apostles in their letters are interesting, and often persuasive authority, but they are not law. Ditto for the entire Old Testament. Ditto for the various opinions of the Catholic Church over the years. I'll consider all of it, the same way I consider newspaper articles or other editorials. But the only things that I accept as binding legal authority are what God the Father or Jesus said in the Gospels and Revelation, as interpreted by me.