Nothing new under the sun

On the knitting front:

• I found the lost dpn.
  
• My size F crochet hook is MIA.
  
• I finished up that pink shawl from months ago.
  
• The cursed Christmas afghan yarn is rapidly turning into a log cabin afghan.
  
• I am avoiding weigh-in because yarn is scattered all over the house.

Knitting does not occupy my mind as much as the state of my church right now, though. I know full well that the Living the Questions handout does not represent the actual views of more than, say, 15% of my local congregation, but what I read is still terrifying.

Take this snarky little statement:

And yet many Christians today make it proof of their faith and a litmus test of their relationship with God that they embrace thousand-tear-old religious ideas- and are proud of it.

The handouts for this series have been abominable at best, but this last one really takes the cake. It's seven pages portraying believers- the kind who think that maybe orthodoxy isn't a bad word- as stupid legalists afraid to think and afraid to lose the religion of their childhood. The growth in conservative churches and the death of liberal mainlines is explained by saying "people are desperately looking for just one place in this crazy life where things don't change". If you're not on board with the progressive Christian- or progressively less Christian- agenda, then you're a dead church that teaches stale rules and makes people shut their brains off in church- and you're so stupid, you like it.

Have the authors of this thing ever stepped inside an actual conservative church? Where on earth are they getting their facts? The model of churches they set up looks like this:

Type 1: Church of the Evil Conservative Nuns with Rulers

• God hates you.
  
• Stop thinking and follow the rules.
  
• The Bible is the fourth person of the Quiddity.
  
• God never meant for you to be nice to people.
  
• So scared of change we're theological LARPers.

Type 2: Church of the Smart People who Love People

• God is love, love, love and never gets mad, except at conservatives.
  
• Rules, schmules. Our only rule is... all that social justice stuff from the Old Testament.
  
• The Bible is a book written by ancient, stupid people.
  
• The only thing God cares about is that you try to do good.
  
• The only thing we fear is old stuff.

This is madness. We started the series by jettisoning the Bible, because no thinking person could ever believe that. Then we jettisoned everything else that looked vaguely orthodox, because no thinking person could ever believe that. And what have we ended up with? The sort of Pelagianism that no thinking person should believe. The earth's orbit must be bit wobbly, because I believe the Reformers, that brainy bunch, must be spinning madly in their graves.

How can these "progressives" miss that all they have is a kinder, squishier legalism? Nothing new under the sun, I guess.