These are just some general comments that are related to nothing in particular other than what just popped in to my head. Please treat them as lightly as they deserve. . .
I just read the draft and have decided to re-title it. Again, please take this as lightly as possible. There is just no point to it. These are stream (or at best, rill) of thought kind of things . . .
First of all, in regards to the whole issue of the various crimes and atrocities of the Christian Churches throughout history, I think it is important to remember that no human institution is free from the guilt ascribed to the Church. Christians have the blood of millions on their hands, a crime that cries out to heaven for justice. I know few who would dispute that. I just want to know what, exactly, we are to do about it except to work harder in the future to prevent the kind of things people get all up in arms about. Should the churches merely accept responsibility, announce they are closing up shop and go home? By that understanding, pretty much every nation-state on the planet deserves the same fate (and some anarchists, like Noam Chomsky, would like nothing better. . .). It is easy to get on one's moral high-horse and shout "J'accuse!" It is easy to wash one's hands of responsibility for participation in communal evil by saying, in effect, "As those actions don't represent my moral beliefs, I refuse to accept responsibility for them". Earnest chest-thumping, if nothing else, gives one the satisfaction of being right when everyone else is wrong.
Whether it's the Church, or various nation-states, or political ideologies, or what have you, I think it is necessary to recall that all of us, at some level participate in the evils we decry. All of us benefit from the wrongs done in the past. All of us are inheritors of wealth stolen from the enslaved, the dead, those deemed unworthy of the simple human courtesy of being left in peace. Our world barely escaped alive from the 20th century's warring madness, yet no one, as far as I know, is seriously considering condemning the United States and the Soviet Union categorically because the life of the planet was held in the hands of the least sane person in charge at any given time (considering the Presidents we elected during that time, that is a frightening and chastening thought indeed). I would like nothing better than a serious reconsideration of the Cold War and the threat it posed and any possible legal ramifications it presents for future generations; as it stands now, however, there are few out there discussing this issue.
Human institutions are a mixed bag, and current ideological and moral fads blind us to the possibility that everything from imperialism to war does have certain advantages. War, sometimes, is a necessity. Imperialism, while racist, paternalistic, and oft times couples with a certain amount of low-level genocide (and the occasional outbreak of outright slaughter) also provides certain benefits to those so embraced by the motherland. Just to give one example, India is a relatively passive, boisterous democracy (with the small problem of the period when Indira Ghandi declared marshal law in the 1970's . . .) partly because of the political influence of Great Britain. This isn't the only reason, by far, but it certainly is one of the reasons, and I think we should recognize the fact and move on.
All this is to say that, we need to look at the whole picture of the history of an institution, not just the negative. Whether it's the Church, the United States, whatever, I can think of only one or two irredeemable institutions in recent history - the Nazi Party, and the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and China. I would never argue that there were aspects of them that should give us pause before we condemn them. By all means, condemn them with gusto! Precisely because they stand out so vividly, however, and were so brutally awful, they are the exceptions that prove the rule - no one's perfect, and the one without sin should cast the first stone.
Am I an apologist for the Church? On some level, sure. Why not? It has provided me with a spiritual and intellectual home, as well as certain psychological and social props that I find comforting. Some of the most intelligent, thoughtful, kindest, and most liberal minds and voices I have ever known have also been men and women of faith who have been in my life. I have been privileged to have had people in my life who had a deep faith, a willingness to befriend me, the need to chastise me, and on one or two occasions even return love for me that I felt for them (in many senses of the word). My youth leaders in high school (Bob and Val Crocker), the pastor of my home church in senior high (Rev. Edwin Martin), various professors in seminary (Mark Burrows, Josiah Young, Jim Logan, David Hopkins, Roy Morrison, John Godsey), friends of mine in seminary, and one or two special people in my life who shall remain nameless (out of simple courtesy and fear of lawsuits) who have been more than friends. My wife, obviously, caps the list on a very personal level, because I have a wise, caring, loving pastor for a wife who is my spiritual adviser, critic, and sounding board. I have a tremendous amount of emotional investment in the United Methodist Church in particular, and the larger Church of which it is a part. Why should anyone be surprised by my defense of an institution that has provided a place for me to live and grow and sometimes royally screw up but never toss me aside?
Focusing on the negatives gets us nowhere fast. It is necessary to remind the world that we are hardly guilt free; that doesn't mean the guilt cancels out all the good done.
I have no desire to change anyone's mind concerning matters of faith. They are far too personal, far too ingrained in one's identity, for me to do so. That is not the intention of this site, and I would be lying if I claimed that I found it my duty to proselytize. Despite our differences, I honor and rejoive at DL's position whole-heartedly, and his reasons (stated and unstated) for holding them. Likewise, I honor and rejoice at my old friend Jim Bush-Resko's spiritual journey from Catholic to lapsed-Catholic to Friend. Wherever one comes out on the whole question of faith, religion, politics, etc., I think it is important to remember that none of us hold the truth in a bottle. We are all struggling to figure it out as we go, and we all share in the joys and horrors of this life and world. I would much rather have a bunch of people around me who all thought differently than an echo chamber for my own thoughts.
Is there a point to all this or am I rambling? I guess my point is simple - we need to weigh all the evidence, and consider the possibility that different people ascribe different weights to different pieces of evidence based upon their own life experiences. Intellectual discussions aside, I think that it is important also to remember that, as I said previously, there is an irreducibly subjective, untranslatable element to our lives that is immune from rational discourse and objective evidence. These decisions - about faith or lack thereof, about how much and how far we support various institutions of which we are a part (or choose not to be a part) - are not best left to logic and reason.
