Don’t miss Mark “Jesus is not my God” Sandlin‘s latest self-parody: The Irrationality of Fundamentalism in Progressive Thought.  Summary: You must hold to a certain belief about not holding certain beliefs!

And yet he claims to be the rational one.

I would like to say you can’t have fundamentalist beliefs and also call yourself a progressive – but that wouldn’t be very progressive of me, would it?

Yet that’s exactly what he did. It is like the postmoderns who insist without a hint of shame or irony that it is true that there are no truths. Or the “no creed but Christ” people who didn’t realize they had just made a creed.

“Christians” who deny the deity and exclusivity of Jesus shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than you’d take an atheist who believes in God or a Muslim who loves Jews and pork but hates the Koran and Mohammad.

In contrast, fundamentalist thinking establishes certain bottom lines that must be accepted as truths.

It is logical to have certain bottom lines. Sandlin’s entire piece is his bottom line!

“The teaching is so strong that even when reality, life and love slam up against irrational fundamentalist beliefs like “God hates fags””

It is vile and slanderous of Sandlin to claim that more than a fringe of people agree with Democrat Fred Phelps’ views. What a petty personal attack. I guess that’s what you use if it is all you have.

Yes, those minds may also be fairly certain about particular things (things like “God is love” . . .

Yet those words come from the same book that says this: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” Why affirm one teaching from that book and mock the other? And that question even generously assumes that the “Christian” Left understands what “God is love” really means.

The latter passage teaches the deity and exclusivity of Jesus for salvation and is supported in countless other passages. The teaching that Jesus is the only way to salvation is taught directly and indirectly over 100 times. Just scan the NT and see if anything makes sense if that isn’t the case. The repetition isn’t what makes it true (the evidence for his resurrection does that), but it does mean it is silly to call oneself a Christian and to deny and even mock that teaching.

So, for now, I’ll just say that I have a very hard time understanding how a person can rationally call themselves progressive but have certain fundamental beliefs that they use to define who is and who isn’t Christian.

Yet he just begged the question and used a personal attack in assuming he was rational and his opponents were not (how convenient!). And he did it while holding a fundamental belief about who is really a Progressive “Christian” to criticize those who hold fundamental beliefs about who is really an authentic Christian.

Bonus feature: I am not making this up. This is the caption at the “Christian” Left Facebook page for Sandlin’s post:

On The Christian Left, we always say diversity of theological thought is a strength for us… if only ALL Progressive Christians felt the same way.
As this piece point out: they really SHOULD!

In case you missed the hypocritical irony, note how ALL Progressive “Christians” SHOULD hold the same view on having a DIVERSITY of views.

But remember, they are the rational ones!  You know that because they said so.

Exposing the “Christian” Left Facebook page