My one problem with Soulforce

[hippie4lyfe]

I think Soulforce goes under the impression that everybody is Christian or a believer in God. I am not a Christian, but I believe in Soulforce's message, I believe in targeting religious bigotry towards gays. I just wish it can be towards all religion that is against gays but it seems mainly focused on reconciling homosexuality and Christian beliefs.:confused:

[andrewlittle]

I think Soulforce goes under the impression that everybody is Christian or a believer in God. I am not a Christian, but I believe in Soulforce's message, I believe in targeting religious bigotry towards gays. I just wish it can be towards all religion that is against gays but it seems mainly focused on reconciling homosexuality and Christian beliefs.:confused:

Howdy, hippie. You're not the first to bring this up. Matter of fact, it was a rather heated discussion just a short while ago.

http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4093

The discussion needs to continue, however, and a little fresh input may help. As you will see, the conversation seemed to move past the more emotional level and into wonderings about how to change things - it has just stalled at that point.

See if you can give us a goose. (I mean that in only the most innocent way, of course.)

[Vanessa White]

The conversation about this very topic has stalled somewhat. We do need additional input about it, and you would certainly be helpful in that regard. I am sure that it is no coincidence that this is your observation, so let's start letting our creative juices flow, and try to figure out a way to address it. :love:

[antonyh]

I would love to see Soulforce to transform itself into an inter- faith/philosophical group but a lot would need to change about how it is presented. Look at the menus above. If you pull down Anti-GLBT watch, it lists Christian denominations. If you pull down the Resources tab, it lists mostly Christian books including Christian Youth: An Important Voice. If Soulforce wants to transform itself into an inter-faith organization, then the whole way the site is presented needs to change.

Hippy, thank you for starting this thread. Can I ask you a question? What would make the forum and Soulforce attractive to you as an individual coming from where you are right now?

[keltic63]

dsdrane put you up to starting this thread, didn't he? :mad:








:rolleyes::D:rolleyes::lol::D:rolleyes:

as you have already noted, we're having this discussion. we really would love to have your input about this issue.

[hippie4lyfe]

Hi thanks for all your positive responses. Antony I think Soulforce would be better if it was inclusive of all religions and even non theists, atheists, agnostics. It is a double edged sword, on one hand what I love about Soulforce is that it challenges head on the dogma of the religious people while making them see scripture differently. While I think that is great, the organization would be more powerful if it sought answers to people of all faiths, and was a movement that challenged the religious right and the political right.
It definitely is a challenging balance.

[Zerbie]

Hi thanks for all your positive responses. Antony I think Soulforce would be better if it was inclusive of all religions and even non theists, atheists, agnostics. It is a double edged sword, on one hand what I love about Soulforce is that it challenges head on the dogma of the religious people while making them see scripture differently. While I think that is great, the organization would be more powerful if it sought answers to people of all faiths, and was a movement that challenged the religious right and the political right.
It definitely is a challenging balance.

Speaking as a former atheist, current believer-in-god (though certainly not as described by certain established religions) who is somewhat drawn to Hinduism, and a recently active SF volunteer, I'm not aware of SF NOT being "inclusive of all religions. . . even nonthesits, atheists, agnostics." I think it is in spirit.

As for how this plays out in SF actions, the real issue here is not one of exclusion but one of size. SF is a small organization. The staff members there are - as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong - are all Christian, and the organization was founded by a christian. Therefore it attacts a lot of christian members, has a lot of collective experience dealing with christian topics, and gets perceived as specifically a christian organization. I think that perception will change if the organization expands in size and operation. That is going to have to depend on more non-christians joining the effort and volunteering locally - at least as far as I can tell, that is the only thing that is going to expand goings-on.

Regarding the forum, a more inclusive language would probably be helpful - as was noted on the other thread, rather than just list "The Bible," make the heading say "world scriptures" or something of the sort.

[antonyh]

Hi thanks for all your positive responses. Antony I think Soulforce would be better if it was inclusive of all religions and even non theists, atheists, agnostics. It is a double edged sword, on one hand what I love about Soulforce is that it challenges head on the dogma of the religious people while making them see scripture differently. While I think that is great, the organization would be more powerful if it sought answers to people of all faiths, and was a movement that challenged the religious right and the political right.
It definitely is a challenging balance.

It is hard to improve on what Zerbie stated above. Soulforce in principle does welcome people with a wide range of belief. I think a lot of it is evolutionary. Like Zerbie stated, Soulforce was started by Christians to address bigotry in the church. That said, I see that there has been a deliberate expansion of the mission to embrace all religions/philosophical paths. Maybe the way Soulforce presents itself has not caught up. I don't know...that would be a question for the leadership.

[Progo35]

I don't claim to know how Soulforce should go in the future, but I do think that Soulforce would be less well recieved at Christan colleges if it starts billing itself as an inter-faith/philosophical group. I'm not saying that Soulforce should stop going on the Equality Ride if this happens, but I think more students and faculty members would take the visit as an imposition of pluralism on their schools' expression of religious beliefs. I.E, I think that more Christians at such colleges would see that as an expression of intolerance on the part of the organization rather than a dialogue with other Christians who have a different interpretation of the Bible.

I think that Soulforce could be inclusive of other religions in terms of its advocacy by adding some sort of statement saying that it is focused on Christian churches but is expanding its mission in an effort to participate in the alleviation of injustice stemming from any religion.

Instead of saying "world scriptures," I would suggest listing the Koran, Buddhist, Hindu and other religious texts along with the Bible. "world religious texts" seems to unnecesary censor the specific naming of any religion in the name of inclusivity, something which is not necessary to achieve this goal. Just me thoughts.

[scott snedeker]

Like Meghan, I like the more defined labels myself also. Makes it more interesting and well you never know, I could trade my horns for a lotus flower one day :eek:

[Unmasked]

I don't really define my spirituality, because I don't feel the need to, but if I had to I would probably say that I'm closest to UU. I agree with a good deal of the Bible, but I don't really believe in Jesus. I don't mind being represented by a mostly Christian group, because I think that for the goals that we have it is the most accurate and useful identification that I can think of.

[Leah PettePIece]

The idea that this forum is place where on Christians have a say never occured to me. In fact, I myself am not a Christian, don't want to be, was born a Jew, passed through the hoops of Judaism in the form of Conservatives, Reform and Renewal. However I consider myself HUMAN, part of the human race and do not usually describe myself as Jewish!:o
That having been said, let me share with you how I do view myself, I am a very spiritual person, but very open in what I call "SPiritual", I believe that there is a Creator Being and that in the Wisdom of one evolved enough to creat Human's, that Creator Being desinged us thinking that we would evolve, become brother's and sister's on a spiritual quest and that we would see the world, this earth of ours as "Alive" and since we were granted a mind able to seperate good from evil, we would also realize that every form of life, plant, animal, human...even microscopic forms of life...is sacred and that it is our duty as the sencient beings to care for everything else, and most especially for each other!
I have gay friends, lesbian friends, friends of all creeds, colors and belief's, oddly enough I feel that all of them are just as sacred in the spiritual way that the Creator Being intended. I don't think that being a "christian" is better than being say Muslim, Catholic, Buhdist etc! :rolleyes:
Truth is I believe that there are as many paths to spiritual growth as man kind needs. :mad: However! I also don't believe in the propagation of ignorance! Because when ignorance has control people beging to build walls instead of bridges and hatreds build on differences, doesn't matter what faith, what creed one follows but when CHristians, kill Catholic, Muslims kill Jews and Christians, then Jews torment and kill Palestinians we have WAR!!
How a person finds love should be their choice; what religion one follows like one's polictical proclivity should be their choice...however when that path that you are on begins to teach you that you are better than some other human being...there is a huge problem! Ignorance seems to breed in religious circles more than other places. Jews who are Orthodox in Israel for example seem to think that they are the only true Jews...they don't recognize Conservative, Reform or Renewal Jews as true believers...ignorance reigns supreme! SO...here is my point I don't like ignorance, I in fact abhore ignorance, I don't believe that one religion, creed, political party or nationality is better than any other, but more importantly if you examine Christianity closely you will find that ignorance has control! It is very unCristian to put down another religion, but it is also very ignorant to continue to believe that there is only one appropriate way to be spiritual!! I certainly hope that this thread is not made up soley of Christians who believe themselves to be better than everyone else on this earth, because if that is so than I have entered a den of foolish followers who can't see that we are all HUMAN!:eek:

[kara speltz]

I certainly hope that this thread is not made up soley of Christians who believe themselves to be better than everyone else on this earth, because if that is so than I have entered a den of foolish followers who can't see that we are all HUMAN!:eek:

Dear Leah: I absolutely concur. I'm Roman Catholic myself but one of my big disagreements with the Church is it's view of itself as the one true church.

I personally believe that just about any spiritual practice leads to God. I've examined many - wicca, buddhism, yaruban, huna and all of them have left important influences in my life. I'm Catholic because I love liturgy and have rarely seen liturgy done as well as in my own parish.

From its inception Soulforce has been multi-faith and that is one of the things I particularly love about it. I've learned so much from people of different faiths and I would never want to see Soulforce change that aspect.

kara

[NathanATX]

My faith is evolving all the time. On myspace, I call myself the "progressive Christian gay guy"... I'm very universalist. Lately I think that Christian mysticism is what is speaking to the way I believe. I'm reading several books by Joel Goldsmith and Matthew Fox.

If you look at the Equality Riders, they were from very diverse faith backgrounds, yet they were all speaking out together against the spiritual violence perpetuated by America's Christian universities.

I think that Soulforce is committed to speaking out against any religious based spiritual violence. Here in America, the greatest amount of offense is committed by conservative christian people and organizations, so that is where the majority of our energy is spent.

I would be curious to see if there are those of you who feel called to speak to these issues as they occur in other religious groups. Maybe we need a special task force?

Peace,
Nate